Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

BJL
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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby BJL » Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:33 pm

Alex Simmons/RST wrote:
BJL wrote:What the hell. I say allow drugs in cycling and retrospectively give everyone back their titles, and dignity. I for one would love to see what the human body is capable of, drug assisted or not, and am quite happy to let others be the guinea pigs. As long as there are no complaints about early deaths, weird diseases or any other abnormal health issues, what's the problem? And in time, we may develop drugs without the side effects which would greatly help other people recover from injury or disease. Without athletes, many more innocent animals will die unnecessarily in labs, and for what? Drugs that work on rats but not humans? Golf clap.

So I say, let the athletes take one for the team doing their bit for medical science, giving something back to society and take all the drugs they want.

:P
So you think it's OK to dope up juniors too?
That's what they'll need to do in order to make a living as a pro cyclist.
I thought this argument might come up.

I wouldn't go that far but once you're 18, you're an adult (unless you play AFL) and can make your own decisions. I was going to suggest having 2 categories of cycling with equal prize money but even then someone would try and take the easy money.

What do you suggest?

At the moment, the cheats are one step ahead and you have to cheat to make a living as a pro anyway. And while I'm here, I think all the flak people like Armstrong cop is just baloney since in his day, most of the pro pelation were cheats. Concentrating on Armstrong just lets others off the hook.

And what do you do if the team leader wins a grand tour clean as a whistle but the rest of the team were as dirty as they come but come well down the general classification to avoid scrutiny?

'Armstrong cheated? Oh well, let's just strip him of his Tour De France victories and give them to whoever came second.'
'What? The guys who came second was ALSO cheating. What about the guys who came third?'
'Them as well!!! This is getting beyond the joke. Guys who came fourth?'
'Fourth place cheated too!!!! Fifth cheated?'
'Damn right!'
'Bugger it, NO ONE wins that year, next...........'

And besides, as I said, eventually they'll develop drugs without any side effects. The sooner they do that, the better for everyone. And once that happens, what's the issue?

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby BJL » Tue Mar 06, 2018 6:52 pm

I'm just interested to know what people here consider to be 'performance enhancing' drugs?

Painkillers? We often see AFL footballers get pumped full of painkillers at half time and then get back on the field to play the second half. Does anyone see the issue with this? I do. I live with chronic pain. Try doing some weights at the gym when it feels like someone is stabbing you in the arm with a needle? I can assure you pain impacts negatively on your performance. So are painkillers considered 'performance enhancing'? In my book, yes. If you are experiencing pain, then painkillers will enable you to perform better than you would have been able to without them. Not only that, player then gets back on the field risking causing MORE damage to whatever is causing the pain in the first place. Same with most sports.

What about other drugs used to control everyday medical conditions? Drugs that if not taken, the athlete would perform at a far lower level. Are they not 'performance enhancing'?

What do you consider to be a level playing field?

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby MichaelB » Tue Mar 06, 2018 8:47 pm

BJL wrote:I'm just interested to know what people here consider to be 'performance enhancing' drugs?

.....

What do you consider to be a level playing field?
I am seriously flabbergasted that people still think it's a good idea to go hell for leather and give everyone free reign to drugs. Seriously ? :roll: :| :|

The level playing field is where everyone abides by the law, even if it is a bit wonky. If found to be crap, then fix it.

So the results of free for all drugs will be more of issues like Linus Rumsas's death. Yeah, think that's good ....

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Arbuckle23 » Tue Mar 06, 2018 10:28 pm

BJL wrote:I'm just interested to know what people here consider to be 'performance enhancing' drugs?

Painkillers? We often see AFL footballers get pumped full of painkillers at half time and then get back on the field to play the second half. Does anyone see the issue with this? I do. ?

Couldn't agree more. Footballers "getting a jab" to play without pain is performance enhancing. The players most likely would not be on the field without the painkillers so they come under the performance enhancing drug category.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Wed Mar 07, 2018 7:32 am

BJL wrote:I'm just interested to know what people here consider to be 'performance enhancing' drugs?

