What was The Doping Case for you/your countrymen?

[Dr.Guess]

Hi. I'm a swede and thus blessed from having doping in our country. (Serious sarcasm there). I've been reading this forum and others about doping for a while and been a cycling fan since the mid 90s.
There is this cross country skiing world championship going on in Sweden where two swedes came from the dead an won gold. You know, the normal procedure to do it. I read some Swedish forums trying to get an opinion about the credibility to the results and obviously the usual people in skiing Sweden believes it's those damn Russians that dope.
So I started to wonder about doping cases, nationality and images in your own country of your own athletes and the relationship to doping. We all know how the talk goes but we also know about Lance Armstrong. Did he change how americans view doping and athletes and their doping? Being sort of up to date with american sports, mostly NBA, I have read pieces about doping in the NBA too. It seems like Lance didn't do a very good job in opening up the publics eyes, still being from Texas and as american you can get.
It reminds me of the former Russian, former Swede, Ludmila Narazilenko/Enqquist. She became a Swedish citizen, won gold only to later get getting caught doping. We all called her for what she really was, a dirty Russian who had infiltrated the pure Swedish national athletic foundation.
But I don't think we have had a high profile case here in Sweden, one that has really opened up the publics eyes. A Lance, a Marion Jones, a Ben Johnson, a Bj?rn Daehlie or a Marco Pantani.
In conclussion I'm asking about how your country and yourself reacted to the very first doping case you became aware of.

I reacted like other Swedes, blaming Ludmila and her Russian history. Nothing like a little racism towards those Russians.
And I will never forget when Pantani got caught in that 99 giro. I think that was the first major case I remember in cycling. I new about the 50% level and how it probably was a result from doping. I also remember nor being too shocked or didn't care that much. Already jaded, I guess.

/Pat

Ps. Sorry about the sly digs at Norway.

 

[ebandit]

dope

sports...........sportsmen............doping.............no surprises

Mark L

 

[the sceptic]

patriotism is a strong drug.

 

[Dr.Guess]

Yeah. I guess it's like getting over your spouses late night make out session at the after work with a colleague when you have two young kids. You can't really do anything about it.

 

[DirtyWorks]

...
So I started to wonder about doping cases, nationality and images in your own country of your own athletes and the relationship to doping.

Russians winning in Russia-hosted international events.
Jamaican track and field testing athletes so they never test positive at an international meet.
USA Cycling never testing positive quite a few athletes. Lance Armstrong, Tammy Thomas, allegedly Marty Nothstien, Genevive Jeanson.
USA Track and Field has a parade of never tested positive athletes.
Sky's never tested positive athlete at altitude "research."

The system was set up like this intentionally and the IOC is perfectly okay with it.

Swede's storming a podium in Sweden is the new normal until the awareness of the scale of corruption at the IOC is well known in many languages, worldwide and IOC sponsorship suffers.

 

[jens_attacks]

mutu sniffing cocaine at chelsea of course
the saddest...the angel andreea raducan losing her olympic gold medal at sydney because of a flu med. true story

no doping really.

 

[SeriousSam]

The variables most predictive of PED use are how much they enhance performance and what the probability of getting caught is. If the former is sufficiently large and the latter sufficiently small, a large fraction of all athletes in a sport will dope.

The media prefer to tell a story how it's all about personal ethics and character instead. Everyone faces the dark and devious temptation to dope, but upstanding citizens, true heroes, men and women of honest character, can resist it. Everyone just knows that they'd never dope! Patriotism and latent xenophobia ensure that people think it's dem foreigners that are shady and prone to cheating, not your national heroes.

 

[skippythepinhead]

The variables most predictive of PED use are how much they enhance performance and what the probability of getting caught is. If the former is sufficiently large and the latter sufficiently small, a large fraction of all athletes in a sport will dope.

