Why is Dwain Chambers still competing?
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I would be immensely surprised if the majority of atheletes on the world stage and for that matter the overdeveloped actors like stallone et al, were't all taking steroids like a mad thing at one point or another, the crime is the getting caught.
In these sports you will remember the guy who got gold, maybe the guy who got silver almost never the guy with the bronze, and who the hell was the guy in fourth? and yet, they may have just 0.15 seconds between the first and fourth spot, they all have livings to earn, maybe kids to feed, the pressure to "just do a month" on 'roids early in the year to get the training kickstarted, or maybe a fortnight in the lead up to a games following an injury that's quartered your earnings must be immense.
That's not to condone it at all but I don't really see how it can be effectively stopped. There are steroids out there that will clear the system in 48 hours, they can even make steroids based on your own biology that are basically undetectable except by suspicions about your unusually high qty of testosterone and amino's in your urine.
The fact the records get shaved year after year is down purely to advances in cutting edge chemistry not the fact Nike's are getting better or that we have some strange accelerated evolutionary phenomenon going on here.
In these sports you will remember the guy who got gold, maybe the guy who got silver almost never the guy with the bronze, and who the hell was the guy in fourth? and yet, they may have just 0.15 seconds between the first and fourth spot, they all have livings to earn, maybe kids to feed, the pressure to "just do a month" on 'roids early in the year to get the training kickstarted, or maybe a fortnight in the lead up to a games following an injury that's quartered your earnings must be immense.
That's not to condone it at all but I don't really see how it can be effectively stopped. There are steroids out there that will clear the system in 48 hours, they can even make steroids based on your own biology that are basically undetectable except by suspicions about your unusually high qty of testosterone and amino's in your urine.
The fact the records get shaved year after year is down purely to advances in cutting edge chemistry not the fact Nike's are getting better or that we have some strange accelerated evolutionary phenomenon going on here.
I can only echo this. One of my best friends is married to an ex-world champion/ex Olympic, Australian tri-athlete. He is vehemently anti-drugs and always refused to ever step over that line. Ultimately, it cost him successes in his career. Most top athletes are on something, at some point. The winners just have better pharmacists.
People seem to have this bizarre idea that steriods are some magical potion that can transform an average athelete into the best. The fact is that these people are the best; no amount of steroids will turn an average guy into Arnie or allow them to run a sub 10-second 100m. Banning drugs entirely would just drop the overall standard, which, as a spectator, I certainly don't want to see happen.
That is a very odd viewpoint if you don't mind me saying. Are you saying that those who want to risk taking performance enhancing drugs should carry on doing it so that the viewer can continue to see 0.1s shaved off the record every 6 months, doesn't matter if it is cheating or not?
With Dwain Chambers, I have mellowed towards the guy recently as he does appear to be quite remorseful and apologetic and I kind of think he should be at least allowed to earn a living after serving his ban, but as others have mentioned, you don't know how much of his current physique is down to his period on growth hormone drugs.
Why? I'd be interested to hear your reasoning behind this statement..
As far as I'm concerned, the man broke the rules set out to him by both the IAAF and UK Athletics, got caught, got punished in accordance to said laws, has now served his punishment (including not competing for two years AND paying back all prize money from the period he was found to be cheating).
He is now clean (and is probably one of the most tested athletes in the world at the moment) and is running very well, yet is being made out to be a modern day Judas - a social pariah by the OMGWTFBBQ!!!1111 crowd and the daily mail.
Quite what difference his running in an athletics event (and winning medals for GB I might add) makes to the daily lives of these people to the point that they feel his punishement isnt enough and that he must be punished above and beyond the clearly stated guidelines of the IAAF/IOC/UKA is way beyond me.
The man has done his crime, done his time and is now trying to get on with his life and career. Let him get on with what he obviously is best at.
Soldato
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Why not?
Soldato
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Oh the ironing!
He has been quite honest since coming back from his ban and has given a lot of help to the athletics authorities on how doping is carried out these days and how rife it is at the moment. He's done his time, lets just get over it.
Good post, and sadly I tend to agree.
There are one off evolutionary freaks like Phelps (who I believe was the most tested athlete at the Olympics) who I would like to believe don't take drugs, because it shows just what the human body is capable of at extreme levels. However, and I realise it's a very cynical point of view but I'm more of the opinion that these kind of people just take better drugs, or more sensibly.
Now, I'm not saying Phelps is a PED user, but Lance Armstrong for example? I don't believe for a second that he never used PEDs, especially given the sport.
Caporegime
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almost all the best athlete's over time have ended up being on steriods, you just find out years after the fact.
THe only one I recall being punished properly so far is Marion Jones who actually went to jail and afaik had to give a lot of money back to some people aswell as the medals(i think).
Was it Carl Lewis, who it turned out had been tested positive a couple times but the usa testing board decided not to tell anyone then he went to the olympics and won loads of stuff.
Infact, haven't a ridiculous number of the stand out athlete's in later years confessed to have used drugs.
I really see no reason for him not to be competing again because he got caught, the differentiation is he got caught and others didn't, not that he got caught and no -one else was doing it.
the problem at the moment is that designer drugs are having a lot of money put into them so new things come along constantly that the testers aren't aware of so can't test for. So if you're taking whatever the "new" drug is, like Marion Jones, she passed all testing easily, because they weren't testing her for what she was taking. She could pee in a cup all day long and they would never have caught her. No one would ever have caught her or the several other people if the whistle blower hadn't informed people of the drug. Whats weird is I'm not entirely sure why the whistle blower stepped forward, who it was or why with no proof Marion Jones admitted it.
