To Dope or not to Dope - would you?

[MarkvW]

If the field is full of angry little doped-up guys, why would I want to race with them?
If the field is full of angry little clean guys, why would I want to cheat them?

 

[Maxiton]

so here's an interesting 'clinic' conumdrum i'd welcome your collective thoughts on...

In 2012 product ‘X’ is not on any lists of banned substances, it’s a undoubtedly a drug – indeed it’s been synthetically produced in a lab in Europe - but as it’s not been ‘discovered’ yet it’s not named and therefore banned by any of the various sporting & governmental federations & authorities. To that effect is there is also no such test for ‘X’ that can be used by any authorities. In effect; if you can get your hands on ‘X’ and use it correctly (and safely) then the chances are that you can reap the serious rewards, with very little chance of detection, or side effects. Fame and Fortune are yours.

Now i ask you all the following:

- If such a product as ‘X’ existed, would you take it – knowing it would give you that advantage, but also rationalising that as it was not ‘banned’, it was not in effect cheating?
- What do you think would happen to you if ‘X’ was discovered in you backdated test samples that had been taken when this Drug was not on the banned lists, but was subsequently banned?

Just curious what peoples answers would be to the above....

Thanks all,

A.

Let me put it like this. If the sport I'm in prizes integrity above winning, and riders pride themselves on not cheating each other, or themselves - then, no, I definitely would not do it.

If the sport I'm in prizes winning above all, and riders would run over their own grandmother if no one was looking and it meant they could win, then, yeah, I'd do it with gusto.

In our era, I think we're a lot closer to the second group than the first.

By the way, are your initials Bradley Wiggins by any chance? If not, why don't you pose this question to him and the other Sky riders on twitter? Might be funny.

If the field is full of angry little doped-up guys, why would I want to race with them?
If the field is full of angry little clean guys, why would I want to cheat them?

Good point, but things usually aren't that simple.

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Edit


But let me add a crucial proviso I neglected to put in the first go round.

Presuming I took this magic sauce, knowing both that it would give me a turbo no one had and that i'd not get caught, I'd have enough respect for the race, and the racers, to make it look like I was barely hanging on. I might be five minutes ahead, but I'd pull faces like I was being tortured, and talk about how tough the competition is. Why? So that my foes could save face, the fans wouldn't feel like idiots, and so that the race would at least look like a true sporting event. In doing all that, despite not needing to, I'd feel I had redeemed myself somehow, if only ever so slightly.

 

[knewcleardaze]

Wonder what Joe Papp thinks about this. He's been there, done that.

 

[D-Queued]

Ref: "The Absent-Minded Professor (1961)"

Beat em with ingenuity.

Flubber is the Disney Pictures version of the American way, and was ok back then.

There are probably more than a few college essays on the incongruity of the innocence in the atomic age.

Dave.

 

[skippy]

QUITE CLEAR that the WADA code has covered their bases !

From muzzin's comment:
This.

Prohibited List:

S0. Non-Approved Substances
Any pharmacological substance which is not addressed by any of the subsequent sections of the List and with no current approval by any governmental regulatory health authority for human therapeutic use (e.g drugs under pre-clinical or clinical development or discontinued, designer drugs, veterinary medicines) is prohibited.
06-18-12 19:47
From Dr M.'s comment :

" If you become However 'problem is that very few teams, DSs and others in authority put the safeguards in place to encourage people to say no.

a Pro, then cycling is no longer the fun and joyous event it was - it is your job, your livelihood, where you are told what races your doing and given a role, with a constant worry and pressure of being on contract with no guarantee of it being renewed. "

Do we need to hear crapp from failures in racing and doping ?

Conscience is a novelty for some , but would govern most people's approach to this subject : as kwibus stated :

" I think this is true, but I think I wouldn't have.
I don't cheat. I allready hate it when people cheat during a simple game and they consider the cheating just to be fun. To me it spoils the game. "

Moratorium / Amnesty for ALL in Sport whether Athlete or Support Staff now LOng Overdue as stated in http://t.co/hgYsTcJn



Longer sanctions of Four years with Ankle Tags PLEASE for use of known / proven products and EVEN HARSHER suspensions for those willing to experiment ! Should they be part of a Team then the MEdics should be considered for Jail Time IF they are complicit !

Time those leading others astray were OUTED !

 

[Oldman]

Only those who've sacrificed all their lives aiming to be or currently racing as pros can answer that question.

I came across something I wrote to a Cyclingnews forum in 2001 (ancient times) with respect to how riders justify to themselves what is and isn't doping. My conclusion was the same as yours and still is.
What I offerred was the graying of the edges of "enhancements" and how they began; with junior racers getting TUEs for asthma inhalers at the urging of their coaches and the occasional Masters racer jacking himself up on some toxic energy drink. Are those practices doping or are they just a behavioral openning to the next thing? Looking across the various amateur catagories and aspiring pros you could see examples of judgements being made to step up and those making the judgements lose sight of the lines they're crossing. Once it became habit it became the status quo much like the pros.