The media prefer to tell a story how it's all about personal ethics and character instead. Everyone faces the dark and devious temptation to dope, but upstanding citizens, true heroes, men and women of honest character, can resist it. Everyone just knows that they'd never dope! Patriotism and latent xenophobia ensure that people think it's dem foreigners that are shady and prone to cheating, not your national heroes.

There is also a lie that's told, that having a winning individual or team in a sport will have a trickle-down effect on the popularity of the sport in the winner's country. This is so simplistic. So many factors work into the equation. No one really wins "for their country." When rednecks scream "hey Lance Armstrong!" at me as they blast by in their pickup trucks it is not because they are racing home to put on their spandex and join me on the road. We overestimate the importance of nationality because we retain tribal brains. Individual athletes take full advantage, to the inclusion of doping, sometimes it seems by telling themselves they're doing it for people who are counting on them in some twisted notion of "there is no dishonor for national honor's sake."

 

[skippythepinhead]

mutu sniffing cocaine at chelsea of course
the saddest...the angel andreea raducan losing her olympic gold medal at sydney because of a flu med. true story

no doping really.

She and I are both Libras; it would never work.

 

[neineinei]

The first doping case in Norway was the shot putter/discus thrower Knut Hjeltnes who tested positive for steroids in 1977 and it was a huge scandal.

Sweden had already aquired their first big doping stain years prior. But he was just drunk. At the shooting range in the Olympics. Hans-Gunnar Liljenwall lost the 1968 Olympics Modern pentathlon bronze because of an alcohol positive. He became the first person ever to test positive at the Olympics.

By the time Knut Hjeltnes was caught by Norges idrettsforbund Sweden had already had their second Olympic doping scandal, the weigthlifter Arne Norrback had tested positive for steroids at the 1976 games.

 

[blackcat]

Hi. I'm a swede and thus blessed from having doping in our country. (Serious sarcasm there). I've been reading this forum and others about doping for a while and been a cycling fan since the mid 90s.
There is this cross country skiing world championship going on in Sweden where two swedes came from the dead an won gold. You know, the normal procedure to do it. I read some Swedish forums trying to get an opinion about the credibility to the results and obviously the usual people in skiing Sweden believes it's those damn Russians that dope.
So I started to wonder about doping cases, nationality and images in your own country of your own athletes and the relationship to doping. We all know how the talk goes but we also know about Lance Armstrong. Did he change how americans view doping and athletes and their doping? Being sort of up to date with american sports, mostly NBA, I have read pieces about doping in the NBA too. It seems like Lance didn't do a very good job in opening up the publics eyes, still being from Texas and as american you can get.
It reminds me of the former Russian, former Swede, Ludmila Narazilenko/Enqquist. She became a Swedish citizen, won gold only to later get getting caught doping. We all called her for what she really was, a dirty Russian who had infiltrated the pure Swedish national athletic foundation.
But I don't think we have had a high profile case here in Sweden, one that has really opened up the publics eyes. A Lance, a Marion Jones, a Ben Johnson, a Bj?rn Daehlie or a Marco Pantani.
In conclussion I'm asking about how your country and yourself reacted to the very first doping case you became aware of.

I reacted like other Swedes, blaming Ludmila and her Russian history. Nothing like a little racism towards those Russians.
And I will never forget when Pantani got caught in that 99 giro. I think that was the first major case I remember in cycling. I new about the 50% level and how it probably was a result from doping. I also remember nor being too shocked or didn't care that much. Already jaded, I guess.

/Pat

Ps. Sorry about the sly digs at Norway.

the swimmers are dirty, that phenomenal heptathlete/200 metre runner, must be dirty.

Australians, olympians who make finals, all dirty. Just only thing is, how dirty. all are talented athletes to make an olympics anyhow.

for Australians, i was young and naive i thought Shane Warne was not doping, now I know he would have been taking diuretics to mask either corticosteroids, or other PEDs like testo/steroids/hgh

 

[thehook]

Here in the USA. If you watch NFL Football and watch a 300lb D-Lineman chase down a 225lb running back. And DO NOT think there doping you are blind. And don't even ask about the pain meds!

