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Cheating (therefore Doping) Will ALWAYS Exist

Apr 13, 2010
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Reading this article today made me think that people who write about and think about doping are not considering this topic in a really rational way:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/26/AR2011022604083.html

Especially this comment in that article:
"I am disappointed greatly that the anti-doping is not making more progress," the Montreal-based lab director, Christiane Ayotte, said late last year. "We still have a subculture of doping in certain sports, certain disciplines. We still have not been able to solve the problem. We are not a deterrent enough."

Here's my statement: deterrents DON'T WORK. Any deterrent only has a temporary effect and usually means that the larger body affected by this (in this case cyclists) have to give up some basic human right- take a look at pro cyclists now- they are prisoners within a 24 hour reporting system, their entire lives sacrificed.

In the 80's we all lived with a lack of a basic human right not to be afraid of dying by nuclear holocaust so that we could live with deterrents.

This is a competitive system. Competitor's entire lifeblood flows around pushing limits with everything around themselves in an attempt to control outcomes. Especially in mature systems, but it's a fallacy to think that doping hasn't existed before- take a good look at Fausto Coppi or Jacques Anquetil. No, really take a look. Anquetil had no qualms about talking about doping whatsoever and he didn't have to give back HIS Tour de France jerseys.

Within a competitive system, you will NEVER be outside the fundamental structure that encourages doping. It's often misunderstood that doping comes from an ethical problem on the part of the athletes. I disagree, and I think it's inherent in the system of competition. We do very little to educate athletes that they are entering into such a system and that the rules (which they are duty-bound to push against) say x, y and z. If we're to have a competitive system, this is the only way to fight doping, but it will NEVER go away completely, especially as our culture becomes less and less ethical over time.

I also have some books to back me up, but if you're going to comment on this, then I suggest you read them before flaming me. Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, and Without Guilt and Justice by Walter Kaufmann.

As long as there are rewards, punishments are there. As long as punishments exist, there is it's flip side, rewards; and simply put both are violent actions that create a pendulum that swings back and forth between them. It's a system, and inside that system, there is literally no way to get around it.

Let the flames begin.
 

Dr. Maserati

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durgadas said:
<snipped for brevity>

Let the flames begin.
Sorry to extinguish your fire but Ayottes quote was:
"I am disappointed greatly that the anti-doping is not making more progress,"

No where does she (or anyone else) suggest a view that doping (or cheating) will not exist.
 
What's Your Point?

If you are working at a personal level, you are right there will always be cheating. Some people can sleep very well at night gaming rules at the expense of just about everyone and the social contract.

To then apply that to an entire system is utterly false. Most importantly, a federation that enables the possibility of doping for 99% of riders, with a seemingly random 1% or less of the group selected to meet the appearance of doping enforcement by swiftly processing their positive.

In case it is not obvious, of the 99% there are riders who do not dope.
 
Dec 30, 2010
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Because without deterent, CHEATING flourishes

Why try to stop CHEATING, if there will always be some CHEATS that make it through ?

Deterence. The greater the deterence, the less the CHEATING.

There will always be rapists, murderers, extorionists, kidnappers,... getting away with their crimes, but we still try to catch, and punish them, to deter future crimes.

In today's sports arena, there is VERY LITTLE effort to catch the CHEATS. The national authorities (RFEC) do everything they can to PROTECT their homeboys. The sporting authorities (UCI) have no interest in catching the stars (since it would reduce viewership). The courts are more concerned with "athletes rights" (Belgium courts protected a tennis player who missed three out of competition tests - Wickmayer), than keeping sports from becoming corrupt. The sports media is more concerned with promoting sports (poor Lance is an American hero, leave him alone) than keeping sports clean.


If the authorities actually tried they could cut out most of the doping. The problem is they can't be bothered to do their job.
 
Jan 30, 2011
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Not only will it always exist, it always has.

One of my favourite books is The Sweat of The Gods. Right in chapter 1, referring to the first Paris-Brest-Paris in 1891, Maso writes:

...there were only four serious contenders: Jules Dubois, Henri Coullibeuf, Charles Terront and Jacques Jiel-Laval. Not only were they among the best racing cyclists at the time, but they were the only participants with teams of pacemakers at their disposal. Of course, they did not pay for these out of their own pocket: the costs were borne by the manufacturers who had supplied them with their equipment.