THe only one I recall being punished properly so far is Marion Jones who actually went to jail and afaik had to give a lot of money back to some people aswell as the medals(i think).
Was it Carl Lewis, who it turned out had been tested positive a couple times but the usa testing board decided not to tell anyone then he went to the olympics and won loads of stuff.
Infact, haven't a ridiculous number of the stand out athlete's in later years confessed to have used drugs.
I really see no reason for him not to be competing again because he got caught, the differentiation is he got caught and others didn't, not that he got caught and no -one else was doing it.
the problem at the moment is that designer drugs are having a lot of money put into them so new things come along constantly that the testers aren't aware of so can't test for. So if you're taking whatever the "new" drug is, like Marion Jones, she passed all testing easily, because they weren't testing her for what she was taking. She could pee in a cup all day long and they would never have caught her. No one would ever have caught her or the several other people if the whistle blower hadn't informed people of the drug. Whats weird is I'm not entirely sure why the whistle blower stepped forward, who it was or why with no proof Marion Jones admitted it.
Man of Honour
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I don't know if you've ever read his auto-biography It's Not About The Bike but in it he describes how cancer basically reshaped his body through the massive muscle loss from the treatments and therefore he went from the position of a triathletes body to one he could shape into a 'proper' cyclists body. It sounds vaguely plausible but like you, I've got my doubts that he hasn't taken anything untoward, particularly given his noted preponderance towards ostracising any ex-teammates who cast aspertions about his being clean.
Carl Lewis did test positive I believe but ironically was allowed to win the 1984 Olympics while the most famous drugs cheat in the Olympics history was disqualified from the 100m finals. Johnson also apparantly suffers from an intellect roughly equivalent to that of a child so you have to question how aware of the consequences he was.
You may wish read up on the BALCO scandal then, a US sprint coach (Trevor Graham) had anonymously volunteered information regarding the lab and the existence of an undetectable steroid including a sample. Why he chose to step forward isn't entirely clear, I'd like to believe it was because he still maintained some sense of fair play but that's probably a forlorn hope. Marion Jones admitted it I'd expect largely because it would only be a matter of time before it was proved beyond doubt and with a plea bargain it might have meant she was treated more leniently - additionally her ex-husband (CJ Hunter) claimed to have given her injections and he was at the time a noted drugs cheat.
And the way he attacks journalists who even think about mentioning doping.
Caporegime
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i'm not really sure if you were trying to counter my point or not the way it was worded? But my point was she couldn't and wasn't caught and wouldn't have been no matter how much testing was done, UNTIL the guy gave the testers a sample of the drug, they could they look for said drug in samples but till that point they simply would have not noticed it as something wrong.
ITs certainly possible that she admitted it to limit her punishment, but I think I more meant, why the heck did anyone own up to it. I guess you find the first guy whose guilty of something else then offer him a reduced sentence to testify against things they couldn't prove yet. Bit of a sleazeball thing to do.
THe thing is, I'm not sure I despise this so called cheating at all, why, because if a huge number of the "top" athletes in any field have been proven to cheat already, theres a good chance a heck of a lot more of them are cheating and just not caught, taking some other designer drug that no whistle blower has told on(yet). So if you're in a sport as a kid and a young adult before you find out the only way to the top is too cheat, you're basically under the impression everyone is doping anyway, surely it becomes the norm and really becomes not an advantage, but just keeping up.
if you take the blinkered view that almost no one cheats and those that do have an unfair advantage so they should be punished while your true hero's get a real chance to shine, whatever. The more realistic view is a lot of these so called champions cheat, and you don't know about it. Most of the people found cheating so far are no more guilty than anyone else, they just got caught, thats it, its that simple.
The fact is that even non cheating athletes are eating a certain way, putting their bodies under incredible strain, are taking supplements, and training in ways to boost their testosterone to abnormally high levels anyway.
Caporegime
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He denied ever taking drugs at first and received a lot of support from other high profile athletes who publicly claimed he wasn't the type of athlete to cheat.
Then when both tests showed he was positive he tried to justify his actions rather than apologise.
Then during an interview with Matthew Pinsent he took a massive dump on every athlete who had supported him by saying you only reach the top by cheating. Got absolutely hammered for his attitude in the interview and lost a lot of friends within the sport because of it.
People who apologise and show remorse for their actions deserve a second chance not lying malicious ****s who'll happily **** on their friends to save themselves.
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Man of Honour
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I wasn't countering your point, I was providing more information since you said you didn't know how it happened or why. I'd have to partially disagree with your last sentence there, while they couldn't test for the particular drug they were already concerned that something was wrong, they simply couldn't prove what it was.
But being perfectly honest (pun not intended) it's a bit sleazy to take drugs in the first place so I'm not willing to put them on a pedestal as a paragon of virtue. As far as it goes I'd be less than surprised that the caught athletes would try to 'grass' on their fellow cheats.
Lots of people cheat and that makes it ok? Is that the view you're going with here? I don't think it makes it ok, it might make it more understandable but we should be aiming for less cheating in sport or to redefine what constitutes cheating in the first place. I don't think I'll ever be ok about the idea that taking drugs is a necessary part of sport but it that is what people want then it won't be cheating as such.
Because he has **** all else to do with his time? I agree to a certain degree, he served his time, let him earn a living. However, banning him for life from the Olympics is the correct stance. Should be the same for footballers, no World Cup if caught.
