Doping in other sports?

[Zinoviev Letter]

You can not, i repeat, you CAN NOT, argue that cycling is the WORST sport, by simply arguing that cycling is bad. You need to present an argument as to why you think other sports are better.

Exactly.

And unsurprisingly, his response to these points consists of a (correct) argument that cycling has a terrible history of doping. And nothing at all in the way of reasons for us to believe that wealthier sports with famously lax testing regimes are any cleaner.

I'm not sure how often this needs to be repeated. There is not one person in this thread arguing that cycling does not have a doping problem. Not one. There are no "apologies" going on. The argument is about whether or not the toothfairy exists in the worlds of soccer, baseball etc.

 

[Hawkwood]

This is funny.

You are dismissing the first link, but what about the quote they cite from Anquetil?

Even body building, with its two-tiers based on doping, does not openly claim that doping is just part of the sport.

As for the second, why did they choose to test cyclists? Because they had so much money that they thought they would waste it on tests for cyclists? Because cyclists will line up for anything? Because everyone needs a dog to kick, and cycling serves that purpose?

Sorry that a bunch of people decided to target cycling above other sports - because maybe more than one person/country thought there was a big problem there.

Wasn't cycling the LAST sport to sign onto the Code as required by the IOC? What was the UCI hiding?

Surely part of the UCI argument was that cycling is more than capable - nudge, nudge, wink, wink - of taking care of itself.

As noted, this is simply a sprinkling of thoughts on the subject.

You may not regard the first article - from the Science of Sport - as scientific, but those two authors are often cited on this forum and others.

However, go ahead just slip past these two authors and onto the papers from the Centre for Practical Ethics at Oxford, Harvard Law, LA84 Foundation & University of New South Wales, the European Commission, etc.

(Please note that I didn't bother citing WADA, the IOC, etc. as these sources tend to receive the greatest emotive arguments on cycling forums populated by apologists, fan boys and PR agencies.)

Or, you could just take the blinders off.

- Last International Sports Federation to sign the code
- First doping death at the Olympics
- Convicts of the road (Les Forçats de la Route)
- Pot Belge
- Rule book that reminds TdF participants that drugs will not be provided (by the organizers)
- First sport with a Hematocrit 'limit'
- First sport with known use of EPO
- At least fourteen deaths related to EPO use soon after it became available
- Past winner of the Tour admitted to doping during his win, and receives not so much as an asterisk

ad nauseum

From 1996 to 2010, only one 'winner' of the Tour has not been found guilty of doping, under active investigation for doping, admitted to doping, or the subject of strong anecdotal doping evidence. And he was riding for a guy that admitted to doping and his first pro contract was with ONCE, one of the most notorious doping squads.

If you don't like doping in cycling, then do something about it.

Dave.

Re the first link, there's nothing in that article that hasn't already been quoted to death. What I found interesting was that the writer provided no references, plus came up with little more than anecdotal evidence. How can anyone claim that doping in sport first appeared in the Tour de France, when there's evidence that doping existed well before the Tour was invented. It is not a scientific article. The second of your references that I referred to was to a paper that used interviews and secondary sources to investigate doping in sport, they didn't test any cyclists, nor any other sports people.

Finally I am not blinkered about doping in cycling, indeed I've been interested in the matter since 1976 when I discussed doping practices with someone who had been a pro on a major European team. Incidentally I did have an email discussion with a leading Australian sports scientist about doping. I mentioned to her that Voet had asserted that creatine was only of any use when used with drugs, and that two leading US tennis players took creatine, at which point she ended our discussion.

 

[D-Queued]

First of all half if not more of the quotations you post deal with the past. Cycling in the early 2000's, cycling in the 90's and then even cycling in the 19th century.

...

So ill make the point again, as others have made before me on here. Other sports DO NOT, test anywhere near as much as cycling. Their tests arent as thorough as cycling. THeir governing bodies do more to protect them from anti doping. Their teams and sponsors do more to protect them from anti doping.

... Time for you to step up and make your case.

You guys are hilarious.

Boy I really feel called out here.

Ok, you don't want recent history? How about 2010? Will this be current enough for you?

The USADA conducted 190 in and out of competition tests on cyclists in the first quarter of 2010, and 519 in and out of competition tests in track and field (aka athletics). Of the seven violations, "most were from track and field"

As your math skills must be rusty - based upon the bad math you are trying to force down our throats - this would mean that track and field 2.7x as many tests as cycling.

Hmm. Does that mean that another sport has more testing than cycling?

Didn't you just claim the exact opposite?

And, what is this about more people getting caught in another sport?

Can you please back up your claim on how these USADA tests on other sports are not as "thorough as cycling"? Are you suggesting that the USADA administers tougher tests for cyclists than they do for all of these other sports? Different standards?

