Freaks & Dopers in Sports

[runninboy]

All the dopers have affected the overall quality of sports but in a way different than most people think.
Nowadays people believe you cannot attain a certain standard with hard work, only cheating. so they do not even bother trying.
When i was in High School there were alot of really good runners who didnt dope. They were legitimate and everyone worked hard.
if you look at a benchmark for U.S. HS running, say 2 miles in close to 9 minutes or less there are roughly 250 who have done it. 85 of those were in high school the same time as me. A similar sample of recent years only half that number.
Also the top 25 US milers in High school half of them came before 1980
3 of the top 4 before 1968.

In cycling Thurlow Rodgers still holds one course record for a ten mile TT in So cal with a 30 mph average back in the 80s. John Tomac was pretty competitive but a little slower than Thurlows best.

When i was running even when you ran great people would say something like
that was amazing, if you keep working maybe you will be as good as Ryun someday. No one ever questioned the legitimacy of your performance because there were so many other people who were that fast.

When Alan Webb finally broke 4 minutes in High school, there were alot of people who thought drug use might be involved. Of course 3 runners who were not on drugs did it 4 decades earlier.

Anyway the point of this thread is that people used to be good, not because they were genetic freaks or doped but because they worked hard.
People did not set arbitrary limits, if you worked hard you could accomplish things that people never dream of doing.

I mention these things in the context of running most times because there is a definite benchmark of time and performance, whereas cycling is more subjective to your competition , equipment, terrain & discipline.

When Ryun started running he was terrible he ran 5 30 for the mile within a year he was a minute faster. Then his coach took him aside and showed him some charts of another High school runner(Archie San Romani) he had coached who ran 4:08 about the time Bannister had broken the 4 minute barrier for the first time.
Ryun had already surpassed Aechies sopmore year times so the coach thought Ryun could be the first High schooler to break four minutes.
The bottom line was Ryun broke four minutes
but two years later in California another high schooler broke 4
and then the next year another high schooler in New Jersey broke 4.
then no one for more than 30 years.
My theory is when you believe something is possible you work hard & accomplish great things.
If you believe you can only do these things using drugs or if you are some sort of freak you will never reach your potential

 

[blackcat]

doperz & freakZ

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Interesting post. Especially this line:

Nowadays people believe you cannot attain a certain standard with hard work, only cheating

I would venture to say this is endemic to our society. Take a look at the economic collapse. A house of cards was built. Not upon the old motto of "hard work pays", but around investing, and various forms of trickery and other schemes that didn't require working on anything, producing any products or servicing anything. Stores were lined with books on how you could get rich without working. And it was all on speculation, like things that your house would magically be worth quadruple what you bought it for every few years. And along the way we had the government cook the books through the tax codes and regulation (or lack there of) to insure that's how it worked, and the AIG's and Bernie Madoffs could make themselves filthy rich doing nothing, nothing other than working the system's rules with their knowledge.

Sorry if that sounds like a diversion, but I do think I make a good point. I think this mindset has permeated it's way all the way down to common people, and in youths over the last decade, that are now in adulthood. It's what we showed them, and it's what we're seeing. Both in the world, and in sports.

 

[180mmCrank]

Nowadays people believe you cannot attain a certain standard with hard work, only cheating.

Interestingly I am not sure that some of the folk that cheat would see it as cheating - to them it would just be getting ahead! I came across a few folk as a high school teacher for 10 years... and to them it was just playing The Game. If they got caught they would think of it as a kind of occupational hazard.

And I still believe that most folk have a pretty good moral compass about this kind of thing. They do see cheating as wrong and feel any achievement is diminished if obtained through unfair means.

 

[runninboy]

Interesting post. Especially this line:



I would venture to say this is endemic to our society. Take a look at the economic collapse. A house of cards was built. Not upon the old motto of "hard work pays", but around investing, and various forms of trickery and other schemes that didn't require working on anything, producing any products or servicing anything. Stores were lined with books on how you could get rich without working. And it was all on speculation, like things that your house would magically be worth quadruple what you bought it for every few years. And along the way we had the government cook the books through the tax codes and regulation (or lack there of) to insure that's how it worked, and the AIG's and Bernie Madoffs could make themselves filthy rich doing nothing, nothing other than working the system's rules with their knowledge.

