The Clinic in The New Clean Era... of 2020+

[doperhopper]

Season coming to an end, let's look a bit beyond the horizon.

Remember how was the cycling viewed 5/10 years ago and how are we looking back at that era. What do you think the picture of 2015 will be in , say, 2020/2025? In The Clinic, to be precise.

Should we prepare for "in that dirty era of 2015" statements? Or rather "that golden era of 2015", given the "evolution"...

Any ideas on doping evolution, peloton /cycling changes, or even the fans attitude, etc. are welcome.

 

[wendybnt]

I think the premise of this thread demonstrates that we don't really know what is going on now. We suspect some riders and teams, because there are some unbelievable results from individuals like Froome, and unbelievable results from entire teams like Astana in this year's Giro, but we don't know the full extent of what is going on and how it being done.

Who knows what revelations await us? There may not be any, we may still be in the dark in 2020. I suppose we were spoilt by the Armstrong fiasco. And to think, if he'd let Landis ride we would still be in a similar position to the one we are in now with regards to the current riders we suspect.

 

[hrotha]

It's been too long without a major bust, too long since we last got a glimpse of what a top-notch program actually looks like these days. I get the distinct feeling that things have been getting worse since ~2011. If things change again somehow before 2020, I reckon we'll look back on 2015 like we do on 2005: like a particularly dirty time in a continuously dirty sport.

 

[dpm1991]

Let's try to be a fortune teller. Post from the Alberto Contador thread in PRR subforum from 24.08.2015:

Some of this is because cycling in general feels a little more 'rotten' than usual…Maybe it's me, and I just didn't notice it before, but I have the sense there is more 'bad feeling' about than in other years. It's hard to pinpoint, exactly, other than a sense of things frequently seeming a little bit 'ugly' for one reason or another.

It's 2015; 3 years to first breakthrough

 

[mrhender]

I believe in the never ending vacuum, only abrupted by the ocassional scandal.

History tells us that the balloon often needs much pressure to burst, and therefore we might have to wait a god handful years or two to get the revelation of a modern day "program".

 

[The Hitch]

Its the war on drugs.

Be it the police on recreational or ADA's on performance, you can't defeat an economy.

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Re:

Its the war on drugs.

Be it the police on recreational or ADA's on performance, you can't defeat an economy.

The idea is to de-vaule an economy. And the infrastructure of the sport has shown no moves in that direction. As long as the good/bad doper exists, and those good dopers are welcomed back into the peloton, or into the ownership, then there is value for doping.

On paper, lifetime bans (banned from the sport) could change that, but we still get all the problems of enforcement... issues of testing, reclaiming prize money, willingness/ability to fight the legal battles (re: Kreuziger among others)

 

[The Hitch]

Re: Re:

Its the war on drugs.

Be it the police on recreational or ADA's on performance, you can't defeat an economy.

The idea is to de-vaule an economy. And the infrastructure of the sport has shown no moves in that direction. As long as the good/bad doper exists, and those good dopers are welcomed back into the peloton, or into the ownership, then there is value for doping.

On paper, lifetime bans (banned from the sport) could change that, but we still get all the problems of enforcement... issues of testing, reclaiming prize money, willingness/ability to fight the legal battles (re: Kreuziger among others)

Systematically, the motivation just doesn't exist to fight doping since there's more money all around in doping than in anti doping.

More to lose too. On the one hand an athlete gets caught, that's their livelyhood they are losing, possibly millions, + a dark future of law suits. A faceless tester doesn't catch a drug cheat on the other hand. No one notices. Wada doesn't lose money

As Bunk says in season 1. "We get paid either way"

 

[observer]

In 2020 I will see a 50 year old Davide Rebellin ripping it up and genuinely believe that there is still plenty of time for me to make it to the top.

 

[tantocomo]

I think across the sporting world there'll be a lot more acceptance of doping. That's not to say there'll be a 'clean' and a 'doped' version of the same sport played as has been suggested, but more that people will have started coming around to the idea of how prevalent doping is. People now see sport more and more as disposable entertainment so why not? And as long as it doesn't present a public health problem then politicians and ADAs will continue to keep their noses out.

 

[The Hitch]

Re:

I think across the sporting world there'll be a lot more acceptance of doping. That's not to say there'll be a 'clean' and a 'doped' version of the same sport played as has been suggested, but more that people will have started coming around to the idea of how prevalent doping is. People now see sport more and more as disposable entertainment so why not? And as long as it doesn't present a public health problem then they will continue to keep their noses out.

That's an interesting take. In America I feel this is much more the case already : people accepting that baseball and NFL at least, are full of peds

 

[More Strides than Rides]

Incidentally, today David Epstein wrote about the new(ish) economy of PEDs:

http://www.propublica.org/article/raids-steroid-labs-suggest-market-for-steroids-beyond-elite-athletes

Amazingly enough, world-class athletes are merely the fine layer of frost atop the iceberg’s tip when it comes to the steroid economy.

Years later, when I met with a convicted steroid dealer in Florida who’d been selling to a chiropractor working with the Washington Capitals, he told me that police officers and military personnel were steady clients. And, while he also sold to some competitive athletes, he said that young men who wanted to change their physique comprised most of the demand. He, himself, began taking steroids after admiring Arnold Schwarzenegger carrying a tree trunk in the 1985 film Commando.

Law enforcement agents and steroid peddlers I’ve spoken to over the years say there’s no end in sight to the burgeoning market for steroids. There is loads of money to be made, legal risks are minimal — steroids aren’t exactly DEA’s top priority — and there’s no shortage of people who want to look like the statuesque models they see in the magazines.

Part of the doping culture conversation is "Would you let your child become a professional athlete you knew they would have to dope." Part of the answer is that now, the parents are doping themselves. Add to that a teen drug culture of going through parents' medicine cabinets for physchoactive drugs or painkillers, and you will see Junior Varsity athletes having the same conversations the Clinic features: "How'd he improve so much? How'd he change so much?"

 

[Jacques (7 ch)]

Re: Re:

I think across the sporting world there'll be a lot more acceptance of doping. That's not to say there'll be a 'clean' and a 'doped' version of the same sport played as has been suggested, but more that people will have started coming around to the idea of how prevalent doping is. People now see sport more and more as disposable entertainment so why not? And as long as it doesn't present a public health problem then they will continue to keep their noses out.

That's an interesting take. In America I feel this is much more the case already : people accepting that baseball and NFL at least, are full of peds

Do you think anyone in authority in NZ would dare to report an All Black with a positive test? (Rhetorical question, but I ask because it seems a good and topical illustration of the point)?