(Please take this bait)

Also, please explain how on earth, "THeir governing bodies do more to protect them from anti doping"? And where do you get the idea that "Their teams and sponsors do more to protect them from anti doping"

Ouch. Feel free to make your case. Let me know if you need another shovel.

The whole notion that cycling and cyclists are targeted is straight out of the Lance Armstrong PR playbook. Marion Jones was tested more than he was - and he is the self-claimed most tested athlete ever.

What does this prove? It proves that Lance is a liar.

Dave.

 

[Hawkwood]

If you don't like doping in cycling, then do something about it.

Dave.

Sorry I missed the above in your earlier post. I have done something about doping in sport albeit at a very low level. I provided administrative support to a team who received a large grant to investigate growth hormone abuse in elite athletes. Some of their research has now been published. One of the team members is a friend of mine, he has worked with Olympic team officials and doctors. He quoted one case where a runner won an appeal against a doping penalty, when the team knew she was guilty. He also mentioned that there were strong suspicions surrounding a number of rugby players and rowers.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

You guys are hilarious.

You on the other hand are merely tedious.

By the way, the number of tests carried out by USADA is not a representative sample of the number of tests carried out in elite cycling, which is almost entirely based in continental Europe. Even that is beside the point though, as track and field is another early adopter sport, where drug testing is relatively seriously pursued by comparison with testing in major team sports, tennis etc.

You keep relentlessly making the same point over and over again. Cycling has a serious doping problem. Nobody is disagreeing with you on this, at all. Yet you continue to make the same point again and again, with a vague note of sneering triumphalism at that. Once more: Nobody here is arguing that cycling has anything other than a major doping problem. Nobody. NOBODY. N - O - B - O - D - Y.

What we are discussing in this thread is whether other sports, and in particular other sports outside of the traditional early adopter sports, have a similarly major doping problem. Sports with much more money and sports with ludicrously low level testing regimes. Please do us all the favour of addressing the actual topic of this thread.

 

[ingsve]

a load of athletes trained by ma junren were chucked out of the sydney olympics after being caught.

reading about the 1993 exploits just makes you laugh really

wang ran a 14:26 split for her last half of the 10,000 WR which would have been the world record in the 5000 by 11 secs and it would have stood up to 2004!

It is still so good she is the sixth fastest 5000m runner ever, and i repeat, that was the last 5000 of a 10.000m!

there is absolutely no question ma junren pumped the girl (?) full of drugs, i just wonder what, how much and for how long

Ya, and this reminds me of all the old records that likely will never be broken. One that springs to mind is Florence Griffith-Joyners 10.49 on 100m. Not only is it probably wind assisted but it's also very likely drug assisted so it would have to take something really revolutionary to beat it.Though in the case of Caster Semenya they seem to allow half-men to compete as women so that could perhaps be it.

 

[The Hitch]

You guys are hilarious.

Boy I really feel called out here.

Ok, you don't want recent history? How about 2010? Will this be current enough for you?

The USADA conducted 190 in and out of competition tests on cyclists in the first quarter of 2010, and 519 in and out of competition tests in track and field (aka athletics). Of the seven violations, "most were from track and field"

As your math skills must be rusty - based upon the bad math you are trying to force down our throats - this would mean that track and field 2.7x as many tests as cycling.

Hmm. Does that mean that another sport has more testing than cycling?

Didn't you just claim the exact opposite?

And, what is this about more people getting caught in another sport?

Can you please back up your claim on how these USADA tests on other sports are not as "thorough as cycling"? Are you suggesting that the USADA administers tougher tests for cyclists than they do for all of these other sports? Different standards?

(Please take this bait)

Also, please explain how on earth, "THeir governing bodies do more to protect them from anti doping"? And where do you get the idea that "Their teams and sponsors do more to protect them from anti doping"

Ouch. Feel free to make your case. Let me know if you need another shovel.

The whole notion that cycling and cyclists are targeted is straight out of the Lance Armstrong PR playbook. Marion Jones was tested more than he was - and he is the self-claimed most tested athlete ever.

What does this prove? It proves that Lance is a liar.

Dave.

Track and field is the totaly wrong comparison.

First of all, you should note that while pro road cycling is 1 sport, track and field is a umbrella term for about 20 different sports. Yes, obviously i expect WAY more tests for 20 different sports put together, than i do for one sport on its own.


So your argument about my maths and about other sports getting more tests, is well, meaningless. Its wrong, disproved.

But second of all

All 3 of us have made the point about money having some sort of correlation with doping.

Where is the money in track and field?

We are talking about baseball, soccer and the nfl. An olympic gold medal gets you what? $30 000. Thats the height of an athletes career, their biggest pay day, but thats how much the top payed footballers get in a DAY!!!.

Players in these big leagues, DO get tested a lot less, and the tests themselves are a lot weaker.

To put it another way , think about how many positives we get in cycling.

Now think how many positives we would get, if cyclists only got tested twice a year, if they were warned in advanced of these tests, if the teams had hundreds of millions of dollars, if the teams were very deeply involved in the doping itslef, and if the tests themselves were weak.