Sorry if that sounds like a diversion, but I do think I make a good point. I think this mindset has permeated it's way all the way down to common people, and in youths over the last decade, that are now in adulthood. It's what we showed them, and it's what we're seeing. Both in the world, and in sports.

agree completely. success in life & sports used to be considered hollow if not achieved legitimately. Now it is all about winning, period.
I was raised in an enviroment where you did your best. It didnt matter if u won or lost you were trying to reach your potential, what others did was immaterial. In business & life people treated each other fairly, you tried to earn a good living, but not at the expense of others. You paid people a fair price for a good product and you expected to be treated the same way.
I was taught there was no such thing as a dirty job as long as you worked hard.

 

[blackcat]

agree completely. success in life & sports used to be considered hollow if not achieved legitimately. Now it is all about winning, period.
I was raised in an enviroment where you did your best. It didnt matter if u won or lost you were trying to reach your potential, what others did was immaterial. In business & life people treated each other fairly, you tried to earn a good living, but not at the expense of others. You paid people a fair price for a good product and you expected to be treated the same way.
I was taught there was no such thing as a dirty job as long as you worked hard.

I know only cycling, but when a comprehensive medical program give you 20% in the third week of a GT, good luck competing.

I reckon a good medical program gives you about 4 seconds per km too.

 

[runninboy]

Interestingly I am not sure that some of the folk that cheat would see it as cheating - to them it would just be getting ahead! I came across a few folk as a high school teacher for 10 years... and to them it was just playing The Game. If they got caught they would think of it as a kind of occupational hazard.

And I still believe that most folk have a pretty good moral compass about this kind of thing. They do see cheating as wrong and feel any achievement is diminished if obtained through unfair means.

I also believe that most people do have a good moral compass about cheating.
My problem is our general perception on what is possible has really slipped thanks to the presence of drugs. My generation of runners was full of people who actually overtrained because we thought we could achieve anything.
My father who had an extensive military background always told me i trained too hard & raced too easy. I didnt pay enough attention to that advice, but it was sound. He knew what the human body of a relatively untrained individual was capable of doing, so he could see i was not getting the maximum benefit of my training.
When i entered college and got basically the same advice from my coach who was an Olympic finalist i started to listen & understand the concept.

I am afraid that while people might be inspired to a certain degree by alot of todays top cyclists, they are also aware of the doping surrounding the sport and so they will not dig as deep because they have lowered their expectations about what a non doped individual can achieve through hard work. Sad.

 

[Hugh Januss]

Interesting post. Especially this line:



I would venture to say this is endemic to our society. Take a look at the economic collapse. A house of cards was built. Not upon the old motto of "hard work pays", but around investing, and various forms of trickery and other schemes that didn't require working on anything, producing any products or servicing anything. Stores were lined with books on how you could get rich without working. And it was all on speculation, like things that your house would magically be worth quadruple what you bought it for every few years. And along the way we had the government cook the books through the tax codes and regulation (or lack there of) to insure that's how it worked, and the AIG's and Bernie Madoffs could make themselves filthy rich doing nothing, nothing other than working the system's rules with their knowledge.

Sorry if that sounds like a diversion, but I do think I make a good point. I think this mindset has permeated it's way all the way down to common people, and in youths over the last decade, that are now in adulthood. It's what we showed them, and it's what we're seeing. Both in the world, and in sports.

agree completely. success in life & sports used to be considered hollow if not achieved legitimately. Now it is all about winning, period.
I was raised in an enviroment where you did your best. It didnt matter if u won or lost you were trying to reach your potential, what others did was immaterial. In business & life people treated each other fairly, you tried to earn a good living, but not at the expense of others. You paid people a fair price for a good product and you expected to be treated the same way.
I was taught there was no such thing as a dirty job as long as you worked hard.