Painkillers? We often see AFL footballers get pumped full of painkillers at half time and then get back on the field to play the second half. Does anyone see the issue with this? I do. I live with chronic pain. Try doing some weights at the gym when it feels like someone is stabbing you in the arm with a needle? I can assure you pain impacts negatively on your performance. So are painkillers considered 'performance enhancing'? In my book, yes. If you are experiencing pain, then painkillers will enable you to perform better than you would have been able to without them. Not only that, player then gets back on the field risking causing MORE damage to whatever is causing the pain in the first place. Same with most sports.

What about other drugs used to control everyday medical conditions? Drugs that if not taken, the athlete would perform at a far lower level. Are they not 'performance enhancing'?

What do you consider to be a level playing field?
I don't get hung up on such things - we have WADA to define what is and is not doping. Sure there are a couple of substances I think might be classified differently wrt the Prohibited List but by and large it's a pretty good list and it's not put together by idiots but involves quite a deal of thought and research by experts in their respective fields.

Keep in mind that performance enhancement per se is not a sufficient reason for a substance/method to be prohibited. If it were then eating, breathing, training and sleeping would be banned.

The problem is enforcement, not the prohibited list, nor the sanctions. Risk of being detected/caught is the #1 deterrent.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Wed Mar 07, 2018 8:04 am

BJL wrote:I thought this argument might come up.

I wouldn't go that far but once you're 18, you're an adult (unless you play AFL) and can make your own decisions.
Then you are naive to think that just because someone isn't 18 yet they won't be on the juice, especially when they know everyone else will be. The pressure to perform by that age is huge, especially for someone with athletic talent that will be on the edge of selection/non selection in elite squads. There were 18 year olds in the Sun Tour this year. Caleb Ewan was still a teenager when he signed onto a pro team. There are teenagers in the pro conti ranks, Matej Mohoric was on a world tour team at 19.

Having coached riders in lax regimes, the spots go to the kids who are doping. Then when they race elsewhere with better doping control, they all tank. The better athletes are rubbed out of the sport.

We can't even prevent under age drug and alcohol use now. You really think opening up doping with an artificial line at 18 is going to work?
BJL wrote:I was going to suggest having 2 categories of cycling with equal prize money but even then someone would try and take the easy money.
Cycle racing can hardly afford to run its races now, let alone attempt to split into categories.

One sport, bodybuilding, did just this and guess what happened? Yep the "clean" version has some of the highest doping sanction rates of any sport.
BJL wrote:What do you suggest?
People will cheat. Giving up on preventing or minimising the cheating is not the answer.

I suggest we apply the political will to make the current system work better. It may not be perfect and in some cases it's as much PR as it is anti doping but it's better than doing nothing.

Opening it up as a free for all is ludicrous. The chemical experiments that will happen will at best be medically unethical and at worst exceedingly dangerous and life threatening. You'll be finding out who has the best doctor/chemist, not who the best athlete is. One only has the study the horrible outcomes for those young men and women of East Germany and other eastern bloc countries to see what sort of world this would usher in.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby AUbicycles » Wed Mar 07, 2018 8:29 am

I would choose to watch a clean sport. It is a bit like the American world wrestling in that it is an entertaining spectacle for those who enjoy it, but it is not a competitive sport. I will go for sport that entertains but am realistic about entertainment sold as sport.
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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby fat and old » Wed Mar 07, 2018 9:50 am

BJL wrote: What do you consider to be a level playing field?
Posted elsewhere

Easy. Either all go nuts, or compete on the day as you are. None of this "I'm only reaching my potential" guff. Potential means jack if you need medication to reach it. You're supposed to reach your potential, not human potential. If sickness, defects or gentics precludes you from being the best, then tough.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Nikolai » Wed Mar 07, 2018 5:55 pm

Alex Simmons/RST wrote:I suggest we apply the political will to make the current system work better.
Okay, what do you mean by "apply the political will"? Can you explain?

