I didn't want to start a new thread but this seemed like a good idea to put all my thoughts in one place rather than a thousand replies. I am new to posting but I have been reading the forum for years.
Like many people, the thing that bothers me the most about doping is that we find out days, months, or even years later that so-and-so's incredible winning effort was due to drugs. I remember getting this feeling when finding out about Ricco and about Rasmussen (not convicted of actual doping but similar). Until the efficiency of analyzing samples improves this will not change.
The ideal situation is thus. Develop a method which will analyze everyone's samples which are taken before the start of a race. No sample, no participation. Analyze the samples in a nearly error proof test which takes approximately an hour. When the results are in, disqualify the offending riders while the race is going on. Continue to test as they are doing now once the race is over, to catch if anyone took anything during the race.
Until this technology is possible we will be unable to escape the feeling we get when someone does something amazing, and then three days later tests for CERA or something. We will also be unable to escape the suspicious feeling we now get whenever anyone currently does anything amazing. In other words, these feelings have reduced the enjoyment we get from watching cycling and until the technology improves, neither will our feelings.
Sometimes I wonder if doping is or isn't the same as mechanical improvements. The average rider even this year can do better than an average rider from 50 years ago on improvement on conditioning and strength training, eating better, not smoking, etc. And that is if this year's riders were on bicycles from 50 years ago. I always have the hour record in the back of my mind. The bicycle and riding position developed by Obree was fascinating. And yet, there is always this need to compare results to the greats of the past. So the UCI created more than one hour record.
In other words, there are people who could care less about technology, they want to see if a man is faster than another man, even if that other man cycled 40 years ago. This mind set gave us single speed bicycles in the Tour de France long past the point when it became hilarious.
There are others who love the technology, but only the mechanical kind. Carbon fiber water bottle cages! Hooray! Wind tunnel testing!
In theory, isn't doping a kind of technology? Where is the line drawn between nutritional supplements which aren't banned and those that are? And another thing sticks out to me -- performance enhancing drugs. If they don't enhance your performance, can they truly be called that? Now, one could argue that when they catch the guy who is in 107th to show everyone they mean business about catching the cheaters -- it may be true that the poor guy would be in 200th or most likely not even in the race if he wasn't on the drugs -- they do enhance his performance -- but what we really want out of the sport are the performance enhancing drugs which cause the guy who isn't in first place to become first place.
When it all boils down to it, you have to prove -- did whatever Schleck have in his system enhance his performance?
But I wonder if that is really true? What if there were two events going on at the same time -- the Super Clean Race, where everyone was 100% clean, no questions about it, or the Jose Canseco Memorial Race, where people could take whatever they could get their hands on? I really wonder which event would get the better ratings.
I get the whole point behind due process, and with USADA involved it is much like USA Tax Court - hardly any rights for the accused. I agree with the notion that if USADA intends to deprive someone of their rights and livelihood like a common criminal, then the accused should at least have as many rights in a courtroom as a common criminal. However, the athletes do agree to participate in all of this when they go into that line of work in the first place, and there aren't enough athletes standing up for themselves. They are much like baseball players in the 1950s who are just so happy they get paid for playing baseball that they don't realize that they have been sold into indentured servitude -- unable to negotiate with anyone other than their master, and unable to earn what the market determines they should, like the rest of the free world.
If athletes truly cared about their rights in this area, they wouldn't agree to participate in it. They would do the only right thing -- they would quit and go home, and call the bluffs of the organizers. You can't have an athletic event without athletes. Seriously, how simple would it be for USADA to retain the team of lawyers they already have and argue their case in federal court every time a doping violation comes up? And yet, they retain this edge because the athletes don't care enough to speak up for themselves.
Baseball players used to not care about free agency because they didn't think that they could ever get it. Then a few stuck their neck out, and as a result, they did get it. Then the head of the union, an economist by trade, fixed the market so that it would favor the players. While I think that was a little cheeky and unfair, the owners agreed to it, mostly because they weren't economists (i.e. they were dumb). I think that if athletes stood up for themselves, they could get the simple concession of trial by jury, which in theory according to their natural rights, they already have.
If there is one thing I can't stand, its the Nancy Grace attitute that everyone accused is guilty and therefore must be run through, put on a spit, and roasted in front of everyone without a trial. I know that attitude might not get me far with the suspicious crowd that thinks that everyone who wins a bicycle race must be high on 17 different untestable things. I would like to think that I'm being fair with the issue when I say, let the accused have their day in court.
All the fans want is for the process to be fair. In theory, it wouldn't truly be "fair" because the riders all have varying levels of actual talent. I am not in favor of any Harrison Bergeron type stuff here. However, I have to wonder...
Because the crusade to eliminate doping falls on individual countries' doping authorities, is it fair for different penalties to be handed out for similar offenses?
Because one nation might be more fervent in going after retroactive doping abuses, does that mean that if, as a result, someone would be stripped of a title, that the guy in second place would receive the award, even if he too was doped to the gills, but just happens to have a national federation that doesn't care about going after retroactive doping abuses? Is that fair? Has winning a cycle race now come down to which country is more puritanical about doping? Have the French held themselves back for 15 years or in that whole time, did they just not have anyone capable of getting on a Tour podium?
These are some of my thoughts on the subject and I would love to know where the peanut gallery falls on this. I am no means an expert on any of this -- I do have a chemistry degree but it is more in the area of polymers, materials science, physical chemistry, than organic or biochemistry.
