Olympics Doping Thread

[Benotti69]

Re:

In the first instance it seemed Kenny may not have broken the rules but it was incredibly close, the second time looked worse but I guess after not DQing Kenny in the first case they could not DQ in the second case.

Then everyone should get a medal !!!

The alleged excuse given was the camera that checks for riders passing derny motorbike before the line was not correctly lined up, but that would cover Kenny & Malaysian but did they not line it up so German rider gets DQ'd?

Seems the arbitrary application of the rules is par for UCI. Sham!

 

[Benotti69]

Quick Fact

If team GB can stay ahead of China, they'll be first smaller nation to gatecrash top two of olympic medal table since East Germany in 1988.

Let's remind ourselves how those clean living East Germans became such fantastic olympic champions.......

 

[El Pistolero]

Re: Re:

Can we have a discussion about Chinese domination of table tennis?

When did the Chinese begin to dominate Table Tennis?

Is it not their national sport?

Did all their athletes win medals?

Why all the questions? I was hoping for a reasoned analysis.

China - population of one billion people

India - population of one billion people.

There's a lot more to dominating a sport than a large population and thus a large talent pool

Unlike India, China invests a lot of money into developing talented athletes.

 

[Bwlch y Groes]

Ultimately, Britain may be throwing much more at track cycling than other countries, but that raises the question of what they're spending the money in. There aren't many things that will give you that much of an advantage that other countries won't have - I mean seriously, people bring up the facilities but what facilities does Britain have that other countries don't have? What's going to give you that magical advantage?

Even if we dismiss the potential for excessive British doping in other events like swimming, gymnastics, athletics etc, the cycling results are currently the difference between being comfortably 2nd and 3rd just ahead of the Russians who don't have an athletics team

 

[pastronef]

Re: Re:

https://twitter.com/Laura_Weislo/status/765666705267974148

UCI breaking it own rules to ensure Jason Kenny stayed in final.

Why only single out Kenny?

Keirn Silver medal winner Büchli saying: "Normally they (all 3) would have been DQd."

Thank you.

yes, thank you Beno.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re:

Ultimately, Britain may be throwing much more at track cycling than other countries, but that raises the question of what they're spending the money in. There aren't many things that will give you that much of an advantage that other countries won't have - I mean seriously, people bring up the facilities but what facilities does Britain have that other countries don't have? What's going to give you that magical advantage?

Even if we dismiss the potential for excessive British doping in other events like swimming, gymnastics, athletics etc, the cycling results are currently the difference between being comfortably 2nd and 3rd just ahead of the Russians who don't have an athletics team

The British government pays for the schooling and housing of young talented track cyclists in Manchester.

Hey, if the Brits rather spend money on something as useless as Olympic medals then let them. Healthcare is not important, right? :lol:

 

[Singer01]

Re:

https://twitter.com/Laura_Weislo/status/765666705267974148

UCI breaking it own rules to ensure Jason Kenny stayed in final.

100% agree, he should have been toast. 

 

[TMP402]

Re:

Ultimately, Britain may be throwing much more at track cycling than other countries, but that raises the question of what they're spending the money in. There aren't many things that will give you that much of an advantage that other countries won't have - I mean seriously, people bring up the facilities but what facilities does Britain have that other countries don't have? What's going to give you that magical advantage?

Even if we dismiss the potential for excessive British doping in other events like swimming, gymnastics, athletics etc, the cycling results are currently the difference between being comfortably 2nd and 3rd just ahead of the Russians who don't have an athletics team

Don't worry, the Russians are going to keep getting golds in the martial sports. Judges blatantly paid for.

 

[mike75]

If anyone is watching, the super heavyweight lifters are not disappointing! 4kg new WR in the snatch, 3 guys all surpassed previous mark, looking EASY! This is some "juicy" stuff! :lol:

 

[The Hitch]

This doesn't look good for FINA.