Do you think we would be getting ANY positves in cycling in such a situation?

Exactly.

And unsurprisingly, his response to these points consists of a (correct) argument that cycling has a terrible history of doping. And nothing at all in the way of reasons for us to believe that wealthier sports with famously lax testing regimes are any cleaner.

I'm not sure how often this needs to be repeated. There is not one person in this thread arguing that cycling does not have a doping problem. Not one. There are no "apologies" going on. The argument is about whether or not the toothfairy exists in the worlds of soccer, baseball etc.

Someone ( i think doctor masserati) once asked

"how many sporting forums do you know with a section known as the clinic".

ANd I thought about this. And on the face of it, it seems that maybe we do have the biggest problem.

But then I reconsidered. I looked at it another way. I thought to myself, what happens if you discuss doping on the non clinic section of this forum? You get a warning.

And what happens if you went on a football forum and made a point about doping. Well, your post would be deleted as trolling.

So the difference isnt that the doping problem is so big that we NEED a separate forum, while in other sports they can discuss it in their general sections.
No.

The difference is that we have the option of discussing doping in our sub forum, while other sports, do not have this option.

Which leads us to the conclusion that the difference is, our sport is open about doping, while other sports claim it doesnt exist.

 

[DAOTEC]

The difference is that we have the option of discussing doping in our sub forum, while other sports, do not have this option.

Which leads us to the conclusion that the difference is, our sport is open about doping, while other sports claim it doesnt exist.

Bravo

-- image romoved by mod --

 

[D-Queued]

Track and field is the totaly wrong comparison.

First of all, you should note that while pro road cycling is 1 sport, track and field is a umbrella term for about 20 different sports. Yes, obviously i expect WAY more tests for 20 different sports put together, than i do for one sport on its own.


So your argument about my maths and about other sports getting more tests, is well, meaningless. Its wrong, disproved.

But second of all

All 3 of us have made the point about money having some sort of correlation with doping.

Where is the money in track and field?

We are talking about baseball, soccer and the nfl. An olympic gold medal gets you what? $30 000. Thats the height of an athletes career, their biggest pay day, but thats how much the top payed footballers get in a DAY!!!.

Players in these big leagues, DO get tested a lot less, and the tests themselves are a lot weaker.

To put it another way , think about how many positives we get in cycling.

Now think how many positives we would get, if cyclists only got tested twice a year, if they were warned in advanced of these tests, if the teams had hundreds of millions of dollars, if the teams were very deeply involved in the doping itslef, and if the tests themselves were weak.

Do you think we would be getting ANY positves in cycling in such a situation?



Someone ( i think doctor masserati) once asked

"how many sporting forums do you know with a section known as the clinic".

ANd I thought about this. And on the face of it, it seems that maybe we do have the biggest problem.

But then I reconsidered. I looked at it another way. I thought to myself, what happens if you discuss doping on the non clinic section of this forum? You get a warning.

And what happens if you went on a football forum and made a point about doping. Well, your post would be deleted as trolling.

So the difference isnt that the doping problem is so big that we NEED a separate forum, while in other sports they can discuss it in their general sections.
No.

The difference is that we have the option of discussing doping in our sub forum, while other sports, do not have this option.

Which leads us to the conclusion that the difference is, our sport is open about doping, while other sports claim it doesnt exist.

First, it is foolish to try and compare the doping policy between IOC sports with entertainment sports. Not that it wouldn't be nice to see them adopt similar programs, but they are not pretending to be part of something like the Olympic movement.

Second, when you make a blanket - egregious - statement about cycling being the most tested sport, then stand behind your statement.

Third, "The Official Message Board of the Washington Redskins" does permit discussion of doping - and Redskins connections. I am not even going to bother looking for others as your original statement is simply foolish.

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthr...N.F.L.-Doping-Case-(Redskins-Player-Connected)

Thus, you are wrong in:

1. "other sports do not have this option"
2. "other sports claim it does not exist"
3. such a post would get deleted as trolling

That is three strikes.

Dave.

 

[The Hitch]

First, it is foolish to try and compare the doping policy between IOC sports with entertainment sports. Not that it wouldn't be nice to see them adopt similar programs, but they are not pretending to be part of something like the Olympic movement.

We made it clear from the start that we were talking about football, Nfl, Baseball etc.

And only now do you even bother to adress this? So you admit you werent actually reading our posts?
And to top it all off you, say that they are different because they are "entertainment sports"
No they arent different. Cycling is an entertainment sport.

We are discussing doping in all sports, not just ioc. Nice sleight of hand attempt but you havent pulled it off.

Second, when you make a blanket - egregious - statement about cycling being the most tested sport, then stand behind your statement.

I didnt say it was the most tested sport. I said it was more tested than others, and i stick by that, seeing as football and tennis have nowhere near as many tests.