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Nikolai » Wed Mar 07, 2018 6:21 pm

Alex Simmons/RST wrote:The chemical experiments that will happen will at best be medically unethical and at worst exceedingly dangerous and life threatening.
Apart from drawing on imagination, how do you know that this will happen? Can you give examples?

In fact, I think the opposite is true. The major professional sports in the US have window dressing type of anti-doping. When athletes retire, as long as they maintain a normal lifestyle, they are fine.

Also, no one forces anyone to do anything. If someone is not prepared to do what's necessary to perform at the level you have to perform, you go do something else.

Note too, and this is important, pro cycling isn't different to NFL or NHL, everyone and their dog is on the gear except in cycling, because it's part of the Olympic movement and yada-yada, the hypocrisy is sickening. Look at Wigging, look at Froome, Brailsford and their transparent circus.
Alex Simmons/RST wrote:One only has the study the horrible outcomes for those young men and women of East Germany and other eastern bloc countries to see what sort of world this would usher in.
That world wasn't pretty, but it was nothing like it's been portrayed by some spin doctors.

Thing is, the anti-doping regulations have been in place for over 70 years I think. What's the result? A 3.7% catch rate? Corruption, lying and cheating culture you learn 2 weeks after you decide to race bikes as a sport.

One thing we know for certain — doping will never stop, never slow down, never shrink. As long as money's on the line and a single rider thinks that someone dopes, the game's on. From top to bottom.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Wed Mar 07, 2018 6:34 pm

Nikolai wrote:
Alex Simmons/RST wrote:I suggest we apply the political will to make the current system work better.
Okay, what do you mean by "apply the political will"? Can you explain?
Well for a start, the combined annual budgets of all the world's anti doping agencies is less than the individual annual contractual income of a large number of the world top athletes/sports people. Let that sink in for a minute and consider that AD agencies are supposed to cover just about all sports.

ASADA, which is one of the best funded AD agencies in the world, only conducted 5600 tests, to cover athletes across all sports. Let that sink in for a minute. Keep in mind that the number of tests last financial year was also the 2nd fewest since records began in 2001/02.

ASADA's annual budget is less than half of what the national men's cricket team is paid.

Properly funded, effort can then be put into an intelligence based approach to anti-doping rather than the dominantly test-only based approach that is woefully inadequate since it's too easy to beat and the number of tests is tiny compared to that needed to lift the risk of being caught.

But the political will doesn't exist because there are no votes in it. The public at large are sucked into nationalistic fervour and wants winners far far more than they want clean sport.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Wed Mar 07, 2018 6:38 pm

Nikolai wrote:
Alex Simmons/RST wrote:The chemical experiments that will happen will at best be medically unethical and at worst exceedingly dangerous and life threatening.
Apart from drawing on imagination, how do you know that this will happen? Can you give examples?
Plenty of examples but a quick one comes to mind - in 1984 the US cycling team management forced their riders to use exogenous blood transfusions. One or two refused, others that objected were kicked out, while the rest realised their position was in jeopardy if they didn't toe the line.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby biker jk » Wed Mar 07, 2018 6:39 pm

Alex Simmons/RST wrote:
Nikolai wrote:
Alex Simmons/RST wrote:I suggest we apply the political will to make the current system work better.
Okay, what do you mean by "apply the political will"? Can you explain?
Well for a start, the combined annual budgets of all the world's anti doping agencies is less than the individual annual contractual income of a large number of the world top athletes/sports people. Let that sink in for a minute and consider that AD agencies are supposed to cover just about all sports.

ASADA, which is one of the best funded AD agencies in the world, only conducted 5600 tests, to cover athletes across all sports. Let that sink in for a minute. Keep in mind that the number of tests last financial year was also the 2nd fewest since records began in 2001/02.

