Drugs in sport

[Xplora]

Just a quiet reflection on a ride with webby84 today. He took out a KOM on a big crazy segment, like chewed it up and spat it out. Nom nom nom. Anyways, generally I thought I was rumbling along OK and while I wasn't 100%, I had 9 minutes slower over webby84 on the 40 minute climb. DAMN that's a lot of time. Part of me wonders "how can I bridge that gap?" Lance certainly figured it out... makes you wonder in an age where participation and the competition takes a distant second place to victory how we can't expect people to take drugs to make the magic happen. 9 minutes is a LOT of time to make up.

[bigfriendlyvegan]

It's easy: learn to let go of the need to beat other people. When you're competing, you should be trying to do your best, not defeat others. We need to establish a competitive culture where the person who struggles valiantly and comes last is lauded more than the person who easily wins first place.

It's 2am. I'm way to philosophical today. It must be the cold and flu medication.

[foo on patrol]

Trying to say this nicely, you can stick the drugs up where the sun don't shine!

I would rather be able to hold my head high and say, what I did in sport, I did on my own backbone and have respect for myself.

Foo

[Nobody]

Xplora, you just needed to choose you parents more carefully.

As BFV said, I'd argue there's too much of a competitive culture in this country.

I was on a ride alone about two weeks ago in SOP where a guy followed me just to compete with me. When I doubled back to lose him, he still followed me. I don't think he got the hint that not everyone wants to race. Some of us are just going for a ride and have other goals in life.

[RonK]

Stephen Dank can answer all such questions - just give him a call.

[rkelsen]

A hollow victory is no victory at all.

Earn it properly.

[familyguy]

It's gotten to a point where ANY and ALL sports leave themselves open for questioning (implied or explicit) regarding drugs, particularly those shadowy 'is it or isn't it?' legal areas.

ATP: Tennis has had a lot of shadow incidents over the last five years, and it's all very quiet. There is a website that espouses to report tennis drug issues, but all the claims remain rather unsubstantiated without confirmation from the ATP.

NRL: We've just had the recent hoo-ha about 'elevated levels' at the Roosters. Manly turned around in 6 days from three straight 80-minute poundings and played like it was game 1 of the season on Friday.

EPL: footballers are playing 38 club games a year, plus Champions League, internationals and trials, which can see them reach 50+ a year.

NBA: 82 regular season games, plus finals, with possibly 100 games if they all go to the wire. And now you don't get many stars sitting out 25 games mid-season like the 80's and 90's unless they break something or blow a knee out.

It gets to a point where if it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, well...

Sir Charles got it started right, but now perhaps we need more of this.

Being a great footballer isn't going to pay your bills at age 60 when your exploits of 35 years ago are forgotten.

Jim

[wombatK]

Nothing wrong with a competitive spirit - it's something evolution has equipped us with. No
other animal appears to have it (i.e. have organised sports), but it must have some survival value.

Whatever the survival value is, drugs weren't part of the forces that shaped evolution. So why
do you need to interfere with thousands of years of natural selection by doping up ?

Just recognize that you can't win at everything you compete in. Don't expect Cadel to win the
Australian Open. Don't expect any pro cyclist to turn out any time soon on an NBA court. Or in
a weightlifting arena, 100m sprint event etc.,. The more elite level, the more specialised (
aka freakish) your body needs to be to win at that sport.

If you feel you gotta win, be comfortable to find that sporting niche that suits your body type
and genetic makeup. Then find the training plan that suits your body (everybody is different),
and work hard at it. Don't beat up on yourself if you don't get to be world champ, and don't
think any less of others if you do.

Cheers

[brendan c]

just forget about yesterday mate, you had an off day. You were recovering from a cold, didn't eat enough, have a new bike fit, and were overgeared, actually I think everyone is overgeared once you hit 10% + Bellbird felt like repeated single leg presses for 19 minutes

The bridge the gap equation is easy, for me I'd need to gain 20-30W and to lose 7-9 Kgs (no idea what I weigh atm) based on the strava guessing, which might even be slightly low coz we were climbing bellbird into a slight headwind.

[Xplora]

You're too kind Brendan! I couldn't tell if we had a headwind or not... cadence 50 feels like you're stopped no matter how fast you're actually going LOL

[Mulger bill]

Standard human behaviour. If the reward (real or perceived) exceeds the estimated risk (real or perceived) then it'll happen.

Large money and/or kudos makes for a big incentive...

[vander]

Bridging the gap is easy. It takes hard work and dedication, which seems to be kryptonite to a lot of people. The first time I tested myself up bobbin head I did 15:16, and that was a flat out effort, yesterday I did 9:02 completely solo noone taking wind for me. All my other climbs have had similar improvements. This percentage wise is a lot more of an improvement then you need. What has it taken, 2 years of working hard (with plenty of up and down periods). Drugs are a cop out. Blaming it on genetics is a cop out (sorry but noone here is close to reaching their athletic potential). Just knuckle down train hard but more importantly train smart.

[durianrider]

One can get a script from any doctor for testosterone, corticosteroids, salbutamol, dexamphetamines, thyroid meds, modafinil, sudafed and therefore come under the loophole of 'theraputic use exemption' aka a TUE form that you give to ASDA and they will tick on the box you are 'medically exempt' from testing positive to BANNED DOPING products for anyone that didnt get a note from the doc.

So now how do we define dopers? You mean all the guys that have 'doctors permission' to juice to the eyeballs but claim to be '100% pure'? If you drink coffee, you can't critique others for doing legal drugs to gain an edge in my book. Coffee is legal and so are over 100 doping products you can buy from any local pharmacy with a note or script from your doc. Some are over the counter but you still need a doc's note to hand to ASDA if they, once in a blue moon, decide to test the local race.

[Nikolai]

So now how do we define dopers?

In a WADA sport, anyone who breaches its anti-doping code. Outside of that, you can define 'doper' any way you want.