Third, "The Official Message Board of the Washington Redskins" does permit discussion of doping - and Redskins connections. I am not even going to bother looking for others as your original statement is simply foolish.

http://www.extremeskins.com/showthr...N.F.L.-Doping-Case-(Redskins-Player-Connected)

Thus, you are wrong in:

1. "other sports do not have this option"
2. "other sports claim it does not exist"
3. such a post would get deleted as trolling

That is three strikes.

Dave.

I had other forums in mind where my posts had been deleted when i said doping was present in football. And the original point was "how many forums have a clinic section". There might be some but in reality, there are very very few.

but this is beside the point anyway. That was something i said to Zvinoviev, not my rebuttal to you.

In fact, you fail to adress any of the points we made against your assumption that cycling was the worst, instead choosing to change the subject.

You cite as proof that there are other sports more tested, the fact that in america more track and field athletes were tested. You congratulate yourself for this, and then COMPLETELY IGNORE, the point Zvinoviev made about testing in europe being more important for cycling, and the point i made about "track and field " being an umbrella term for several different sports.

I will repeat. OBVIOUSLY we expect more tests for, long jump, hammerthrow steeplechase, high jump 100m, marathon, paul vault, shot put, hurdles etc PUT TOGETHER, than i do for just cycling

Moreover, you have still not made one step in the direction of backing up the argument you made which caused 3 of us to respond. THat cycling is THE WORST of all sports in doping.

So try again.

What makes you SO SURE, that the NFL or the english premier league are any better?

 

[Benotti69]

*** edited by mod ***

 

[Altitude]

We made it clear from the start that we were talking about football, Nfl, Baseball etc.

And only now do you even bother to adress this? So you admit you werent actually reading our posts?
And to top it all off you, say that they are different because they are "entertainment sports"
No they arent different. Cycling is an entertainment sport.

We are discussing doping in all sports, not just ioc. Nice sleight of hand attempt but you havent pulled it off.




I didnt say it was the most tested sport. I said it was more tested than others, and i stick by that, seeing as football and tennis have nowhere near as many tests.


I had other forums in mind where my posts had been deleted when i said doping was present in football. And the original point was "how many forums have a clinic section". There might be some but in reality, there are very very few.

but this is beside the point anyway. That was something i said to Zvinoviev, not my rebuttal to you.

In fact, you fail to adress any of the points we made against your assumption that cycling was the worst, instead choosing to change the subject.

You cite as proof that there are other sports more tested, the fact that in america more track and field athletes were tested. You congratulate yourself for this, and then COMPLETELY IGNORE, the point Zvinoviev made about testing in europe being more important for cycling, and the point i made about "track and field " being an umbrella term for several different sports.

I will repeat. OBVIOUSLY we expect more tests for, long jump, hammerthrow steeplechase, high jump 100m, marathon, paul vault, shot put, hurdles etc PUT TOGETHER, than i do for just cycling

Moreover, you have still not made one step in the direction of backing up the argument you made which caused 3 of us to respond. THat cycling is THE WORST of all sports in doping.

So try again.

What makes you SO SURE, that the NFL or the english premier league.

You guys have beaten him to a bloody pulp. Not nice to kick a man while he's down.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

I think that this is probably the wrong way to look at it.

Any sport where speed, strength, endurance or recovery matters is a sport where doping exists.

Once you know that doping happens, the issue is about how prevalent it is. And with many, many sports there are two important factors to consider: The rewards for success are much greater than in a comparitively niche sport like cycling, and the chances of being caught and/or punished are much less than in cycling. Cycling, for all that we rightly criticise the dope testing regime, has by some distance the most effective and thorough regime in sports. Saying that is not in any way an endorsement of the regime in cycling. It's an indictment of the regime in other sports.

In most sports you have essentially no chance of being caught or punished unless you are ridiculously stupid or ridiculously unlucky. In cycling, you actually have to go to quite serious lengths to avoid being caught.

Sports centring on "pure" feats of endurance, speed or strength tend to be the early adopters of new doping techniques and of systematic doping programmes. Weightlifting, cycling, nordic skiing, track and field, swimming. But once those techniques exist and the medical infrastructure exists they spread rapidly, and those sports are not the ones where the serious money is involved.

There's another factor to take into account. The lesson sports federations took from the cycling debacles of the 1990s was that catching your stars is a commercial disaster for all involved.

We know that cycling doping doctors have worked extensively with athletes and teams from other sports. We know that team doping programmes have existed in sports like soccer. I'm sorry to say it, but anyone who thinks that professional sports as a whole is anything other than dope riddled is the kind of mark you should consider offering a bridge to.

But cycling authorities never wanted to catch a lot of riders, nor did they. It was outside orgs plus insiders breaking the omerta who exposed the rampant doping practices in the sport. Is it just a coincidence that this has not happened in other sports or was the drug culture in cycling simply way worse?

