Are international athletes the new crack heads?

Rroff said:
I suspect it is pretty widespread :( sadly these days all too many people see no problem with cheating unless they get caught.
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The biggest deterrent against using PEDS is loss of sponsorship unfortunately even there some companies lack the moral fibre and act of greed like Nike and Head has done and continue to give money to a proven user as is the case with Maria Sharapova.
 
Everyone does it to some extent but in Russia it is government policy. They have an FSB department aimed at 'safe' doping (prevent getting caught). The system evolved to such an extent that it is present everwhere, from athletes and their families to top officials.

The pressure to win has greatly increased since 2014 as Russia desperatly tried to improve its international reputation and that has probably contributed to the discovery of the system.

It seems the Russians are destined to repeat the mistakes of the Soviet Union. And suffer their consequences.
 
The whole thing is such a minefield.

The margins between success and failure in top level sport are so small, that any opportunity to increase performance by even a tenth of a percent could help make all of the difference.

Just look at the whole Sharapova situation, she was taking something which was 'legal' for years, and then got caught out when it was added to the banned list and she continued to take it. Of course she insists that she was only taking it for 'medical reasons', but I'd be astonished if it wasn't being used specifically to get these small gains.

Anyone who had taken a moral stance and chosen not to take the same (now banned) substance when it was still 'legal' would have been at a small, but not insignificant disadvantage. So it will often come down to who's prepared to push the envelope the furthest, which just results in more and more athletes getting closer and closer to the line.

What does it even mean to be clean these days? If your medical team are ahead of the game and able to keep you 'within the rules' with the latest tech, the line just starts to become a blur.
 
Most nations use drugs to enhance performance. They then use other drugs to mask the first performance enhancing drug.

Some athletes can sometimes be given things like anti-biotics or a supplement pill and it will come up during screening. As a gym goer natural is by far the best root. But some people who want to win will be prepared to do a course.
 
Roar87 said:
The vast majority of professional athletes are using drugs yes
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This

I'd imagine nearly every olympic athlete is using some kind of PED, just some aren't clever enough to not get caught. Same as any sport, most professional athletes at the top of their game will be. And to think otherwise is naive.

It's funny that the people who moan about it are usually the same people who moan that the 100m world record didn't get broken again or nothing amazing happened
 
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cainer said:
to quote myself from the thread in sporst arena,



:p
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Fully agree, they are never going to stop ways to cheat, no matter what form it takes, it is a complete waste of money to fund WADA and all the others if there are more, it's business and to much money to be had.

It should be pretty much anything goes. How good would that be, Javelin would need a 747 runway :)
 
Lance Armstrong (American) and Ben Johnson (Canadian) both got caught and claimed that everyone else is also cheating. Apparently we can't trust those whistleblowers though.
 
Of course, the interesting thing is that the Classical Olympians 2000 or so years ago had no problem with performance enhancing narcotics, They regularly took stimulants and pain killers in order to gain an edge.

Why wouldn't they, Winning was everything (None of this silver or bronze nonsense) There were only winners and losers! (And a hall of shame for people caught cheating, but using narcotics was just fine) And that was it,

Indeed, even as late as the early 20th century using drugs was just fine.

When (and why) did it become bad form to do so??

And why is using drugs to gain an advantage considered cheating, and, say, using a special and expensively developed carbon nano-tube bicycle frame (or whatever) not considered so??
 
puppetworx said:
Lance Armstrong (American) and Ben Johnson (Canadian) both got caught and claimed that everyone else is also cheating. Apparently we can't trust those whistleblowers though.
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To a certain degree that was their justification for doing it, as they subsequently then blew the rest of the field away...
 
When you compete without PEDs you're in a competition of who has the greatest genetics, not who has the greatest skills.

Sports and athletics is usually about skills and tactics. What PEDs do is enable a person to eliminate barriers within their genetics, so they can focus on developing skills and tactics alone.

Granted some (very few) sports are all about sheer strength and PEDs can put people on an unfair advantage. But when it comes to sports such as tennis, football, martial arts, skateboarding, F1 racing etc... I see no proplems with using PEDs.
 
I've been saying for last 10 years, all athletes dope.

If you think otherwise you are being naive.

Some kid on reddit was arguing the other day how Brock Lesnar is natty.

Ok brah... dude walks around at like 260 ripped and people actually think the dude isn't juicing? lmao.
 
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Should jist have an "open tournament" anything goes.

I wanna see somone do the 100m in 7 sexonds damnit
 
Orionaut said:
Of course, the interesting thing is that the Classical Olympians 2000 or so years ago had no problem with performance enhancing narcotics, They regularly took stimulants and pain killers in order to gain an edge.

Why wouldn't they, Winning was everything (None of this silver or bronze nonsense) There were only winners and losers! (And a hall of shame for people caught cheating, but using narcotics was just fine) And that was it,

Indeed, even as late as the early 20th century using drugs was just fine.

When (and why) did it become bad form to do so??

And why is using drugs to gain an advantage considered cheating, and, say, using a special and expensively developed carbon nano-tube bicycle frame (or whatever) not considered so??
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The ethics of harm.


If PEDs become basicaly a requirement to compete more athletes use rhem and ever increasing types which inevitably has negative health effects.


Thus is becomes a trade off to become an athlete you kust sacrifice your health or have no chance

Which then mwans that it ethically falls to the judges/competition runners to outlaw ir to protect the athletes
 
Tefal said:
The ethics of harm.


If PEDs become basicaly a requirement to compete more athletes use rhem and ever increasing types which inevitably has negative health effects.


Thus is becomes a trade off to become an athlete you kust sacrifice your health or have no chance

Which then mwans that it ethically falls to the judges/competition runners to outlaw ir to protect the athletes
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Training to Olympic standards ****s your health up anyway.

A little bit of drugs on top isn't really going to make that much difference in the long term.

For the most part, the only "Athletes" that actually look reasonably healthy are the swimmers. (And Beach Volley ball of course :D )

Most of The rest really do not look well at all :eek:

(The Marathon runners, in particular, all look as if they are escaping from a death camp!)

People who did well in their 20's will be crippled with arthritis and other health problems as they age. What do you think an Olympic "heavy" athlete will look like once he stops training. The weightlifters (for example) will turn into lard mountains. Unless they are very careful I doubt if any of them will live into their 70's, the cyclists will all need new knee and hip joints and their quads will turn to slush.

And so on

(Though, of course, there are many technical Olympic sports (Shooting, Bobsleigh, etc) where extreme physical capability is less important and the health wrecking effect of extreme physical training is less dramatic (and indeed where drugs would be a less significant advantage anyway) so I make a distinction between Olympic "Sports" and Olympic "Athletes")
 
Mynight said:
I imagine there's going to be a few things being used they haven't or cant pick up with their current set of tests.

Personally I think they should allow whatever they want to dose with in a separate Olympics. I would love to see that :D. "And the world record for drug assisted long jump is set at 55 meters!"
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I would be inclined to agree - I'm all about the transhumanism. EXCEPT that many of these drugs and the treatments that would help people are harmful. So you end up with the situation that nobody who is gifted and passionate about their sport but who doesn't want to sacrifice their long-term health gets to compete anymore.
 
h4rm0ny said:
So you end up with the situation that nobody who is gifted and passionate about their sport but who doesn't want to sacrifice their long-term health gets to compete anymore.
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We are already heading into a world where Men can have cosmetic surgery and then compete in Women's sports.

The only way most Women will have a chance in competing at this level will be to go Full-Bore East-Germany! :eek:
 
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