Jiel-Laval was riding on a French Clement bicycle equipped with Dunlop tyres. Terront had secured the support of the mighty Humber company and was also using a new invention by the Michelin brothers from Clermont-Ferrand: pneumatic tyres that were removable and hence could be repaired unusually quickly - within half an hour. His opponents gave him ample opportunity to test its value, because Terront encountered a remarkably large number of brand new tacks and nails in his path. He himself used ruses too. For example he had sent a spy up ahead to report when Jiel-Laval, who was far in the lead, was taking a break. When the latter disappeared into a cafe to take a brief nap, Terront made a detour, so that four hours went by before it finally dawned on Clement's manager, posted outside the cafe to keep an eye out, that he had been tricked. From that moment the race was all but over. Once Terront had no more cyclists ahead of him his tyres stayed undamaged and after almost three full days he reached Paris with a lead of seven hours and 40 minutes on Jiel-Laval, and more than 24 hours on the rest of his rivals. Almost a week passed before the last of the nearly one hundred cyclists who completed the race reached the finish line.
...
What astonished the public above all was that Terront had cycled for three days and nights without sleeping. But this was not all that extraordinary. In six-day races over in England, still completed by individuals and not by teams of two riders, riders were making ample use of medications containing caffeine and other stimulants in order to stay awake. Terront, one of a few French riders who regularly crossed the English Channel to participate in these six-day races, was no doubt well aware of this, in contrast with the hapless Jiel-Laval, who was still an amateur. And it stands to reason that Terront used these magic potions, which were not banned at the time. In any case, it speaks volumes that after the race ended a full day went by before he was able to get to sleep.

Competition encourages those who can find a way to gain a competitive advantage. There will always be an element (or even broad culture) that involves the use of drugs to gain that advantage. It's always been that way and always will.
 
May 26, 2010
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peterst6906 said:
Not only will it always exist, it always has.

so should it be rewarded? not in my book.

I am for the deterrents to be stricter, harder and longer.

If we had everyone, who should be, doing their job there would be less cheating and better competition as we would be watching real talent not manufactured via a pharmacist talent.

Rules were introduced as cheating is not to be tolerated in any form.
 
Benotti69 said:
so should it be rewarded? not in my book.

I am for the deterrents to be stricter, harder and longer.

If we had everyone, who should be, doing their job there would be less cheating and better competition as we would be watching real talent not manufactured via a pharmacist talent.

Rules were introduced as cheating is not to be tolerated in any form.

Agreed. Just because there is cheating, and often rampant, doesn't mean it should be allowed or less stringent rules. It is wrong. Cheating is wrong.
 

Polish

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Oldman said:
Cancer will never fully go away either.

I disagree.

If History is any guide, 500 years from now cancer will be virtually eliminated, but cheating will still be going strong.

Heck, the Labs in competition to figure out the breakthroughs will probably break a few rules in their quest for the cures. Lucrative.

Heck again, the cure may come from Gene Therapy.
The future jocks will appreciate that I'm sure wink wink...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16988102

"Gene transfer is a new treatment modality that introduces new genes into a cancerous cell or the surrounding tissue to cause cell death or slow the growth of the cancer. This treatment technique is very flexible, and a wide range of genes and vectors are being used in clinical trials with successful outcomes. As these therapies mature, they may be used alone or in combination with current treatments to help make cancer a manageable disease."
 
Polish said:
I disagree.

If History is any guide, 500 years from now cancer will be virtually eliminated, but cheating will still be going strong.

Heck, the Labs in competition to figure out the breakthroughs will probably break a few rules in their quest for the cures. Lucrative.

Heck again, the cure may come from Gene Therapy.
The future jocks will appreciate that I'm sure wink wink...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16988102

"Gene transfer is a new treatment modality that introduces new genes into a cancerous cell or the surrounding tissue to cause cell death or slow the growth of the cancer. This treatment technique is very flexible, and a wide range of genes and vectors are being used in clinical trials with successful outcomes. As these therapies mature, they may be used alone or in combination with current treatments to help make cancer a manageable disease."

Not so sure about that. First they will have to agree on the cause before they can cure cancer. Cancer is said by many to be a very modern , manmade disease. And 500 years form now is really too much to even speculate about.
Historically the worst population devastating diseases were all respiratory type illnesses. In the 20th century till now they started to be neurological diseases. So they claimed all the polio and such were eliminated. Some scientists will argue that say they just change the name. If you want I can find you links.
Gene therapy is too scary.
 
Feb 4, 2010
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As long as pro sports are entertainment and the most entertaining, most exciting, most succesful, athletes make big money, they will look for every advantage even if they're against the rules. It will always be a cat and mouse game between those tasked with enforcing the rules and those taking every advantage they can get away with. You're talking about driven people with big egos.
As long as everyone loves a winner and nobody loves a looser, little will change. IMO fans bear more than a little bit of responsibility because they're the ones who want to see exciting athletes and heap scorn on those who are less so. Look how most people here write about guys guys like Leipheimer, Evans, Danielson, etc because they're "dull". Going by a lot of the comments on forums like this, you'd have to believe that the only thing worse than a doper is someone who performs like he's clean.
Of course the vast majority of us will say we would like to see "clean" sport. I support the best possible testing, strong penalties for violations, but what would we all think if "clean" racing turned out to be dull? Be careful what you wish for? maybe maybe not.
 