 

[D-Queued]

We made it clear from the start that we were talking about football, Nfl, Baseball etc.

And only now do you even bother to adress this? So you admit you werent actually reading our posts?
And to top it all off you, say that they are different because they are "entertainment sports"
No they arent different. Cycling is an entertainment sport.

We are discussing doping in all sports, not just ioc. Nice sleight of hand attempt but you havent pulled it off.


I didnt say it was the most tested sport. I said it was more tested than others, and i stick by that, seeing as football and tennis have nowhere near as many tests.


I had other forums in mind where my posts had been deleted when i said doping was present in football. And the original point was "how many forums have a clinic section". There might be some but in reality, there are very very few.

but this is beside the point anyway. That was something i said to Zvinoviev, not my rebuttal to you.

In fact, you fail to adress any of the points we made against your assumption that cycling was the worst, instead choosing to change the subject.

You cite as proof that there are other sports more tested, the fact that in america more track and field athletes were tested. You congratulate yourself for this, and then COMPLETELY IGNORE, the point Zvinoviev made about testing in europe being more important for cycling, and the point i made about "track and field " being an umbrella term for several different sports.

I will repeat. OBVIOUSLY we expect more tests for, long jump, hammerthrow steeplechase, high jump 100m, marathon, paul vault, shot put, hurdles etc PUT TOGETHER, than i do for just cycling

Moreover, you have still not made one step in the direction of backing up the argument you made which caused 3 of us to respond. THat cycling is THE WORST of all sports in doping.

So try again.

What makes you SO SURE, that the NFL or the english premier league.

Pardon? Not reading your posts? Pardon?

You said it was more tested than others? Did you qualify this in any way?

Look, if you want to talk about doping in other sports then doesn't it seem somewhat logical to first distinguish between those that follow The Code, and those that do not?

Now, if you are talking about Euro sports then why talk about NFL, NBA, etc.? Please make up your mind. Baseball???? No NFL, NBA or MLB in Europe is there?

Oh, look, Baseball (IBAF) signed onto The Code before cycling as did basketball (FIBA) and tennis (ITF). In fact, in this list motorcyling is included in sports that signed The Code, while cycling (UCI) did not: http://www.coachsos.com/features/drug_testing/WADA_Code_Organizations_2004.pdf

Why was cycling a holdout?

Is this some sort of race to the bottom to try and find a sport that is worse than cycling?

If you want to include every sort of physical exertion related entertainment thing, then why stop at NFL, Premier League or NBA? Clearly body building wins hands down. There is no argument from me on that front.

Now, other than body building, which seems to deserve an asterisk as a sport rather than some sort of freak show, cycling has the longest, loudest and proudest association with doping. The citations underscore this. I really don't understand why there would even be a debate. And, how can you argue with first-person testimony like that of Anquetil, Ferrari, Conconi and Padilla?

It has been the most overt - cite Ferrari, Anquetil, Riis, Indurain & Padilla - etc. and the most notorious. The case of Tom Simpson alone underscores that point. How many of your NFLers or Premier Leaguers have dropped dead while competing?

Please name one other sport with an example like that of Eddie B and Ed Burke that so explicitly pursued doping, or blood doping as they did with the 1984 US Cycling team?

I don't like it, but it is what it is.

I like the sport because it can so purely recognize effort. The problem is that this also makes it so susceptible to doping. Skill sports do not have the same ratio of benefit.

Now, I don't know what the fixation is with "The Clinic" section. Don't other cycling sites have similar special relegated doping discussion areas? Don't some cycling forums let you talk about doping in their main boards?

Obviously at least one pro football team lets you talk about doping on their main board. That would put them way ahead of this site, or any professional cycling official team site. Can you acknowledge that other sports actually do have forums where doping is openly discussed?

But, since this is a cycling forum, why even bother with this thread? Is your hope to use this cycling forum to complain about doping in other sports? In fact, why bother with trying to make a comparison with other sports if you cannot first state EXACTLY how bad doping is in the sport of cycling?

How can you possibly justify any sort of comparison with other sports when you have not presented any data on the status of doping in cycling, and refuse to acknowledge the data that I have provided?

You don't like the fact that track and field has more tests? How about the fact that skiiing & snowboarding had almost as many tests as cycling - while swimming had more? Did you think that track & field was the only sport that would have more tests?

Are there really more tests in Europe? Please provide the data such that we might all be enlightened. I would be very interested in seeing this data.

Shall we all just assume other sports are worse because you say so?

Dave.

 

[Hawkwood]

But cycling authorities never wanted to catch a lot of riders, nor did they. It was outside orgs plus insiders breaking the omerta who exposed the rampant doping practices in the sport. Is it just a coincidence that this has not happened in other sports or was the drug culture in cycling simply way worse?[/QUOTE

Not sure this is correct, it seems to me that the cycling authorities have caught a lot of riders, right from the late 60s to now. The list is vast and includes the top riders, remember Merckx in the 1969 Giro and Pollentier in the 1978 Tour? These cases weren't exposed by `outside orgs' but mainstream cycling organisations. I can't think of many other sports that were prepared to throw their top performers to the dogs in such a way.