ASADA's annual budget is less than half of what the national men's cricket team is paid.

Properly funded, effort can then be put into an intelligence based approach to anti-doping rather than the dominantly test-only based approach that is woefully inadequate since it's too easy to beat and the number of tests is tiny compared to that needed to lift the risk of being caught.

But the political will doesn't exist because there are no votes in it. The public at large are sucked into nationalistic fervour and wants winners far far more than they want clean sport.
Apart from adequate funding for ADAs, criminalising doping would also help, as would abolishing TUEs.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Wed Mar 07, 2018 6:52 pm

Nikolai wrote:That world wasn't pretty, but it was nothing like it's been portrayed by some spin doctors.
http://www.dw.com/en/east-germanys-dopi ... /a-5968383

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Nikolai » Wed Mar 07, 2018 7:41 pm

Alex Simmons/RST wrote:
Nikolai wrote:
Alex Simmons/RST wrote:I suggest we apply the political will to make the current system work better.
Okay, what do you mean by "apply the political will"? Can you explain?
Well for a start, the combined annual budgets of all the world's anti doping agencies is less than the individual annual contractual income of a large number of the world top athletes/sports people. Let that sink in for a minute and consider that AD agencies are supposed to cover just about all sports.
So you reckon it's money? Give the bureaucrats more cash and they'll fix it. Same bureaucrats who have shown they can't do sh*t with little money, somehow they'll fix everything with a lot of money.

I think we've seen this what, thousands of times in all spheres of life, no? The incompetent, lazy slugs promise us all kinds of miracles if only we give them cash and when we do, and we always do, they burn it and ask for more while they fix nothing.

If only money could fix things...

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Nikolai » Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:30 pm

Alex Simmons/RST wrote:
Nikolai wrote:
Alex Simmons/RST wrote:The chemical experiments that will happen will at best be medically unethical and at worst exceedingly dangerous and life threatening.
Apart from drawing on imagination, how do you know that this will happen? Can you give examples?
Plenty of examples but a quick one comes to mind - in 1984 the US cycling team management forced their riders to use exogenous blood transfusions. One or two refused, others that objected were kicked out, while the rest realised their position was in jeopardy if they didn't toe the line.
That's not what I meant to ask. Maybe I misunderstood.

I understood you saying, if anti-doping is removed, then "[t]he chemical experiments that will happen will at best be medically unethical and at worst exceedingly dangerous and life threatening."

I asked for an example, i.e. in a sport without anti-doping controls, the chemical experiments that happened were at best medically unethical and at worst exceedingly dangerous and life threatening. You see what I'm driving at?

You brought up 1984 LA Games, an event with anti-doping controls that actually caused the US cycling team management to force their riders to use exogenous blood transfusions and the repercussions for those who refused to follow orders.

The abuse, serious abuse, happens with anti-doping system in place, the very thing you say will happen when anti-doping is removed. I don't get it.

By the way, before someone runs ahead and makes silly conclusions from my posts, I'm not arguing for removing of anti-doping. Not right now anyway.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Nikolai » Wed Mar 07, 2018 11:47 pm

biker jk wrote:criminalising doping would also help
Sure, like criminalizing drugs stopped anyone using them. Oh and criminal gangs who do nothing but buy and sell drugs and kill people from time to time are great. It's great too to lock people in cages for causing no harm to anybody. Great idea.

Anyway, apart from that... Criminalizing doping, there are multitudes of legal and other problems with that idea. One example: you get busted in a country where doping is a criminal offence while the act of doping itself happened in a jurisdiction where it's not. Good luck prosecuting that.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Thu Mar 08, 2018 6:26 am

The number of times athletes have used or been given drugs and substances that are not for legitimate medical reasons (and with no thorough clinical work on long term over exposure to healthy humans) or indeed have not even been approved for use in humans is substantial.

At the very least this is highly unethical even in a non anti-doping environment and most likely is highly dangerous.

If you can't see that, I can't help you take the blinkers off.