If you are say over 40yo. And you think a 35 home run season is average. You were not watching baseball in the early 80's. Homeruns = Big $ = PED"S

MMA, love it. But c'mon. Testosterone, EPO, Speed.

Basketball.......Steroids, anti inflamitory abuse. See Alonso Mourning?

 

[blackcat]

The variables most predictive of PED use are how much they enhance performance and what the probability of getting caught is. If the former is sufficiently large and the latter sufficiently small, a large fraction of all athletes in a sport will dope.

The media prefer to tell a story how it's all about personal ethics and character instead. Everyone faces the dark and devious temptation to dope, but upstanding citizens, true heroes, men and women of honest character, can resist it. Everyone just knows that they'd never dope! Patriotism and latent xenophobia ensure that people think it's dem foreigners that are shady and prone to cheating, not your national heroes.

thats not it.

to me, its about i) identity, ii) identity, and iii) you guessed it, identity.

like Sartre writes in B&N, the human athlete, or the animal pet athlete, take your pick,

the athlete sublimates their identity, and assumes athlete as their passport, and employment. Athletes, they have been conditioned to learn, dope, as the cyclists in the 1990 epoch called it, "being professional".

Many were mere jobbing wage earner domestiques with no hope of winning a stage or much less a classic and rarer, no hope, for a GT.

So what explains the peloton doping then? But it need not be the peloton, it could be any professional team sport in N America. Or Olympic sport. The athlete lacks their individual autonomy crowded out to the cloak of the visage of athlete. Part of this process, is doping.

It is not about character or ethics, or morals and cheating. Psychology and Milgram Experiment are much better indicators.

 

[D-Queued]

Hi.

.... A Lance, a Marion Jones, a Ben Johnson, a Bj?rn Daehlie or a Marco Pantani.

In conclussion I'm asking about how your country and yourself reacted to the very first doping case you became aware of.

...

/Pat

Ps. Sorry about the sly digs at Norway.

Hi Pat,

Before Ben Johnson, Canada achieved international notoriety with the very first doping positive for steroids at an international event - weightlifting at the 1983 Pan Am Games.

Ben Johnson's positive lead to the Dubin Inquiry, Canada's equivalent of the US Mitchell Report on Baseball. Yes, that was a very big deal.

Helping underscore the context, prior to Ben's positive at Seoul '88, and a full two decades prior to adoption of the WADA code for Athens, Canada had adopted mandatory drug testing for Canadian Olympic athletes in 1984.

The Johnson scandal could have tarnished many generations of exceptional Canadian sprinters. Johnson was expected to finally let Canada enjoy the limelight and make up for injured Harry Jerome at Tokyo 1964. Fortunately, I don't think that his positive did tarnish multiple generations, though.

One thing that Canadians didn't and, with long memories, don't appreciate was the Carl Lewis (and others) situation. A clear and obvious doper himself, he went overboard in chastising Johnson.

In a similar light, Canadian cycling circles still have a very dim view on Grewal's gold at Los Angeles in 1984 over Steve Bauer as information came to light about the orchestrated doping by the 1984 US Olympic Cycling team.

On that note, arguably Richard Pound's interest in anti-doping was catalyzed by the doped athletes he faced in Montreal 1976.

Perhaps it is just me, but I think Canada took almost as big an exception to Reefer Ross Rebagliati and his second hand smoke Bullcrap at the Nagano Olympics than they may have reacted to Ben Johnson.

And then there was Genevieve Jeanson. What a freak show.

However, Canadians do seem to be incredible naive and don't press the issue when folks like Chris Sheppard, Seamus McGrath and Ryder are collectively implicated. Like, c'mon, that is organized and coordinated. Nor was there anything like a signicant outcry over Michael Barry.

Though there are grounds for argument that Canada has done a lot on anti-doping, Canadians kind of thinks that doping doesn't really happen here. Like it is too cold, or something.

