Brits don't dope?

[JimmyFingers]

Plenty of young people get sporting scholarships due to their sporting potential and not the intellectual ability or education grades.

Sporting scholarships to where? Do you have further details/figures etc to illustrate this happening in this country?

 

[martinvickers]

Plenty of young people get sporting scholarships due to their sporting potential and not the intellectual ability or education grades.

Not in the uk they don't, and certainly not to any great amount. Please don't start confusing the uk and us varsity athletics system.

 

[wansteadimp]

There are sports scholarships available in the UK, but the numbers are tiny compared to the USA, and the amount available are nowhere near the US levels.

Bath - which is one of the more sports focused Uni's only offers 23 across all sports, with the max amount looking to be £5k. Certainly does compare to US Unis offering scholarships to 60+ footballers, plus all the other NCAA sports.

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

Yep, particularly how she went from being top 10 in the World, possible but unlikely medalist to double Olympic Champion.

New doc after she fell out with Maria Mutola?

By top ten I assume you are talking about top two or three as she had been for years before 2004 including when winning a silver at the 2003 worlds. It does help to have some knowledge of your subject before posting such stuff.

 

[JimmyFingers]

There are sports scholarships available in the UK, but the numbers are tiny compared to the USA, and the amount available are nowhere near the US levels.

Bath - which is one of the more sports focused Uni's only offers 23 across all sports, with the max amount looking to be £5k. Certainly does compare to US Unis offering scholarships to 60+ footballers, plus all the other NCAA sports.

This. Sports scholarships to University are very thin on the ground, and universities in general don't play a significant role in athletic development. Given what goes on in the Student Union, the opposite is probably the case.

 

[wansteadimp]

By top ten I assume you are talking about top two or three as she had been for years before 2004 including when winning a silver at the 2003 worlds. It does help to have some knowledge of your subject before posting such stuff.

We talking about her 1500m performances though, agreed she was much nearer the top of the tree in the 800m throughout her career.

She had very good major champs performances at 1500m in 1994 & 1995, then not much until the Olympic victory.

 

[Bernie's eyesore]

We talking about her 1500m performances though, agreed she was much nearer the top of the tree in the 800m throughout her career.

She had very good major champs performances at 1500m in 1994 & 1995, then not much until the Olympic victory.

She didn't run the 1500m a lot because her injury problems meant that it was impossible for her to double up. I seem to remember she was a hot favourite to win the world title in 1997 but she pulled up injured in the heats. If Holmes was a doper then she probably had been all her career, she did not have a sudden transformation in 2004.

 

[wansteadimp]

She didn't run the 1500m a lot because her injury problems meant that it was impossible for her to double up. I seem to remember she was a hot favourite to win the world title in 1997 but she pulled up injured in the heats. If Holmes was a doper then she probably had been all her career, she did not have a sudden transformation in 2004.

Not sure didn't improve, I never really believed she could beat Mutola who was a class apart over 800m. Then she's beating her over 800m & 1500m.

The fact she doped throughout her career was sort of what I was getting at. She was very close to Mutola, whom I'm sure doped. They fell out and suddenly she is doubling up in the Olympics. I suspect a change of Doc improved her preparation, whether it was a better doc or one that was holding back on the stuff that was given to Mutola I don't know.

 

[martinvickers]

We talking about her 1500m performances though, agreed she was much nearer the top of the tree in the 800m throughout her career.

She had very good major champs performances at 1500m in 1994 & 1995, then not much until the Olympic victory.

Go look again at that list of top 1500m times. Note Homes best was her pb at athens: 3:57.90. Now look at her next best. 3:58.07. Almost identical.

In 1997. Not exactly as sudden a late bloomer after all.

Look, I have my doubts too...but it's best not to make assumptions based on thin data.

The woman was consistently world class at 800m from almost the beginning. Shr ran sub 1:57 in 95. She ran sub 1:59 almost every year of her career, but never dipped into truly mad territory.