Yes there will always be cheats and corrupt people, but that is no reason to simply roll over and accept it has to be that way, or that such people should be permitted to dominate the sporting scene.

And yes, a better funded AD bodies can make a difference, especially if they have adequate resources and powers to properly investigate, we manage athletes better, we educate and reduce and minimise the incentives to dope and incentives for corruption, we work on cultural change, we properly vet the people who have positions of influence over athletes. It's hard but it can be done with political will.

Change can be made - an example - there has been a lot of effort to make it much harder for people unsuitable to be in a position of care of children to have access to such roles, including in sport. Every official, coach, supervisor etc must pass the working with children check. It's most certainly not a perfect filter but at least it prevents many of the worst from being involved and we have an ongoing system that can be improved and refined. But hey, in the world of "that's just how it is" we just let child molesters have their go? No, of course not, and with sufficient political will change for the better can be made. Perfection? No, that's unrealistic.

At present the anti-doping system is not perfect but it's had at least some positive impact, applied the brakes to some of the more egregious doping. Why throw that away, when it could be doing better and doing more?

I mean we live in a world where our state government is planning to spend $2.5 Billion of the people's money knocking down and rebuilding a couple of relatively new and perfectly fine stadiums. TV broadcast rights in this country alone are worth many billions of dollars. Meanwhile anti-doping bumbles along with a budget in the order of $10M.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Nikolai » Thu Mar 08, 2018 11:17 am

Alex Simmons/RST wrote:If you can't see that, I can't help you take the blinkers off.
I can see how my point can be missed, so I'll say it in a short, clean sentence:

The supposed ill effects of doping you talk about should be already present because doping is present.

That is, if you allow people to dope, the argument goes, X, Y, and Z will happen (based on what, btw?). But they already dope, so where is the X, Y, Z?

Where is the X, Y, Z in American professional sports? Why no one has ethical issues with NBA, NHL, NFL and baseball?

Hypocrisy all around. It's ethical to dope here but not over there. Let's breed pathological liars who can look into a camera and tell millions how clean they are and they don't even blink. This is what we want, right? And we teach them how to lie and cheat early while they're still kids so by the time they're 28 and someone gets suspicious, they'll be able to bs their way out of trouble.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Thoglette » Thu Mar 08, 2018 12:33 pm

Nikolai wrote:The supposed ill effects of doping you talk about should be already present because doping is present.
...
Where is the X, Y, Z in American professional sports? Why no one has ethical issues with NBA, NHL, NFL and baseball?
You forgot round-ball football. :)

As someone who's worked with "body builders", I'll say that the physiological and mental impacts of doping can be blatantly obvious. Someone else mentioned the poor old Ostis and what they're going through, 30 years later.

Of course it depends on the type of doping ("mechanical" doping should be relatively safe as long as the throttle doesn't jam :D ) but at the end of the day competition requires a level playing field
Nikolai wrote:Hypocrisy all around. It's ethical to dope here but not over there. Let's breed pathological liars who can look into a camera and tell millions how clean they are and they don't even blink.
Agreed.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Nikolai » Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:32 pm

Thoglette wrote:As someone who's worked with "body builders", I'll say that the physiological and mental impacts of doping can be blatantly obvious. Someone else mentioned the poor old Ostis and what they're going through, 30 years later.
Yeah I know, it's awful. Would cyclists do that kind of doping? Of course not, makes no sense. Point is, they already do whatever they have to do with all the anti-doping controls in place. Remove that, and not much will change. As a bonus, the cheating, lying culture will disappear. Another bonus — millions of dollars will be saved. Another bonus — sponsors will be more keen to jump in since there will be no doping scandals.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Alex Simmons/RST » Thu Mar 08, 2018 2:51 pm

Nikolai wrote:
Alex Simmons/RST wrote:If you can't see that, I can't help you take the blinkers off.
I can see how my point can be missed, so I'll say it in a short, clean sentence:

The supposed ill effects of doping you talk about should be already present because doping is present.
Whilst anti doping efforts haven't been perfect, neither have they been completely useless. Your argument is a logical fallacy known as one "the excluded middle". Just because it's not or can't ever be perfect doesn't mean it isn't worth pursuing.