Dave.

 

[blackcat]

Like it is too cold, or something.

Dave.

do Canucks just drive in straight lines or something?

you guys need to learn to drive around corners. not on dope. that is too fast.

or something.

 

[D-Queued]

do Canucks just drive in straight lines or something?

you guys need to learn to drive around corners. not on dope. that is too fast.

or something.

Depends on the Province.

'Stubble jumpers' as the folks from the post-wheat-harvest-really-flat-territories are called, never apparently learn how to corner. Probably don't know what that big wheel is for. At the same time, those from lotusland have no idea of how to drive in snow.

Dave.

 

[Random Direction]

It is hard to drive straight lines here in lotus land, especially on a bike, especially when one has done lines of snow.... but that would be doping, no?

 

[Rob27172]

The one other big issue you have with canadians is that most of them train and live in the USA so the canadian public can always just shrug their shoulders and blame the Americans for leading astray their athletes.

To go back to the principle question though it is actually a very primitive aspect of the human psyche and one that is hard wired into every persons brain at birth. The need to belong to a group or tribe and the need to have something to call our own.
It is what drives all sports following whether it is football in the UK or rugby or any other sport
It is what drives enormous crowds at college sport games in the USA even without the pro sports
and it is what drives people to be blind to the national scandals at olympics or european or pan american games.
Go back to the basic instinct to belong and you can understand a lot about human behavior not just in sport but in every aspect of life, Marriage, Religion, Work and leisure time
They are all about our desire to belong to a group or tribe which will protect us from ridicule and loneliness.

 

[Gung Ho Gun]

Here in Belgium we've had plenty of doping cases but we mainly choose to ignore them and blame other countries for doping. Articles have been written about Van De Wouwer probably being the "moral victor" of a Tour de France because all the others doped. US Postal investigation? Boonen, Van Den Broeck and Devolder say they never saw anything and that's the end. Merckx was caught? Let's pretend it never happened. Museeuw? Big time champion, doesnt even matter when he lies about buying races. Jens Keukeleire said how much he admires Museeuw ten seconds after stating that he's mad at Vinokourov for stealing wins from clean riders such as himself. Leukemans? Our commentators wished him a fast return while in the same sentence casting doubts about Landaluze - "he was acquitted but we all know better"

Don't know about other sports, but the first big case in cycling was presumably Pollentier
And he only did that because he panicked but he would've won anyway so he's more a tragic victim than a cheater, according to Michel Wuyts

Belgians don't dope and even if they do, it wasn't in order to cheat
Vino? Ricco? Russians? Spaniards? Pure evil

 

[vedrafjord]

 

[del1962]

David Jenkins was the first doper (from UK) I was aware of, though it came out sometime after he competed, I remember he was the great British hope in Montreal, he came 7th, later caught for dealing.

I remember he said that his performances got worse after doping.

 

[blackcat]

Belgians don't dope and even if they do, it wasn't in order to cheat
Vino? Ricco? Russians? Spaniards? Pure evil

I wont hear you knocking my Ricky Riccio. take this as a warning, or take this as a threat.

You cant possibly vilify the genius that is Ricky Riccio.

 

[Hawkwood]

Tom Simpson for me, I got into cycling around 1975, and some of the books I read back then discussed him, and his death from doping (normally described as a mixture of heat, drugs...).

 

[SafeBet]

Marco Pantani.
A national obsession, brought cycling to people who couldn't even ride a bike.
And for me personally, I was a kid at the time. You need a hero, or an anti-hero if you wish. Whatever. I've never been as passionate a fan as I was back then. It'd be too painful.

 

[sittingbison]

...for Australians, i was young and naive i thought Shane Warne was not doping, now I know he would have been taking diuretics to mask either corticosteroids, or other PEDs like testo/steroids/hgh

Jeebus BC, Warnie took the slimming pill to look good for the camera! His mum made him!!!