News Corp can reveal dopers Ning Zetao of China and Russian Yulia Efimova were not tested once by FINA in the five months immediately after they were controversially crowned world champions last year.

Swim team officials were dumbfounded when told of FINA’s testing failure which meant during peak training periods Ning and Efimova were only subjected to testing by their own agencies RUSADA and CHINADA – both since discredited this year – while the rest of the world faced a barrage of drugs tests.

In the same period Australia’s Cameron McEvoy faced three FINA drug tests, while 2015 world champions Bronte Campbell (two), Mitch Larkin (three) and Emily Seebohm (two) were also routinely tested without taking into account regular unannounced visits from ASADA.

Olympic relay champion Melanie Wright said it’s time to get rid of FINA and start with a clean slate for a clean sport.

“I think athletes and coaches have lost faith in FINA. They have been perennially weak on doping,” Wright told News Corp.

FINA’s failure to stand up to Russia or China was never more evident than in poolside hug between China’s once banned Sun Yang and FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu after his 200m freestyle medal ceremony.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/olympics-2016/convicted-drug-cheats-escaped-out-of-competition-testing-before-rio/news-story/1a8d97cd2cd846d8d9c973391e4a71ad

lol at that article whining about some ozzies being tested 2-3 times. We live in a world where Dennis Menchov while doping got tested something like once every 2-3 times a week for half a year and beat every one (and as far as I remember, a more effective testing system then the *** FINA has).

This is like complaining to Mcdonalds because you only counted 24 chips as part of your meal, whereas someone else got 26.

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

That insinuates the other athletes didn't bother to train as hard or are not as dedicated. I don't believe that for a second.

Do other countries have the lion's share of £350m thrown at specific sports like cycling?

£3 million, spent on a good doping programme, would be more effective than £300 million spent on everything else.

Of course, if everyone spends on the doping, the 300 might make a difference

 

[The Hegelian]

Re: Re:

http://www.smh.com.au/sport/olympics/rio-2016/olympics-cycling/rio-olympics--2016-track-cyclists-coach-ask-awesome-team-gb-whats-your-secret-20160816-gqtlbh.html

You could also post links to the myriad of articles out there that give reasoned explanation for Team GB's success, rather than frustrated outbursts by the vanquished. The truth is straightforward and simple, if not as lazy as jumping to the PEDs conclusion.

O goody, a reasoned explanation for the simple and straightforward truth. I love a good syllogism, especially one grounded in substantive empirical evidence.

Let's hear it.

Ok I'll try one. No (or little) empirical evidence but a simple thought experiment. Not one that will convince the harcore cognescenti on here for whom the only answer is duplicitous Brits, undetectable PEDS and high level conspiracy but it may help some readers...

Take as a starting point a very large budget entirely devoted to winning at the Olympics, and reviewed each 4 years cycle based on success at the previous Olympics. Hence; do well and your budget is kept the same or increased. I don't think anyone would contend that this isn't the case for BC?

So if you are a manager or coach in this case how might you go about ensuring success at the Olympics? (so that you can keep your budget high and secure your own job). Bear in mind that your financiers don't really care about the competitions in the intervening years.

With the athletes, one thing you might do (I certainly would) is to undercook them in the intervening years. Push them, but not hard enough. Let them off the leash a little, let them have a bit of fun in their lives. This has a number of effects;

- The r + r does them good
- the athletes get well beaten in the world championships. This means that they get to experience significant failure - and failure to live up to expectation. Then you as a coach can show them exactly how much harder they need to work. You can hear the conversation now - "If you don't pull your ******* fingers out you'll get destroyed at Rio."

It also means that your competitors can get complacent - "GB have gone, we beat them every year, Rio will be easy"

For the tech; if you spend four years developing advances, would you release them a bit at a time or would you hold them all back for when they are most needed?

Like I said, just a thought experiment. Occam's razor and all that.