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

It's not true that cyclists are far more controlled than athletes from all other sports. For example, german and scandinavian XC skiers and biathletes are certainly not less controlled.

But cycling authorities never wanted to catch a lot of riders, nor did they. It was outside orgs plus insiders breaking the omerta who exposed the rampant doping practices in the sport. Is it just a coincidence that this has not happened in other sports or was the drug culture in cycling simply way worse?[/QUOTE

Not sure this is correct, it seems to me that the cycling authorities have caught a lot of riders, right from the late 60s to now. The list is vast and includes the top riders, remember Merckx in the 1969 Giro and Pollentier in the 1978 Tour? These cases weren't exposed by `outside orgs' but mainstream cycling organisations. I can't think of many other sports that were prepared to throw their top performers to the dogs in such a way.

The significant blows occured in the 90's and 00's and were not the result of strict drug testing by the UCI.

 

[The Hitch]

Shall we all just assume other sports are worse because you say so?

Dave.

No. My argument is not, "other sports are worse because i say so".

If you want i will present it nicely here, sticking just to the sports of football and tennis:

My argument, and that of the others has been " other sports are worse because
1 we feel there is a correlation between money and doping
2 we know other sports ( and i am thinkiing of football and tennis) have less tests and weaker tests
3 other sports had guys in operation puerto, - which proves there is widespread doping but their names were NOT revealed"
4 Injury recovery, which is cited by many as the chief advantage of doping, has improved greatly over recent years, in these sports.
5 Superhuman stamina, strenght and speed are now very common in these 2 sports."

The reason i ask for more of an argument on your part, is that you keep coming back to the famous cases of cyclists doping, and our argument throughout has been that doping in other sports is NOT covered.

Obviously we know about Pantani and Lance and landis and Ricco etc, because their cases get A LOT of coverage.
Operation Puerto gets a lot of coverage when talking about cycling.

But the moment it switches to other sports, the coverage dies down.

NO ONE talks about the footballers and tennis players on operation puerto. They keep denying that there is doping in football because "they wouldnt risk getting caught".

It has been revealed that drugs were present in tennis in the 90's as well.

On top of the revelations that top tennis players dope ( but no names are released, hence no single tennis player can be accused of doping), we see Nadal play a 5 hour match, limp of the court, then come back 2 days later and play another 5 hour match no problem.

More importantly, the Juventus doping investigation of 97, where they found that the best team in europe had labs of epo and other peds, is also totaly ignored.


We see that there is doping in football and tennis, from these 2 instances and others. We also see that no one covers it at all. These 2 facts lead us to believe that there is much more than meets the eye in football and tennis.

ANd THIS is our argument.

And, how can you argue with first-person testimony like that of Anquetil, Ferrari, Conconi and Padilla?

Once again, we are not arguing with what they say about how bad doping is in cycling.
We are arguing that in football and tennis, where the money is a thousand fold, and some events have big political concequences, the situation is such that the equivilants of Ferrari Conconi etc, would NEVER EVEN find themselves asked about doping, or asked to give testimony, or even speak about the subject.

Skill sports do not have the same ratio of benefit.

Yes they do. In cycling there are only so many pros, so the difference between cyclist number 1 in the world and cyclist number 500 in the world will be big already.

In football and tennis there are millions and millions of kids who grow up in academies, training 4 hours a day from the age of 5.

When you have millions of people training their whole lives, the difference between the top 500 players will be minute. So small, that if you give player 500 a 10% increase in speed, a 10% increase in strengh, and enough epo, to make sure he does not tire at all, in what can be a pretty tiring sport, you will easily be able to move him up from being number 500 in the world, to being the undisputed best.

How many of your NFLers or Premier Leaguers have dropped dead while competing?

A few actually.

Antonio Puerta, who would otherwise have been on Spains world cup winning team, collapsed and died suddenly while playing for Sevilla in 07.
Premier League player Mark Vivian Foe died in the same way in 2003.
Benfica (big team) player Miklós Fehér died the same way in 2004.
Same with Motherwells Phil O'Donnell in 2007.

All sudden, all unknown causes.

Ill leave it to the Americans to tell me about the NFL players

 

[straydog]

You guys have beaten him to a bloody pulp. Not nice to kick a man while he's down.

lol....that is all I can say really....lol



People recover quicker from injuries now than they used to apparently....dopers!

And did you know that they have antibiotics now too? And that they can actually transplant a human organs? Actual human organs.

Amazing what advances in medical science and treatment there have been....those crazy scientists....what are they going to tell me next? That there is a vaccine for flu?

