Doping in other sports?

[roundabout]

Mennea also ran sub 20 seconds at sea level 30+ years ago.

 

[The Hitch]

Tracks are designed to for faster sprinting now.

So much more important than all the drugs all the sprinters have been loaded on for the last 20 years What's epo compared to a smoother surface.

 

[del1962]

So much more important than all the drugs all the sprinters have been loaded on for the last 20 years What's epo compared to a smoother surface.

Not sure how EPO is much help in a 200m sprint, steriods more so.

But the fact is that some tracks are designed to be quicker as they want world records on their track.

 

[Parker]

So much more important than all the drugs all the sprinters have been loaded on for the last 20 years What's epo compared to a smoother surface.

EPO was available in the 90s as well. Dwain Chambers was using it in 2002.

Tracks have evolved quite a lot. As have spikes - which are ceramic these days (introduced in 1996). The way the spike interacts with the track is much different these days as they no longer have to penetrate the surface.

 

[The Hitch]

Not sure how EPO is much help in a 200m sprint, steriods more so.

So again you are commenting on a subject you haven't done any research on?

Go do some reading about doping in sprinting. Take a look at the doping programs the BALCO sprinters were on.

 

[the sceptic]

how is it possible to think any top sprinter is clean when almost everyone has been caught doping at some point?

 

[The Hitch]

EPO was available in the 90s as well. Dwain Chambers was using it in 2002.

Exactly

So if sprinters were on EPO in the late 90's and 2002 then it would take a little bit more than a few equipment improvements for the current athletes to match that, let alone make a total mockery of that generation which is what is happening (4 people in 2012 faster than the winner of every single pre Bolt olympics and world championships )

 

[lilac harry quinn]

I can't see anyone beating the womens' sprint records from the 80s any time soon. Serious question: if doping is all that is responsible for the improvement in mens' sprint records this century, why has no woman (not even a juiced Marion Jones) come close to the records of Griffiths-Joyner and Koch?

 

[Freddythefrog]

I can't see anyone beating the womens' sprint records from the 80s any time soon. Serious question: if doping is all that is responsible for the improvement in mens' sprint records this century, why has no woman (not even a juiced Marion Jones) come close to the records of Griffiths-Joyner and Koch?

That one has had me as well. Let me put a proposal. Left to their own devices athletes juice as much as they have to, to get to where they want to be.

On a state run program like that of the eastern block nations in the 60's through to the late 80's it wasn't an "optional program" but a coach led program - our way or the highway. The USA response for 1984 was serious, it is what spawned the blood doping program run by US cycling. Now we have various versions of how that played out. According to the few who have confessed, it was optional and whilst one or two who have confessed did it, you didn't have to partake - for example Connie Carpenter, mum of Taylor Phinney has never committed that she took part and happily holds onto her untarnished gold medal. Alternatively, if we believe Inge Thompson it was entirely optional, but if you didn't do it you were off the squad. So perhaps we can say that the athletes of the late 80s were the products of a systemised doping campaign that had run through the last 6 to 8 years of their lives and had optimised gains at that point in time.

Then we have the whole Ben Johnson saga in 1988 and perhaps there was a "lightening" of programs afterwards in response to the bust of the No 1 star and bit like the riders did in 1999, in response to Festina of 98. Of course that enabled Lance and the Posties to sweep past Jan and the rest. But with no "US Posties" in women's T & F sprint, there was no arms race to match, the bar was lowered.

The fault in this argument is why has the bar stayed low for women and not risen in recent years like it has for the men. Could it be that Bolt is "too big to fail" and what he gets away with, causes others to take more risks to chase him in the arms race, thinking they can get away with ? Whilst no such competition exists for the women, there being no star who is protected and as such all are "fair game" for the testers - both 2008 Beijing Sprint gold medalists from Jamaica, Shelly Ann Brown and Veronica Fraser being caught and banned. The Marion Jones thing would also have had a depressing effect on the perceived risk-reward ratio, so the perceived risk is higher and the need is less as no-one is kicking the back-side out of it like Bolt.

It is about the best I can come up with, but I will happily read other's hypotheses.

 

[lilac harry quinn]

I can definitely go with the idea that Bolt is too big to fail, and obviously virtually all his competition bar Blake have tested positive, but I can't see that it answers my question.

Marita Koch ran 47.60 in 1985. In the 29 years since this, there has been only one run (by Marie-Jose Perec in 1996) that has got within a second of it, new tracks and spikes notwithstanding. I can't understand why as obviously athletes still dope.

You say that left to their own devices, athletes may only do as much as they need to: the problem with that is that everyone other than the winner has not done as much as they needed to.

In the throwing events, the mens' records as well as the womens' date back to the 1980s. To me, this suggests that athletes across the power events could get away with much more 20 to 30 years ago than they can now.

 

[fuzzydunlop3]

I would guess that it was easier to take higher doses of the powerful anabolic stuff back in the 80's without getting caught compared to now, which would be why someone like Flo Jo's record hasn't been touched even by cheaters. same thing goes for the middle distance and distance records from the EPO era. easier to get that hematocrit close to 60 when no test for it even existed.

 

[proffate]

easier to get that hematocrit close to 60 when no test for it even existed.

Not sure if you're talking about the epo test or hct test, but hct tests have existed for many decades.

 

[fuzzydunlop3]

Not sure if you're talking about the epo test or hct test, but hct tests have existed for many decades.

interesting, but were they using the 50 hct rule like in cycling for Olympic athletes?

 

[Bannockburn]

I can definitely go with the idea that Bolt is too big to fail, and obviously virtually all his competition bar Blake have tested positive, but I can't see that it answers my question.

Yeah, must have been a tainted supplement?