Ok, I appreciate the attempt. But:

This is hardly a reasoned explanation for a simple and straightforward truth. It is a speculative narrative, or as you put it, a pure thought experiment. People who are defending GB's cleanliness want to assert that they have the reason and knowledge on their side - as good common sense analytic empirical philosophers. And they want to hold people who refute them as on the side of irrationality and speculative conspiracy theorizing.

But when asked to proffer this reasoning what do we get but pure speculation?

I think it is a perfectly rational question to ask: how can it be that GB has completely dominated track cycling, and indeed cycling in general, in way which has no historical precedent or reference point - aside from a certain resonance with the very worst doping regimes which we have good, reliable, proper, sufficient knowledge about.

 

[The Hegelian]

Let me offer one rational argument for the proposition that GB is doping.

Premise 1: if it walks like a duck
Premise 2: if it quacks like a duck
Premise 3: if it looks like a duck
Conclusion: it's a duck!

We've seen plenty of ducks before. We know how they walk, how they quack and what they look like.

It's a duck! As a good empiricist, I trust my eyes. I trusted them when I watched Armstrong transform into GC god, I trusted them when I watched Jalabert transform into a mountain goat, I trusted them when I watched Stefan Schumacher TT like a machine, I trust them now, as Froome matches or excels the greatest ever, and I trust them now as Team GB dominates the track to a greater extent than the best funded and most doped Eastern Bloc regimes ever did.

Why should I not trust my eyes?

 

[SeriousSam]

I haven't really thought about managers and trainers trying to get their athletes to win primarily at the Olympics with this clever British funding scheme. That's got to be a major advantage over those foreign trainers who might want theirs to lose, or win merely the not so important races.

 

[BullsFan22]

This doesn't look good for FINA.

News Corp can reveal dopers Ning Zetao of China and Russian Yulia Efimova were not tested once by FINA in the five months immediately after they were controversially crowned world champions last year.

Swim team officials were dumbfounded when told of FINA’s testing failure which meant during peak training periods Ning and Efimova were only subjected to testing by their own agencies RUSADA and CHINADA – both since discredited this year – while the rest of the world faced a barrage of drugs tests.

In the same period Australia’s Cameron McEvoy faced three FINA drug tests, while 2015 world champions Bronte Campbell (two), Mitch Larkin (three) and Emily Seebohm (two) were also routinely tested without taking into account regular unannounced visits from ASADA.

Olympic relay champion Melanie Wright said it’s time to get rid of FINA and start with a clean slate for a clean sport.

“I think athletes and coaches have lost faith in FINA. They have been perennially weak on doping,” Wright told News Corp.

FINA’s failure to stand up to Russia or China was never more evident than in poolside hug between China’s once banned Sun Yang and FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu after his 200m freestyle medal ceremony.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/olympics-2016/convicted-drug-cheats-escaped-out-of-competition-testing-before-rio/news-story/1a8d97cd2cd846d8d9c973391e4a71ad

lol at that article whining about some ozzies being tested 2-3 times. We live in a world where Dennis Menchov while doping got tested something like once every 2-3 times a week for half a year and beat every one (and as far as I remember, a more effective testing system then the **** FINA has).

This is like complaining to Mcdonalds because you only counted 24 chips as part of your meal, whereas someone else got 26.

So they complain when the Russians and Chinese fail doping tests and they complain when the Russians and Chinese don't get tested or tested enough.


Damned if they do, damned if they don't.


Reminds me of Murray complaining about how 'there aren't enough tests in tennis.' And then he complains about when the drug testers actually come to test him, particularly at a time of day when he is groggy. Do you want testing or do you not want testing?

 

[Catwhoorg]

Minor point of order, not every Team GB track member got a medal.

Ciara Horne is in Rio as a member of the Endurance track Squad (as 5th person in the TP), but much like Houvenaghel (and Tennant) in London she didn't even get a ride.

 

[El Pistolero]

Re:

Minor point of order, not every Team GB track member got a medal.

