Nadal/Tennis doping

[Bumeington]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/8353208.stm

"I have confidence in my colleagues and in other players. I always believe they're clean"

Innocence or lies?

 

[unsheath]

Isnt he the one tennis pro supposedly linked to Puerto? Explains his amazing endurance in the long 5 setters and how fresh he always looks despite 4hours + of effort.

Another Dirty Chorizo!!

 

[craig1985]

From what I've been told is that Nadal is a Fuentes client.

 

[sherer]

Isnt he the one tennis pro supposedly linked to Puerto? Explains his amazing endurance in the long 5 setters and how fresh he always looks despite 4hours + of effort.

Another Dirty Chorizo!!

this is what really annoyed me about Puerto. When the story broke we were told this went to players of Real, Barca and a host of other sports too yet the only names i've ever seen linked or charged with it are cyclists. Same with the IOC, anyone tests positive, if they are a cyclist their name is released. Any other sport you have to wait for the results

 

[poupou]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/tennis/8353208.stm

"I have confidence in my colleagues and in other players. I always believe they're clean"

Innocence or lies?

"I have confidence in my team-mates and in other riders. I always believe they're clean
Festina was just a few french bad apples."
could have said Lance

 

[Bobby700c]

If you assume that doping does happen in tennis, then the omerta already exists. Certainly it would not benefit Nadal to start speaking out against doping, even if he is clean - at the end of the day, he's at the top of the sport getting rich

 

[elapid]

this is what really annoyed me about Puerto. When the story broke we were told this went to players of Real, Barca and a host of other sports too yet the only names i've ever seen linked or charged with it are cyclists. Same with the IOC, anyone tests positive, if they are a cyclist their name is released. Any other sport you have to wait for the results

Yep. Real Madrid and Barcelona actually sued the French rag Le Monde for publishing unsubstantiated allegations linking their players with Operation Puerto. I am not sure about Real Madrid, but Barcelona won their law suit because Le Monde could not substantiate their allegations and ended up paying Barcelona 300,000 euros in damages. Imagine if this happened in cycling?

 

[350Watts]

He has always complained about dope testing....."its a disgrace", "harassment", "too strict". All the usual complaints. I think that he is the on the ATP council, a good place to exert leverage.

 

[350Watts]

Real ironic how Agassi was on the ATP's drug task force back in his day and also loudly proclaimed tennis as clean.

 

[red_explosions]

Call me cynical but Nadal has always looked suspect in my eyes. The guy has huge upper-body muscle mass yet has been able to outsprint and wear down the top guys in the world over 5 sets on many occasions. Just doesn't look right to me that he can carry all that weight around and still look fresher than his opponents.

 

[Kennf1]

Call me cynical but Nadal has always looked suspect in my eyes. The guy has huge upper-body muscle mass yet has been able to outsprint and wear down the top guys in the world over 5 sets on many occasions. Just doesn't look right to me that he can carry all that weight around and still look fresher than his opponents.

He is considerably younger than his top opponents (Federer), but I agree, he does not have a typical tennis player's build. If only one of his arms were big I might be less skeptical.

 

[Polish]

o my omerta

Omerta can be used as a excuse to explain how some people are too
Ignorant/Unimaginative/Lazy to get to the bottom of a Scandal/Story.

"We may never know the answer - it is hidden behind Omerrrrrrrrta. Boo"

Woodward and Bernstein would penetrate cycling's or tennis's "Omerta"
without even breaking stride lol.

Geez, do you expect cycle/tennis cheaters to walk right up to you and say -
"Dude I'm cheating". Gosh I think some of you do!

and if they do not its omerrrrrrrrrta boo?

Cycling in particular has the most bungling dorky dopers of any sport.
Kohl for crying out loud....and Kimmage thought he was clean....hopeless

 

[blackcat]

If I am Fed, I put about 5 million Euro of my 100 million Euro wealth, into the pocket of some Mossad guys, and then blow the lid on Nadal's doping. Those guys will find the evidence, and then seed the story into papers of record like the Gray Lady.

 

[filipo]

Omerta can be used as a excuse to explain how some people are too
Ignorant/Unimaginative/Lazy to get to the bottom of a Scandal/Story.

"We may never know the answer - it is hidden behind Omerrrrrrrrta. Boo"

Woodward and Bernstein would penetrate cycling's or tennis's "Omerta"
without even breaking stride lol.

Geez, do you expect cycle/tennis cheaters to walk right up to you and say -
"Dude I'm cheating". Gosh I think some of you do!

and if they do not its omerrrrrrrrrta boo?

Cycling in particular has the most bungling dorky dopers of any sport.
Kohl for crying out loud....and Kimmage thought he was clean....hopeless

You must be joking -- it's either that or you're as dumb as your typing skills make you look. Woodward and Bernstein would have been nowhere without their informant -- an informant who came to them, not the other way around.

Talk about being too ignorant...

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Almost amusing that Nadal spoke out last week critical of Agassi's admission.

I don't trust many of the top tennis players, male or female. ATP has very lax testing as is, players can even refuse one test per year. Imagine that, a tester shows up to Contador's door looking for a sample during the Tour, and he says "not today, thank you. Now go away" and they have to leave.

Agree that cycling gets the short end of the stick with all the leaks, announcements, etc. But you have to admit, a great deal of this we brought upon ourselves.