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

But cycling authorities never wanted to catch a lot of riders, nor did they. It was outside orgs plus insiders breaking the omerta who exposed the rampant doping practices in the sport. Is it just a coincidence that this has not happened in other sports or was the drug culture in cycling simply way worse?

The drug culture in the early adopter sports - of which cycling was a very notable example - started earlier and became widespread at an earlier point. Weightlifting, track and field, cycling, nordic skiing, these are the kinds of sports which served as breeding grounds for serious, organised doping. And for fairly obvious reasons: They are all sports centrally about pure ability in particular athletic feats.

These kind of sports are where the techniques were developed and where the infrastucture of modern doping was first built. But these sports are not hermetically sealed. And in particular, as the effectiveness of doping radically improved, its attractiveness in sports where feats of strength, speed, endurance or recovery are mediated by factors like skill, coordination etc, also improved.

The kind of improvements which a handful of amphetamines could give a cyclist simply were not that important or useful to a footballer. The kind of improvements which a modern, medically-crafted, doping programme can give on the other hand (or even just a course of EPO administered yourself) are an altogether different matter. There is almost no major sport where an athlete on a modern, carefully administered, doping programme isn't going to be at an enormous advantage*. Tennis, boxing, football, NFL, etc etc. And that's where the two issues some of us have been talking about since the start of this thread kick in: Potential rewards versus the chance of being caught.

There is a mistake being made in this discussion by some people, centrally a confusion between the order in which doping became prevalent in different sports and the current prevalence of doping in particular sports. It is absolutely correct to say that a number of early adopters sports got there first. But the modern doping programme, the doping doctor, the wonderdrugs, are those sports' gift to the wider sporting world. And in my view, pretty much all major sports were very eager to unwrap the present and play with the shiny new toy within.

This isn't just speculation. We actually know that the very same magic doctors who developed their trade in cycling, perhaps alongside track and field or swimming or some other early adopter sport, rapidly went on to work with athletes and teams in other sports. And why wouldn't they? That's where the real money is, and the risk of some ingrate getting caught and fingering you is close to zero in most sports.

We also know that the clinics filled up with athletes from across the world of sports and that major teams in the big money sports took ex-cycling doctors on as team doctors just as cycling teams had before them. And again, why wouldn't they? Doping demonstrably works. The rewards for success are astronomically higher than in niche sports like cycling or weightlifting. The chances of being caught are nearly infinitessimal.

Why are the chances of being caught so small? That's also a product of history. Some of the early adopter sports got caught up in scandals and this forced the hand of their governing bodies. They couldn't getting away with simply ignoring the problem or declaring that it didn't exist. They didn't increase the effectiveness of their testing programmes out of moral courage or a shining devotion to pure competition. Commercial factors forced their hand and they don't like it one little bit.

But those same commercial factors operate in the other direction in sports where there has been no huge scandals as of yet. The no less self-interested governing bodies of other sports took a lesson from the commercial calamities which befell cycling and to a slightly lesser extent track and field and it was that major scandals must be avoided at all costs. There is pretty much nothing worse that could happen to a major sport from a commercial point of view than catching a swathe of its biggest stars doping. So they don't catch a swathe of their big stars doping.

Some people might think that's because athletes and federations are basically more moral in other sports, and that teams in big money sports would eschew a nearly risk free path to a huge competitive edge out of the goodness of their hearts. The rest of us are more likely to think that its because every effort is made to avoid catching that fatal batch of stars. That the odd unlucky or stupid athlete still manages to get caught in those sports is the more surprising thing from my perspective.

*This point cannot be emphasised enough. A modern doping programme will give an almost unbelievable performance advantage to a footballer, or a tennis player or a boxer. A single four week course of EPO alone will increase the time for which a fit person can sustain 80% of maximum effort by 54%! That is a transformative change. The old line that doping isn't a major problem in sport X because no amount of dope will make a clogger into a player of majestic skill wasn't always a stupid position to take. In fact, it was mostly accurate at a certain stage. Doping does have a longer history in sports where pure athleticism is relatively more important than particular skill. But it is a stupid position to take now, in the face of the transformative effects of modern doping.
http://www.sportsscientists.com/2007/11/effect-of-epo-on-performance-who.html

 

[Tyler'sTwin]

*This point cannot be emphasised enough. A modern doping programme will give an almost unbelievable performance advantage to a footballer, or a tennis player or a boxer. A single four week course of EPO alone will increase the time for which a fit person can sustain 80% of maximum effort by 54%! That is a transformative change.
http://www.sportsscientists.com/2007/11/effect-of-epo-on-performance-who.html

This is so amazingly relevant that the white guy marathon world record from the 60's has only been improved by a measly 2%.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

This is so amazingly relevant that the white guy marathon world record from the 60's has only been improved by a measly 2%.

Are you seriously telling me that you don't think that track and field has a drug problem?

And by the way, the marathon world record has gone down by more than 8 minutes since 1964.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Not sure why people just didn't grab some stats to settle the matter.
All stats from 2009.