Thanks for reading!
Like many people, the thing that bothers me the most about doping is that we find out days, months, or even years later that so-and-so's incredible winning effort was due to drugs. I remember getting this feeling when finding out about Ricco and about Rasmussen (not convicted of actual doping but similar). Until the efficiency of analyzing samples improves this will not change.
The ideal situation is thus. Develop a method which will analyze everyone's samples which are taken before the start of a race. No sample, no participation. Analyze the samples in a nearly error proof test which takes approximately an hour. When the results are in, disqualify the offending riders while the race is going on. Continue to test as they are doing now once the race is over, to catch if anyone took anything during the race.
Until this technology is possible we will be unable to escape the feeling we get when someone does something amazing, and then three days later tests for CERA or something. We will also be unable to escape the suspicious feeling we now get whenever anyone currently does anything amazing. In other words, these feelings have reduced the enjoyment we get from watching cycling and until the technology improves, neither will our feelings.
Sometimes I wonder if doping is or isn't the same as mechanical improvements. The average rider even this year can do better than an average rider from 50 years ago on improvement on conditioning and strength training, eating better, not smoking, etc. And that is if this year's riders were on bicycles from 50 years ago. I always have the hour record in the back of my mind. The bicycle and riding position developed by Obree was fascinating. And yet, there is always this need to compare results to the greats of the past. So the UCI created more than one hour record.
In other words, there are people who could care less about technology, they want to see if a man is faster than another man, even if that other man cycled 40 years ago. This mind set gave us single speed bicycles in the Tour de France long past the point when it became hilarious.
There are others who love the technology, but only the mechanical kind. Carbon fiber water bottle cages! Hooray! Wind tunnel testing!
In theory, isn't doping a kind of technology? Where is the line drawn between nutritional supplements which aren't banned and those that are? And another thing sticks out to me -- performance enhancing drugs. If they don't enhance your performance, can they truly be called that? Now, one could argue that when they catch the guy who is in 107th to show everyone they mean business about catching the cheaters -- it may be true that the poor guy would be in 200th or most likely not even in the race if he wasn't on the drugs -- they do enhance his performance -- but what we really want out of the sport are the performance enhancing drugs which cause the guy who isn't in first place to become first place.
When it all boils down to it, you have to prove -- did whatever Schleck have in his system enhance his performance?
But I wonder if that is really true? What if there were two events going on at the same time -- the Super Clean Race, where everyone was 100% clean, no questions about it, or the Jose Canseco Memorial Race, where people could take whatever they could get their hands on? I really wonder which event would get the better ratings.
I get the whole point behind due process, and with USADA involved it is much like USA Tax Court - hardly any rights for the accused. I agree with the notion that if USADA intends to deprive someone of their rights and livelihood like a common criminal, then the accused should at least have as many rights in a courtroom as a common criminal. However, the athletes do agree to participate in all of this when they go into that line of work in the first place, and there aren't enough athletes standing up for themselves. They are much like baseball players in the 1950s who are just so happy they get paid for playing baseball that they don't realize that they have been sold into indentured servitude -- unable to negotiate with anyone other than their master, and unable to earn what the market determines they should, like the rest of the free world.
If athletes truly cared about their rights in this area, they wouldn't agree to participate in it. They would do the only right thing -- they would quit and go home, and call the bluffs of the organizers. You can't have an athletic event without athletes. Seriously, how simple would it be for USADA to retain the team of lawyers they already have and argue their case in federal court every time a doping violation comes up? And yet, they retain this edge because the athletes don't care enough to speak up for themselves.
Baseball players used to not care about free agency because they didn't think that they could ever get it. Then a few stuck their neck out, and as a result, they did get it. Then the head of the union, an economist by trade, fixed the market so that it would favor the players. While I think that was a little cheeky and unfair, the owners agreed to it, mostly because they weren't economists (i.e. they were dumb). I think that if athletes stood up for themselves, they could get the simple concession of trial by jury, which in theory according to their natural rights, they already have.
If there is one thing I can't stand, its the Nancy Grace attitute that everyone accused is guilty and therefore must be run through, put on a spit, and roasted in front of everyone without a trial. I know that attitude might not get me far with the suspicious crowd that thinks that everyone who wins a bicycle race must be high on 17 different untestable things. I would like to think that I'm being fair with the issue when I say, let the accused have their day in court.
All the fans want is for the process to be fair. In theory, it wouldn't truly be "fair" because the riders all have varying levels of actual talent. I am not in favor of any Harrison Bergeron type stuff here. However, I have to wonder...
Because the crusade to eliminate doping falls on individual countries' doping authorities, is it fair for different penalties to be handed out for similar offenses?
Because one nation might be more fervent in going after retroactive doping abuses, does that mean that if, as a result, someone would be stripped of a title, that the guy in second place would receive the award, even if he too was doped to the gills, but just happens to have a national federation that doesn't care about going after retroactive doping abuses? Is that fair? Has winning a cycle race now come down to which country is more puritanical about doping? Have the French held themselves back for 15 years or in that whole time, did they just not have anyone capable of getting on a Tour podium?
These are some of my thoughts on the subject and I would love to know where the peanut gallery falls on this. I am no means an expert on any of this -- I do have a chemistry degree but it is more in the area of polymers, materials science, physical chemistry, than organic or biochemistry.
Thanks for reading!
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