Ciara Horne is in Rio as a member of the Endurance track Squad (as 5th person in the TP), but much like Houvenaghel (and Tennant) in London she didn't even get a ride.

Cav's still the worst GB track member.

 

[thehog]

This doesn't look good for FINA.

News Corp can reveal dopers Ning Zetao of China and Russian Yulia Efimova were not tested once by FINA in the five months immediately after they were controversially crowned world champions last year.

Swim team officials were dumbfounded when told of FINA’s testing failure which meant during peak training periods Ning and Efimova were only subjected to testing by their own agencies RUSADA and CHINADA – both since discredited this year – while the rest of the world faced a barrage of drugs tests.

In the same period Australia’s Cameron McEvoy faced three FINA drug tests, while 2015 world champions Bronte Campbell (two), Mitch Larkin (three) and Emily Seebohm (two) were also routinely tested without taking into account regular unannounced visits from ASADA.

Olympic relay champion Melanie Wright said it’s time to get rid of FINA and start with a clean slate for a clean sport.

“I think athletes and coaches have lost faith in FINA. They have been perennially weak on doping,” Wright told News Corp.

FINA’s failure to stand up to Russia or China was never more evident than in poolside hug between China’s once banned Sun Yang and FINA executive director Cornel Marculescu after his 200m freestyle medal ceremony.

http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/olympics-2016/convicted-drug-cheats-escaped-out-of-competition-testing-before-rio/news-story/1a8d97cd2cd846d8d9c973391e4a71ad

lol at that article whining about some ozzies being tested 2-3 times. We live in a world where Dennis Menchov while doping got tested something like once every 2-3 times a week for half a year and beat every one (and as far as I remember, a more effective testing system then the **** FINA has).

This is like complaining to Mcdonalds because you only counted 24 chips as part of your meal, whereas someone else got 26.

Do the Aussies forget Thorpe?

In March 2007, L'Équipe, a French daily sports newspaper, reported on its website that Thorpe showed "abnormal levels" of two banned substances in a doping test on May 2006.

The Australian Sports Anti-Doping Authority (ASADA) later confirmed that Thorpe was investigated for abnormal levels of testosterone and luteinizing hormone (LH); both naturally occurring in the body. Thorpe's elevated LH level was what caused ASADA to initially investigate, and dismiss, the test result. Thorpe denied the rumours in a press conference on 31 March 2007 stating, "I firmly believe I am clean, I have never cheated and have always fulfilled my obligations."

In April 2007, the World Anti-Doping Agency (or WADA) issued a statement condemning the breach-of-privacy L'Equipe's announcement constituted.

Anti-drugs campaign Edit

Thorpe is prominent in the campaign against drug use, inside and outside sports. He has called for the introduction of blood testing, and criticised FINA for allegedly inadequate drug-testing procedures, claiming that "for anyone to think that they're swimming at a clean Olympic Games, they'd be naive". Although swimmers and coaches praised him, he was condemned by FINA, who accused him of bringing the sport into disrepute

 

[Bwlch y Groes]

At least Dibaba lost. May not necessarily be a victory for clean athletics but at least it's not a definite victory for dirty athletics

Not that anyone watching the BBC coverage would have known until last minute, as Cram and the BBC editor was busy focusing on Laura Muir getting swamped while Kipyegon was making the race-winning move...

 

[djpbaltimore]

Slow, tactical race. It was an 800m with a 700m warmup. Good run by Simpson. Almost pipped dibaba for second. I think it was the first medal for the usa in the event.

 

[Lyon]

If anyone is watching, the super heavyweight lifters are not disappointing! 4kg new WR in the snatch, 3 guys all surpassed previous mark, looking EASY! This is some "juicy" stuff! :lol:

Just wait until the British discover that sport as well...