UCI. Cycling- OOC 9080, In Competition 6042. Total = 15122.
FINA Swimming- OOC 1196, In Competition 889. Total = 2085.
ITF, Tennis - OOC 154, In Competition 1972. Total = 2126.

One word of caution with the cycling stats is that it includes samples that only go towards the Biological Passport.

But getting back to the point of which sports are better/worse?
It is almost impossible to say - Cycling has used various products throughout its history, most to numb the pain.
But it wasn't until the 80's that sports started to be properly examined by physiologists who studied the sports and tailored training, this was quickly followed by the scientists. Ultimately all sports can benefit from PEDs so all will have their doping.

 

[Zinoviev Letter]

ITF, Tennis - OOC 154

What a statistic that one is.

 

[D-Queued]

No. My argument is not, "other sports are worse because i say so".

If you want i will present it nicely here, sticking just to the sports of football and tennis:

My argument, and that of the others has been " other sports are worse because
1 we feel there is a correlation between money and doping
Agreed

2 we know other sports ( and i am thinkiing of football and tennis) have less tests and weaker tests
Less, maybe, but not sure about weaker. Thus, agree & disagree. Blood Passport initiated in 2007 (for 2008, 2009, 2010) has been less than spectacular. HCT tests have to be the weakest test in any sport. Forewarning by UCI doping control makes it easy to adjust parameters and avoid a positive. Lack of escorts (in the past) also make it easy to dodge.

3 other sports had guys in operation puerto, - which proves there is widespread doping but their names were NOT revealed"
Agree, and PO'd about it.

4 Injury recovery, which is cited by many as the chief advantage of doping, has improved greatly over recent years, in these sports.
Yes. And agree that doping is rampant. Especially with new practice of anti-aging physicians ("These physicians do this by restoring hormone levels back to more youthful levels.")

5 Superhuman stamina, strenght and speed are now very common in these 2 sports."
Exhibit A: Serena.

...

But the moment it switches to other sports, the coverage dies down.

Don't agree in the general case, but understand the perspective.

...

ANd THIS is our argument.
Agree & don't like doping in football/soccer and tennis

...
We are arguing that in football and tennis, where the money is a thousand fold, and some events have big political concequences, the situation is such that the equivilants of Ferrari Conconi etc, would NEVER EVEN find themselves asked about doping, or asked to give testimony, or even speak about the subject.
Don't fully agree - due to Balco and OP situations. But, clear that OP got muzzled.

...
A few actually.

Antonio Puerta, who would otherwise have been on Spains world cup winning team, collapsed and died suddenly while playing for Sevilla in 07.
Premier League player Mark Vivian Foe died in the same way in 2003.
Benfica (big team) player Miklós Fehér died the same way in 2004.
Same with Motherwells Phil O'Donnell in 2007.

All sudden, all unknown causes.

Thanks for the insight, sorry to hear about these guys. Still not the same spectacle as Tom, though. The body count is high in cycling as well. Wrt NFL, see High School football instead. In NBA, deaths related to cocaine.
Ill leave it to the Americans to tell me about the NFL players

See notes above.

Thanks also Dr. Maserati for the stats. Is there any way to separate the Passport tests and HCT level tests from that total? We know how many tests are done at the Tour, for example, and the number is not very large.

We also know that some tests that could be done - particularly with the Passport indicators - are not done and that a test is not = a real test.

Dave.

 

[The Hitch]

lol....that is all I can say really....lol



People recover quicker from injuries now than they used to apparently....dopers!

And did you know that they have antibiotics now too? And that they can actually transplant a human organs? Actual human organs.

Amazing what advances in medical science and treatment there have been....those crazy scientists....what are they going to tell me next? That there is a vaccine for flu?

And somehow several footballers and several tennis players find their names on the operation Puerto list. Europes biggest football team has their lab raided and EPO and hgh are found. Jesus Manzano claims to have met several top footballers in his drug clinics. Every 100m champion, apart from the most succesful one, has failed a drugs test. Cyclists fail drugs tests and Landis and others give details how easy it is to pass doping control.

Yep, it must be those crazy scientists

Not sure why people just didn't grab some stats to settle the matter.
All stats from 2009.

UCI. Cycling- OOC 9080, In Competition 6042. Total = 15122.
FINA Swimming- OOC 1196, In Competition 889. Total = 2085.
ITF, Tennis - OOC 154, In Competition 1972. Total = 2126.

One word of caution with the cycling stats is that it includes samples that only go towards the Biological Passport.

But getting back to the point of which sports are better/worse?
It is almost impossible to say - Cycling has used various products throughout its history, most to numb the pain.
But it wasn't until the 80's that sports started to be properly examined by physiologists who studied the sports and tailored training, this was quickly followed by the scientists. Ultimately all sports can benefit from PEDs so all will have their doping.

Thank you Dr Masserati, forum legend.