That is exactly how I see it as well. Are we the real suckers? At least by todays standard.

 

[cromagnon]

Teachers don't teach a subject they prime the kids for exams, examiners in the UK are not allowed (by law) to give marks for flow of structured arguments or creative thinking. The hordes of morons that are born would see this as unfair. It is unfair, some are intelligent others are not.

Education in all but the best schools is a box ticking exercise until university. The universities (who have their own exam board and are relatively independent and the good ones are run by some classy people) then see students who should be geniuses according to their compulsory education grades but are completely lost when required to THINK and critically approach problems.

Kids stuggle with maths because (thank god) the "shortcut" step by step method "worker ant" moronic method of solving maths problems by memorising stupid acronyms to remind you of certain steps only takes you so far. Deep understanding is still required to be successful in many areas (thank god, a haven from the morons).

 

[fatandfast]

It is strange how these doping threads keep going higher and higher up what people see as the food chain. Vino and Bernie Madoff probably have something in common but it would take a while to find it. In the US we love all things cheap at no matter the moral cost. China has a Gov that pays slaves to make us lawn furniture and bicycles, but you seldom see people refusing to go to a BBQ or a Sunday ride because their tools of enjoyment are made by slaves. All westerns can watch Africa as China pumps billions into building roads,railways, airports,seaports and oil fields in order to set themselves up to get raw materials from Africa. As China continues to write checks and make friends with cash, it is written over and over that their money comes with no moral conditions. The west used to give loans all over but they would tie in human rights or some enivro cause before the money could be taken. 90% of most things made in a US household were made by slaves in the 3rd world not getting paid a livable wage or without much regard for mother earth, cheating starts at home and sometimes it's not so easy to stop or see where it started. Next time you buy a diamond usually a symbol of love think if anybody got cheated to get it to the jewelry store. Before I am chewed up by the web sharks..I do own and enjoy @20k worth of slave bicycles and my Weber grill was also made by some hard working Chinese laborer. Both my Acer laptops made in China,didn't say I was better just making an observation.

 

[elapid]

There are also societal factors to consider, whether it be professional athletes or school kids. Look at the obesity problem: how many people are making squillions of dollars when the basic answer to the problem is eat less and exercise more. Fat people would rather the quick fix with pills and whatever else than doing some hard work. Western society in general is all about the quick fix and pay for the consequences later, whether it be on a personal level (credit card debt, fast food diets, doping, etc), business level (banking, prime loans, insurance, get rich schemes, etc), or government level (education, health care system, etc). We want to see the benefits now rather than save/work towards whatever we desire or aim to achieve.

 

[Bumeington]

I know only cycling, but when a comprehensive medical program give you 20% in the third week of a GT, good luck competing.

I reckon a good medical program gives you about 4 seconds per km too.

The problem I have with the 20% figure that is bandied about is not that it is unbelievable, but that it is only applicable for someone pumping themselves full of PEDs. Surely most cynics now accept we live in the age of microdosing, rather than there is just some new PED the testers don't know about yet (surely the last time this happened is with plain old EPO in around, say, the late 90s, 99 perhaps ). Thus, if a comprehensive medical program involves only microdosing surely it must give an advantage of less than 20%.

Would be interested to hear your views.

 

[blackcat]

The problem I have with the 20% figure that is bandied about is not that it is unbelievable, but that it is only applicable for someone pumping themselves full of PEDs. Surely most cynics now accept we live in the age of microdosing, rather than there is just some new PED the testers don't know about yet (surely the last time this happened is with plain old EPO in around, say, the late 90s, 99 perhaps ). Thus, if a comprehensive medical program involves only microdosing surely it must give an advantage of less than 20%.

Would be interested to hear your views.

3rd week, with 3 transfusions, insulin, maybe some igf--1 and other growth factors/androgens...

20% is pretty conservative imo. Where do you reckon Kohl woulda been?