Dr. Maserati

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9000ft said:
As long as pro sports are entertainment and the most entertaining, most exciting, most succesful, athletes make big money, they will look for every advantage even if they're against the rules. It will always be a cat and mouse game between those tasked with enforcing the rules and those taking every advantage they can get away with. You're talking about driven people with big egos.
As long as everyone loves a winner and nobody loves a looser, little will change. IMO fans bear more than a little bit of responsibility because they're the ones who want to see exciting athletes and heap scorn on those who are less so. Look how most people here write about guys guys like Leipheimer, Evans, Danielson, etc because they're "dull". Going by a lot of the comments on forums like this, you'd have to believe that the only thing worse than a doper is someone who performs like he's clean.
Of course the vast majority of us will say we would like to see "clean" sport. I support the best possible testing, strong penalties for violations, but what would we all think if "clean" racing turned out to be dull? Be careful what you wish for? maybe maybe not.

You think 'clean' racing might be dull? I would recommend you follow the junior (and lower) ranks of the sport - there is never a dull moment.
 
Freakonomics

I just saw the movie version of Freakonomics, which I would highly recommend to anyone who hasn't read the book or already seen the movie. One of the sections, called Pure Corruption, centered on match fixing in sumo wrestling and the mathematical analysis of results to prove it. There was an interesting discussion regarding incentives and benefits, and the thought was put forward that, given a corrupt system, some personalities (sociopathic, one might argue) would very quickly realize how the system worked and have a very fluid moral compass. This really made me think of Lance.

There was also a portion that described how the sumo regulatory federation was complicit and this complicity went all the way up through law enforcement to the top of Japanese society. The UCI and Pat M., the IOC and Hein Verbruggen, among others, of course.

The topic of whistle blowers also came up. I couldn't help but think of Floyd. The whistle blowers in sumo encountered the same resistance that Floyd has, despite having credible experience to back up their claims (much like Floyd). It was very interesting to see the same pattern of corruption I see in cycling but in a sport I know nothing about (sumo). If you haven't seen it, check it out.
 
Benotti69 said:
so should it be rewarded? not in my book.

I am for the deterrents to be stricter, harder and longer.

If we had everyone, who should be, doing their job there would be less cheating and better competition as we would be watching real talent not manufactured via a pharmacist talent.

Rules were introduced as cheating is not to be tolerated in any form.

Have you all read and studied "The Doping Dilemma," which appeared in the publication Scientific American (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-doping-dilemma)?

It goes some way to address the motivation for doping/cheating and why it's not going away...
 
Jul 6, 2009
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durgadas said:
Reading this article today made me think that people who write about and think about doping are not considering this topic in a really rational way:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/26/AR2011022604083.html

Especially this comment in that article:
"I am disappointed greatly that the anti-doping is not making more progress," the Montreal-based lab director, Christiane Ayotte, said late last year. "We still have a subculture of doping in certain sports, certain disciplines. We still have not been able to solve the problem. We are not a deterrent enough."

Here's my statement: deterrents DON'T WORK. Any deterrent only has a temporary effect and usually means that the larger body affected by this (in this case cyclists) have to give up some basic human right- take a look at pro cyclists now- they are prisoners within a 24 hour reporting system, their entire lives sacrificed.

In the 80's we all lived with a lack of a basic human right not to be afraid of dying by nuclear holocaust so that we could live with deterrents.

This is a competitive system. Competitor's entire lifeblood flows around pushing limits with everything around themselves in an attempt to control outcomes. Especially in mature systems, but it's a fallacy to think that doping hasn't existed before- take a good look at Fausto Coppi or Jacques Anquetil. No, really take a look. Anquetil had no qualms about talking about doping whatsoever and he didn't have to give back HIS Tour de France jerseys.

Within a competitive system, you will NEVER be outside the fundamental structure that encourages doping. It's often misunderstood that doping comes from an ethical problem on the part of the athletes. I disagree, and I think it's inherent in the system of competition. We do very little to educate athletes that they are entering into such a system and that the rules (which they are duty-bound to push against) say x, y and z. If we're to have a competitive system, this is the only way to fight doping, but it will NEVER go away completely, especially as our culture becomes less and less ethical over time.

I also have some books to back me up, but if you're going to comment on this, then I suggest you read them before flaming me. Punished by Rewards by Alfie Kohn, and Without Guilt and Justice by Walter Kaufmann.

As long as there are rewards, punishments are there. As long as punishments exist, there is it's flip side, rewards; and simply put both are violent actions that create a pendulum that swings back and forth between them. It's a system, and inside that system, there is literally no way to get around it.

Let the flames begin.

common sense is often not well received around here lol. been saying the same thing for a long time about human nature in competition and cheating/doping. in reality there will always be cheating/doping and an ongoing battle between the testers and athletes this reminds me of drug laws in some countries. they just kill you does this stop drug use no will it no.

what i would love to see is heavy testing at the world cup now that would be funny too much money to tear down that sport though so not likely.
 

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