 

[Blakeslee]

Re: Re:

Some of the golfers look clean on the whole. In particular, Jordan Speith and Zach Johnson (given their driving lengths) but they didn't come to Rio. The latter has been consistently good throughout his career. Jordan is an amazing putter in the manner which would impress Gary Player.

I'm still not sure what to make of golf. Those are good points about the players you mentioned. On the other hand looking back at things Tiger Woods (who was almost definitely doping) and what I am guessing is a relatively weak testing program, there doesn't seem to be much of a disincentive for players not to dope.

 

[Blakeslee]

Re: Re:

There was a discussion about fencing and shooting upthread (and by extension archery). Apparently beta blockers can have a significant effect on your nerve and your heart rate, and even recreational substances like cocaine and speed could help. Table tennis I'm pretty sure uses PEDs. Sailing is an interesting one; at the Olympic level, I'd hedge my bets but say it was probably clean. Yacht races like the America's Cup, however, are actually incredibly physical - to an extent often underrated. I would be amazed if PEDs weren't used in it.

That's a great point about the America's Cup boats, with all the grinders etc that is a very physical sport. With the smaller boats at the Olympics it seems a much less physical sport.

 

[Blakeslee]

Re: Re:

Why does everyone disregard archery and sailing for the use of PEDs? Both sports require strength and endurance.

This is a video of the training of Dutch sailor Bouwmeester, currently placed first in her class. In the video, she claims to be the "thinnest bodybuilder" and the "strongest and fittest" in her class. A bit later, she comments on the fine balance between strength and body/muscle mass. Seems like a fine opportunity for PEDs to me.

The video may be geo-restricted, so here's a pic of her training:

Now I'm not claiming that she is using PEDs or that the required fitness level can't be acquired by natural means, just that with such a training regime, PEDs might be beneficial. And, I believe that if there were a chance PEDs might help, then people will be tempted to use them. So, I wouldn't easily dismiss sailing.

The same goes for archery. While technique is massively important, probably even the deciding factor, the sport does require both strength and endurance (albeit not cardiovascular but muscular endurance). The margin for error in archery is very, very small, requiring very precise control of the muscles. When muscles tire, that control goes down as the muscle starts to react differently to the same input signals. The best way to avoid that is to have massive muscle endurance, so you're able to shoot the last arrow as if it were your first.

The draw weight of Dutch archer Sjef van den Berg, who finished fourth in this Olympics, is currently listed as 53 pounds (~ 24 kg). As you can see in this video (youtube), he has massive control over his draw and is able to hold it at full draw while still being able to very precisely control the last 0.5 mm of his draw before he shoots. (As soon as his hand touches his face [anchoring], watch the tip of the arrow to see the arrow being drawn back the last 0.5 mm with great precision.)

Again, I'm not claiming that the level of fitness required cannot be reached without PEDs, but given that strength and muscular endurance is involved, I wouldn't be surprised if some archers abuse PEDs to enhance their training. (One was recently caught for clostebol, got suspended for twelve months, although the ruling stated that is was probably unintentional..)

Thanks for the additional info! I hadn't thought about what you wrote about draw control, I can certainly see where that could have a big impact on accuracy.

My Dad was a college sailor back in what were hopefully more innocent times in the sport, I'm probably being a bit naive when it comes to what may be going on in modern sailing.

 

[el chava]

Re: Re:

Some of the golfers look clean on the whole. In particular, Jordan Speith and Zach Johnson (given their driving lengths) but they didn't come to Rio. The latter has been consistently good throughout his career. Jordan is an amazing putter in the manner which would impress Gary Player.

I'm still not sure what to make of golf. Those are good points about the players you mentioned. On the other hand looking back at things Tiger Woods (who was almost definitely doping) and what I am guessing is a relatively weak testing program, there doesn't seem to be much of a disincentive for players not to dope.

Well Woods had extensive laser eye surgery, so there's that for a start. Also betablockers are probably still widely used. Hardly "athletic" doping, but effective.