She was also absolutely dogged with injuries, to the point UKA should have looked into her training (not unlike prodigy turned injury stat Dean Macey).

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

Yep, particularly how she went from being top 10 in the World, possible but unlikely medalist to double Olympic Champion.

Couple of points...

1 - Holmes had been a regularly medalist at world and Olympic level since 1995, so "unlikely medalist" seems like a harsh judgement

2 - Holmes' 1500m time in Athens was only a smidge faster than she'd run in 1997 and her 800m PB dates from 1995.

3 - Holmes was highly injury prone and rarely competed after an uninterupted off-season. From mid 2003 to Athens in 2004 she was, for once, injury free.

Thus, if there is a doping angle, it is one of recovery from injury at a relatively advanced age rather than performance levels per se.

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

Not sure didn't improve, I never really believed she could beat Mutola who was a class apart over 800m. Then she's beating her over 800m & 1500m.

The fact she doped throughout her career was sort of what I was getting at. She was very close to Mutola, whom I'm sure doped. They fell out and suddenly she is doubling up in the Olympics. I suspect a change of Doc improved her preparation, whether it was a better doc or one that was holding back on the stuff that was given to Mutola I don't know.

Couple more points:

1 - I don't think Mutola raced 1500m. It was the Russians who were Holmes' rivals at 1500m.

2 - Mutola wasn't a class apart in 2004. Holmes ran to her usual uninjured performance level and beat Mutola who was clearly sub par. A pre 2004 level Mutola would most likely have won in Athens.

3 - Holmes' intention was always to double up, but was rarely fit enough to do it. I recall she doubled up in 1996 and got a pair of top 6 finishes in the OGs having run with a stress fracture! (See Masterkova's lap of honour if you want to see something really suspicious!!)

 

[mikehammer67]

Go look again at that list of top 1500m times. Note Homes best was her pb at athens: 3:57.90. Now look at her next best. 3:58.07. Almost identical.

In 1997. Not exactly as sudden a late bloomer after all.

Look, I have my doubts too...but it's best not to make assumptions based on thin data.

The woman was consistently world class at 800m from almost the beginning. Shr ran sub 1:57 in 95. She ran sub 1:59 almost every year of her career, but never dipped into truly mad territory.

She was also absolutely dogged with injuries, to the point UKA should have looked into her training (not unlike prodigy turned injury stat Dean Macey).

she ran a 9 year best at 800m and a PB at 1500m in athens at age 34

she ran lots of rabitted races in the years before athens

beat a bunch of probable dopers many of them running PBs and SBs

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

she ran a 9 year best at 800m and a PB at 1500m in athens at age 34

she ran lots of rabitted races in the years before athens

beat a bunch of probable dopers many of them running PBs and SBs

Holmes also ran 1:56.8 in the Sydney 800m final, which is within half a second of her time in Athens.

 

[mikehammer67]

Holmes also ran 1:56.8 in the Sydney 800m final, which is within half a second of her time in Athens.

she sure did

major championships are about timing it right

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

she sure did

Thanks for the confirmation, though it's not necessary for Holmes' performance in 2000 to be an accepted fact.

Funny that your initial accusation of Holmes only referenced 2004. If you thought 2000 was suspicious, why didn't you mention it at the outset?

 

[ToreBear]

The system of scholarships in the US are IMHO another high risk factor.

 

[wansteadimp]

The system of scholarships in the US are IMHO another high risk factor.

The pressure put on High School students to perform at "professional" levels scares me stupid and is also a huge red flag.

 

[JimmyFingers]

Friday Night Lights was pretty scary reading on high school sports.

I prefer Coach Carter

 

[Mrs John Murphy]

Please don't invent strawmen.

The point is simple, and commonsense. The 'athletes' who tend to play football in Britain, broadly, have mediocre education (Lampard's an exception i think), mediocre non football prospects, and the opportunity for vast, vast wealth if they make it.