 

[MrRoboto]

I can definitely go with the idea that Bolt is too big to fail, and obviously virtually all his competition bar Blake have tested positive, but I can't see that it answers my question.

Blake has a ban behind him.


Edit: Beaten.

 

[Freddythefrog]

I can definitely go with the idea that Bolt is too big to fail, .................... the problem with that is that everyone other than the winner has not done as much as they needed to.
............

I think they probably have, given two depressing factors.

1) They will certainly investigate to find out what the perceived "limit of effectiveness" and "limit of consumption without tripping the detection system" is.
Look at what Tommy Simpson is quoted as saying "If it takes 10 to kill you I will take nine and win". History shows us that they go to what they perceive the limit is. Tom would have to find out what the "limit" was and that limit was not going to be scientific fact based evidence but more gossip amongst soigneurs and riders. What I am saying is that the perceived limit is depressed when set against what went before. What went before is an athlete subject to a long term (age 10 or 11 to adult) doping program, without the need for regularly coming off the juice for competitions or out of competition testing, just a need to taper down internal levels to pass tests for one event a year, or possibly not even that. I see the records show a letter from Marita to the E German doping program administrators stating that one of her rivals can get hold of more anabolic steroids than her program because that rival had a relative working at the company that produced them ! So "Juiced-2-the-MAX" probably was closer to Tommy's "death minus 1" level of consumption rather than a lower perceived limit based on the risk/reward level relating to detection.
2) The modern athlete wants to be a multi-millionaire. The soviet bloc athletes (Or those Americans in the 80's given a free pass by the home detection system) did not compete in many overseas events where they would be subject to scrutiny. They competed for their country at World, European and Olympic Games. The first World Champs were in 1983 so before that there were only a couple of times in a four year cycle when they would be subject to a test that can't be fixed or dodged as opposed to the 8 or so times a year a modern athlete may need to taper for.

Not saying it's right, just developing it.

[Again, your argument about spikes and tracks makes a mockery of the excuses given for the current crop of male sprinters. ]

 

[wansteadimp]

I can't see anyone beating the womens' sprint records from the 80s any time soon. Serious question: if doping is all that is responsible for the improvement in mens' sprint records this century, why has no woman (not even a juiced Marion Jones) come close to the records of Griffiths-Joyner and Koch?

I think I've read that FloJo's 10.49 time had a wind reading error and probably had an illegal following wind rather than a Zero wind reading, so even compared to other doped up ridiculous times it is an outlier.

Which would put Jeter within 0.03 of the record, which makes more sense.

Her 200m times, I've no idea why they're not getting as close, maybe because the coaches/enables have got scruples and don't want to turn their athletes into men any longer?

 

[More Strides than Rides]

I think I've read that FloJo's 10.49 time had a wind reading error and probably had an illegal following wind rather than a Zero wind reading, so even compared to other doped up ridiculous times it is an outlier.

Which would put Jeter within 0.03 of the record, which makes more sense.

Her 200m times, I've no idea why they're not getting as close, maybe because the coaches/enables have got scruples and don't want to turn their athletes into men any longer?

To add:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkpTsAmv8XQ

You can see the official's flag behind the start line being blown fully out towards the finish line. Not to mention their bibs and hair blowing before and after the race.


Blake is pulling an Andy Schleck right now, which I'm okay with. I'm hoping that the JAAA dope program left enough of a paper trail for someone to piece together in the future, but I'm not sure anyone would have enough motivation or support to challenge and dig the way USPS was brought down.

 

[HSNHSN]

Tracks are designed to for faster sprinting now.

That's an interesting statement. Don't tracks actually need to have some kind of balance between long distances and sprint distances? One of those (I always forget which) needs a lot harder underground than the other to be running fast, if I recall correctly, so if tracks are designed for faster sprinting, there should be a pay-off in the longer distances. One would expect the times for longer distances to get slower, if sprint times would get faster for this single reason. Does someone by any chance know if this actually is the case?

 

[Catwhoorg]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/10,000_metres#Men

Very few entries in the all time top 25 within the last decade.

3 of them are from a single race (in Eugene), which is an older track (I think)

Season's best have been drifting higher for about the last decade.

Now part of that I am sure is the bigger purses in road marathons. Follow the money.

 

[slowspoke]

Thoughts?

 

[SeriousSam]

I think the guy with the red shorts dopes.

 

[slowspoke]

I think the guy with the red shorts dopes.

Thank you. Very thoughtful.

 

[slowspoke]

BTW he also just won the 1500m

 

[The Hitch]

I can't see anyone beating the womens' sprint records from the 80s any time soon. Serious question: if doping is all that is responsible for the improvement in mens' sprint records this century, why has no woman (not even a juiced Marion Jones) come close to the records of Griffiths-Joyner and Koch?

A poster (spalco I think ) posted a quote, about 2 years ago from a East German doctor which was something like "we can turn women into men but we cannot turn men into fish"

From that quote we can discern that the pre epo drugs did not have as much of an effect on men as on women.

So that is one possible answer.

Edit: Either way, the US women's team did break the east german sprint record at the olympics.

I can also offer as a second line of speculation that doping in track and field may have been more nation based during the cold war. US and USSR and East Germany all wanted to win medals as part of politics so doped their athletes. Since the cold war doping may have become more financial. There's more money in men's 100m than women's.

To back that up I can give the example of Carl Lewis doping with the US programme, and Maurice Greene and Tim Montgommery (as well as Marian) doping with Conte who was doing his own independent thing for financial gain. In the former case nation sponsored doping, in the latter case pure business. More money in men's 100m more doping. Might very well be the same situation in this thing of ours - even more so since women's cycling is so small compared to men's atm unfortunately.