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Study discusses the number of teenagers considering PEDs

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Mar 13, 2009
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sniper said:
True.
Some here trying awkwardly to trivialize the attraction of doping, because it jeopardizes the "cycling cleaned up all by itself, doping aint what the coolkids do nomore"-mythology
cycling was never done by the cool kids, no matter how much millar and vaughters spend on their wardrobe.

moral of the story, you need to spend money on a wardrobe to get a shag
 
Dr. Maserati said:
If a teen is on PEDs its probably likely that they are not naturally talented, so taking PEDs might give them an advantage over their peers. But when they move up through different levels their lack of natural talent will be exposed.

That certainly runs counter to my personal experience in high school. The guys juicing were invariably in the the top 20% of athletes on the various teams. It was however a small school and a long time ago. I would have said maybe 5% juicing.

There were likely some guys who were juicing (it was all steroids then) who didn't talk about it, and who we just thought were going through a growth spurt. So I can't say how accurate this all is. But of the guys who were open about it or were so obvious as to have been outed by the team, it was invariably the best guys.
 
Generally speaking, predictive value of these type of studies "what would you do if..." is very low. In economics, in sociology there are plenty of research what shows that what people think of their future action and how they actually act in future are completely different things.

As a side note. Modern research about Goldman dilemma shows much-much smaller numbers. http://www.oliverfinlay.com/assets/...hey dope. revisiting the goldman dilemma.pdf
 

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red_flanders said:
That certainly runs counter to my personal experience in high school. The guys juicing were invariably in the the top 20% of athletes on the various teams. It was however a small school and a long time ago. I would have said maybe 5% juicing.

There were likely some guys who were juicing (it was all steroids then) who didn't talk about it, and who we just thought were going through a growth spurt. So I can't say how accurate this all is. But of the guys who were open about it or were so obvious as to have been outed by the team, it was invariably the best guys.

That was my point - which appears to have been missed. The juicers had an advantage over their peers, ie that small group. It was in most cases masking that they had limited natural talent.

Even if its anecdotal - how many of that original number of teen juicers went on to move up through the ranks and be successful at their sport?
 
There are several classes of natural talent:

1. Very little talent (bottom 20%). At best doping will allow them to remain on the team. Strong incentive only if this is important to them.
2. Mediocre talent (middle 60%). Doping can improve their status on the team, but it still won't be good enough for a pro contract, so little incentive to dope.
3. Decent/high talent (top 20%). Undoped they have a very small chance for a pro contract, but doping increases the chance greatly. Huge incentive to dope.
4. Ubertalent (top 0.1%). A very good chance for a pro contract, even without doping. The risks of doping may not outweigh the benefits at this point. Decent incentive to dope.

It seems to me that category 3 has the most reason to dope.

Dr. Maserati said:
I did, doh- but even including all of them it is still just 16% (or 84% would not dope)- I would not have been surprised if that number was in the 40's. YMMV.

I think it's important to realize that the higher you go, the more clean athletes are filtered out. Many junior athletes do not make it to the pro's, but dopers have a much bigger chance than average.
 

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Aapjes said:
There are several classes of natural talent:

1. Very little talent (bottom 20%). At best doping will allow them to remain on the team. Strong incentive only if this is important to them.
2. Mediocre talent (middle 60%). Doping can improve their status on the team, but it still won't be good enough for a pro contract, so little incentive to dope.
3. Decent/high talent (top 20%). Undoped they have a very small chance for a pro contract, but doping increases the chance greatly. Huge incentive to dope.
4. Ubertalent (top 0.1%). A very good chance for a pro contract, even without doping. The risks of doping may not outweigh the benefits at this point. Decent incentive to dope.

It seems to me that category 3 has the most reason to dope.

It really has little to do with talent.
This takes us back to the original article and study - it is the tens who have a 'win at any cost' mentality who are more likely to view doping as an accepted practice.
 
Dr. Maserati said:
That was my point - which appears to have been missed. The juicers had an advantage over their peers, ie that small group. It was in most cases masking that they had limited natural talent.

Even if its anecdotal - how many of that original number of teen juicers went on to move up through the ranks and be successful at their sport?

That was not my point at all.
 

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red_flanders said:
That was not my point at all.

Ok, why the hostility?

I believe I have made my point or opinion clear, if I haven't I can clarify my remarks. As you can with your point. It is a discussion on a theory - for me nothing is set in stone so your input could broaden, enlighten or change my view.

Your choice.
 
Square-pedaller said:
You are interpreting this as if the numbers refer to 'during their career'. This is 12-17 year olds talking about their intention for within the next year. In that respect, these numbers are frighteningly high. At least to me :-(
Its how they justify doping. If they say "i am using it in my body only and that is not causing any harm to anybody" or they say "Doping is cheating and i am stealing the livelihood of the other clean riders" can lead to very different reactions. Also compared with how many people would be willing to do murder vs how many would be willing to steal, the percentages would be very different.
 
Dr. Maserati said:
It really has little to do with talent.
This takes us back to the original article and study - it is the tens who have a 'win at any cost' mentality who are more likely to view doping as an accepted practice.

I think it is more to do with morality than talent. For eg. in an exam, the student will be susceptible to copy whether they want to pass or to score top marks. The reasons might be different but a cheater is always a cheater.
 

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