 

[hfer07]

I dare to say that Tennis is as dirty as Cycling- and for that matter, all professional sports have some sort of Omerta in place. Nobody really knows the length of doping in tennis, without any policy in place to catch/test/prosecute athletes with multi-million dollar contracts/endorsements benefiting the public view of an sport not stained by scandalous accusations like the ones casting Nadal. would everybody like to find out that Pete Sampras was on EPO? Does anybody want to check on Tiger Woods to find out the amount of pills he pops to boost concentration?

Everything comes down to the money marked moved around on each sport- Someone mentioned Real Madrid's & Barca's footballers being included on the OP list--realistically the likelihood of any scandal coming from two of the wealthiest football teams on earth is zero-they'll bury the entire story from the planet, sacrifice as many as they must, and they'll maintain the reputation untouched -at minimum-

 

[blackcat]

I dare to say that Tennis is as dirty as Cycling- and for that matter, all professional sports have some sort of Omerta in place. Nobody really knows the length of doping in tennis, without any policy in place to catch/test/prosecute when the sport's dirty image has been undermined. would everybody like to find out that Pete Sampras was on EPO? Does anybody want to check on Tiger Woods to find out the amount of pills he pops to boost concentration?

Everything comes down to the money marked moved around on each sport- Someone mentioned Real Madrid's & Barca's footballers being included on the OP list--realistically the likelihood of any scandal coming from two of the wealthiest football teams on earth is zero-they'll bury the entire story from the planet, sacrifice as many as they must, and they'll maintain the reputation untouched -at minimum-

there was a story on Andre Agassi running out on a tester. Check Gil Reyes, power lifter, he trainer. Agassi benches 350 lbs? yeah right.

I think there is an institutional racism in the doping enforcement. See in tennis, all the Argentinians get popped for stimulants. Only others who got popped for stimulatns were Greg Rusedski who I believe got off, and Petr Korda for a steroid.

Now Nadal is protected.

Just like in cycling, everyone points the fingers at the Spaniards. Easy scapegoats imo. No problems, the sport is clean, nothing to see here, move along folks.

 

[kiwirider]

I don't trust many of the top tennis players, male or female. ATP has very lax testing as is, players can even refuse one test per year. Imagine that, a tester shows up to Contador's door looking for a sample during the Tour, and he says "not today, thank you. Now go away" and they have to leave.

Agree with you on not trusting top tennis players. You comment about ATP testing being lax - I am not certain but I seem to remember something a few years back about the players striking because they thought that the testing regime was too strong and as a result the ATP revised the regime to soemthing less strict ... in conjunction with the players ...

Also, I find it incredible to see the service speeds that they're now getting in women's tennis. Again, if memory serves (bad pun ... sorry ...), it wasn't that long back that the commentators were making a huge fuss about Sampras and literally a couple of other guys who managed to serve over 160km/h. Now that sort of speed is surprisingly routine in the women's game and doesn't even rate a mention in the men's game. It's all about changes in raquet technology though, of course ... (Yeah, right!!)

Oh, and last comment about a cyclist being able to turn away the testers ... do you mean by doing something like going for a shower while his - I mean "a cyclist's" - manager sits and talks with the testers ... or perhaps testers sitting and having a coffee with the team before commencing testing during a stage race?? Nah, would never happen in cycling, ay?!

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

As I posted before somewhere else, I don't think FIFA (or the NFL/MLB/NBA/PGA, any big league with tons of money) are that concerned about seriously stopping doping. As long as competition is good, and no one drops dead right there on the pitch, it's not a serious issue to them.

 

[icefire]

Nadal is not alone on this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/feb/06/tennis-andy-murray-anti-doping

 

[craig1985]

Yep. Real Madrid and Barcelona actually sued the French rag Le Monde for publishing unsubstantiated allegations linking their players with Operation Puerto. I am not sure about Real Madrid, but Barcelona won their law suit because Le Monde could not substantiate their allegations and ended up paying Barcelona 300,000 euros in damages. Imagine if this happened in cycling?

Didn't a French newspaper made allegations that Baden Cooke was doping and he turned around and sued them?

 

[blackcat]

As I posted before somewhere else, I don't think FIFA (or the NFL/MLB/NBA/PGA, any big league with tons of money) are that concerned about seriously stopping doping. As long as competition is good, and no one drops dead right there on the pitch, it's not a serious issue to them.

but with the UCI, there is folks dropping dead. And it still aint a serious issue.

 

[blackcat]

Didn't a French newspaper made allegations that Baden Cooke was doping and he turned around and sued them?

theatened to. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...oyer"+"baden+cooke"&btnG=Search&aq=f&oq=&aqi=

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Testing in tennis is a joke - and makes cycling look positively efficient and proactive.

In tennis last year just 91 of the 2000 tests were out of competition.

""EPO is the problem,'' Jim Courier told NEWSWEEK back in 1999 - the ITF official Doctor, Stuart Miller, who is in charge anti-doping was quick to point out that no tennis player has ever tested positive for EPO.

What he didn't mention was that there were only 20 EPO tests throughout 2008 - all were done in competition.
Asked to explain this Dr. miller said "Maybe tennis is not a sport that is driven by a need to maximize stamina, which is what EPO essentially does."

 

[Alpe d'Huez]

Sounds like Dr. Miller could work for the UCI.

but with the UCI, there is folks dropping dead. And it still ain't a serious issue.

Disturbingly true. I have this sick feeling in my gut that even if someone fell of their bike and died right on TV in the middle of the Tour and was found doped to the gills, after all the hubbub died down, not a whole lot would actually be changed.