This combination simply doesn't exist to the same extent in any other sport, except possibly, to a limited extent, rugby league.

When the possible gain is so much greater, and options so much poorer, the risk to one's 'honour' seems rather more palatable. Especially when the public esteem for footballers ain't that high to start with.

With very singular exceptions, no-one's makingmillions from rowing, and most rowers have perfectly fine career prosepcts, being largely university educated - A 2013 Gold medal winner retired this very day, at only 27, to become a lawyer.

Bannister famously fitted his 4 minute mile inside his medical studies; Roger Black, erstwhile competitor v Michael Johnson, was a qualified doctor.

Few people dope because they 'want' to. They dope because they tell themselves they need to. Some or probably even right in that suspicion. Cycling on the continent was a working class sport, for many their only route to fortune.

When you have more palatable alternatives than shooting up, it's just commonsense that you will be more likely to avail of them.

You've invoked embarrassment as a reason why Brits might not dope. You've then invoked class as a reason why some people are immune to embarrassment (not football).

My point - more people in the UK seem immune to embarrassment and seem stunningly unself aware.

Frodo, Millar, Wiggins and Froome - all people who say spectacularly stupid things and behave in stupid ways. None of whom ever seem to feel at all embarrassed by the way they have acted.

I don't think it's that Brits don't dope. It's more that they don't get caught. Not because they are extra specially skilled dopers, but rather there is a very weak anti-doping framework in the UK.

Why is there no move to increase dope testing - well because no one wants to shoot the golden geese and show that the UK's heroes have feet of clay. (A sex scandal won't see you stripped of your titles and banned for two years)

 

[mikehammer67]

Funny that your initial accusation of Holmes

i said she was suspicious

the majority of top performances are suspect
hardly surprising given the history of T&F


PB in olympics 1500 at 34
9 year best at 800
beating majorly doped fields

after years of time trials on the circuit in the 90s-00s

 

[JimmyFingers]

I don't think it's that Brits don't dope. It's more that they don't get caught. Not because they are extra specially skilled dopers, but rather there is a very weak anti-doping framework in the UK.

Can you specify what represents a 'very weak' anti-doping control in the UK? And why that applies to the UK? Otherwise that is simply a nice soundbite, a throwaway remark based on nothing more than the infrequency of positive amongst British athletes in contrast with other countries. I take your logic to be few positives but plenty of dopers so weak anti-doping controls.

Think you need more than that my friend.

 

[mikehammer67]

my impression was that any british dopers(if there are any) would be mostly training in foreign locations where they wont get tested easily

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

i said she was suspicious

the majority of top performances are suspect
hardly surprising given the history of T&F


PB in olympics 1500 at 34
9 year best at 800
beating majorly doped fields

after years of time trials on the circuit in the 90s-00s

I can see where you're coming from, but there's nothing that holds up to particularly objective analysis in what you say:

PB aged 34: Is the PB itself suspicious or doing a PB aged 34 suspicious? The 800/1500 are primarily aerobic, and aerobic capabilities typically peak in the early 30s - so long as the athlete remains fit and motivated.

9 year best: Is being able to replicate your mid 20s performances in your mid 30s suspicious in its own right? It's late 20s significant improvements that are really dodgy. And Holmes' 800m PB is over 0.25s per 100m slower than a very dodgy world record, and 0.25s per 100m is an eternity at the highest level. (1500m PB slower by a similar amount if memory serves.)

Beating dopers: Not suspicious in its won right if you do so by performing at believable speeds, which Holmes' performances are.

So the suspicious element is regaining top form after 9 years of injury problems not the performance levels themselves.

I guess this one is an article of faith!

 

[Wallace and Gromit]

Frodo, Millar, Wiggins and Froome - all people who say spectacularly stupid things and behave in stupid ways. None of whom ever seem to feel at all embarrassed by the way they have acted.

What's Froome done in this category?

 

[Chaddy]

Mrs Froome - Yes, not sure what Chris has said or done.