Many of the more egregious and dangerous practices are far easier to detect now days, and so those who do dope don't use such dangerous methods or substances, or as frequently, or as often, or in the same dosages, or as close to, or in competition as they once did when controls were far more lax or non existent. So yes, there is still doping but the performance impacts have been reduced and the health risks have been reduced.

Just about any steroid is readily detectable and detection glow times are getting longer. EPO use beyond micro dosing has been made much more difficult to get away with. Using other people's blood is readily detectable.

Yes, it's a constant battle between the developers of new methods and those trying to rub them out, but to suggest that anti doping has had no impact is a false argument.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby AUbicycles » Thu Mar 08, 2018 7:48 pm

Often we look at a topic in black or white, right or wrong but doping is very much grey. It is better have limits but the limits will always be put to the test.
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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby Nikolai » Thu Mar 08, 2018 9:18 pm

Alex Simmons/RST wrote:Your argument is a logical fallacy known as one "the excluded middle". Just because it's not or can't ever be perfect doesn't mean it isn't worth pursuing.
That's not my argument at all. The excluded middle fallacy is explained here. But, I don't want to deviate into unpacking my argument, I think it's plain and doesn't need unpacking.
Alex Simmons/RST wrote:Many of the more egregious and dangerous practices are far easier to detect now days, and so those who do dope don't use such dangerous methods or substances, or as frequently, or as often, or in the same dosages, or as close to, or in competition as they once did when controls were far more lax or non existent. So yes, there is still doping but the performance impacts have been reduced and the health risks have been reduced.
This is where we disagree. When riders are forced by the anti-doping system to find new ways to skirt the controls, no one can guarantee they'll find a safer method to dope. If you remove the anti-doping controls, the argument goes, everyone will rush into doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Well, says who? What is this nonsense based on? It's as if the pro peloton is made up of suicidal psychos who can't wait to kill themselves.

To repeat, the horrors you portray the anti-doping free sport will bring is a red herring. The doping is already rampant and has been since day one and we don't see any horrors (obviously, from time to time someone either dies, like Tom Simpson, or comes close to dying, like Ricco. With Ricco though, he wouldn't be doing what he tried to do if there were no doping controls). In some professional sports the anti-doping is a joke, yet, no one is doing any crazy stuff.

The position you defend has shown its absolute bankruptcy and impotence since its inception in the 1950s (or earlier depending who you ask). If anything, it's going downhill as the time goes on. It breeds liars, some more disgusting than the others but despicable liars nevertheless. It makes major Olympic nations like Russia and USA dope its athletes with the help of the state and cover up their shenanigans. This alone is enough to ditch the hypocritical circus.

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Re: Crapola!!!....P.E.D's in Cycling

Postby AUbicycles » Thu Mar 08, 2018 9:58 pm

AUbicycles wrote:Often we look at a topic in black or white, right or wrong but doping is very much grey. It is better have limits but the limits will always be put to the test.
Ok... that was too soon as Mick Rogers has just said
Mick Rogers wrote:Everyone is talking about a grey area – eliminate the grey area. Make it black, or make it white.
Would be nice... especially for the fans. But Black and White also means that Wiggins and Froome and all of the others can explain themselves and not hold off from talking. Saying nothing opens the doors as well.



Nikolai wrote:The doping is already rampant and has been since day one and we don't see any horrors (obviously, from time to time someone either dies, like Tom Simpson, or comes close to dying, like Ricco.
I completely disagree... but reading through your posts, a more useful question I am trying to understand is what is your intention or 'solution'? I don't mean to be rude in asking and am trying to understand the point you are making.
Cycling is in my BNA

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