Tennis and Football for one, as Fuentes has said that made up the other 2/3s of his clients.

Wrestling (WWF/E/C) can’t call itself a sport anymore, it’s sports entertainment now.

mrmo – Member

“I like to think of it the other way round. advertising and entertainment are enablers of sport and competition.”

why is the yellow jersey yellow? why is the pink jersey pink, read the history of cycling and come back to me.

Doesn’t that prove his point rather than yours though?

Well if nobody was getting caught the call of fix would be just as loud, we need the right number caught at a reasonably regular interval so that we can be happy that cheats are caught and the rest are clean. It would also help if those that were caught were mid pack nobodies from countries we can’t spell so we can feel better about that and our heroes.

It’s like speed cameras and electric fences you only find out if it’s working by getting caught/shocked.

I also have to go along with the WADA ban principles. You need to get people to admit & come forward. Life bans mean nobody will talk or confess.

BTW I’m not saying that there isn’t still a problem in cycling, there is and I think its being addressed and attitudes are changing. It’s actually being talked about openly for one.

But singling cycling out as the sport with ‘the drug problem’ is naive in the extreme.

FWIW, back to the OP, let’s just say for a moment that cycling is now generally clean.

Isn’t the situation that happened at the Giro (where two riders on the same team got caught by an effective doping test and where their performances were deemed suspicious by many in the know beforehand) exactly what we’d expect and hope to see?

Of course that definitely doesn’t prove that cycling is generally clean but at least the parameters are more in line with what we’d expect if it is than they were before.

Elaborate.

If you use Twitter, take a look at soe of the tweets by @Giggs_Boson
He’s tweeted quite a lot about doping in other sports, mainly tennis and football.

There was also a TV programme a couple of years ago about doping in football.

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/the-truth-about-drugs-in- football-related-links

But singling cycling out as the sport with ‘the drug problem’ is naive in the extreme.

No-one is doing that, but we’re on a cycling forum talking about a EPO’d cyclist caught recently, so obviously the cycling side of things is going to be at the top of the discussion here.

However, it IS a problem and people are being caught more than in other sports.

p.s Do you know how often some footballers are tested ?

the tour was created to advertise a newspaper. it happened that the desgranges was a cyclist and it suited his aims. think about the route, the stages. If you want an audience go to the 6 day. A tour round a country where no one could actually watch the whole. An event that needed a newspaper to get people involved. Yes there was an interest, it would never have been created if there wasn’t but that so few were in the first few.

It’s funny isn’t it, they catch and expose a cheat and that seems to be taken by many as evidence that the Sport as a whole is “Dirty”.

Surely a sport where the governing body went out of their way to balls up testing or “lose” the results of certain top level athletes for several years in order to “Maintain the spectacle” where officials could be lent on to cover this sort of thing up would be dirty… Oh… 😳

TBH if test failures weren’t being publicized now after the whole LaLa thing, then I think that would be much more concerning… The thing is now competitors know just how critical it is that the UCI apply and are seen to be applying the rules swiftly, without prejudice and that any penalties are significant, they’ve not exactly covered themselves in glory of late…

Let’s have a full years amnesty.
For all sports.

Let everyone come forward, tell us the truth, then we can move on.
No bans, no seizing of assets, just a period of reflection.

THEN, blood passports for all, compulsory testing at all events and lifetime bans for anyone who fails.

If the sponsors go, let them.
A return to amateur status would be a good thing.
The incremental artificially enhanced ‘improvements’ in athletic performance have ruined a lot of sports:
Tennis used to be a much better spectator sport before athletic ability became the be all and end all. Tactical nous and guts produced the best tennis matches ever.

Technical improvements need to be regulated also – golf is becoming a farce as the majority of existing courses don’t suit todays equiptment.
F1 too – the cars just don’t suit the tracks.
But that’s another thread entirely. 😀

Let’s have a full years amnesty.
For all sports.

Major problem. Sporting fraud is in itself illegal in several countries and as Lance is finding out even if not in itself, it can lead to other issues of civil liability (or even perjury).

Not to mention that criminality often goes hand in hand with doping – eg drug dealing, etc.

I think that a Truth and Rec event would be a great idea but only if it exposes the truth, methods and people behind the doping, not just the doping itself.

weeksy – Member
“But singling cycling out as the sport with ‘the drug problem’ is naive in the extreme”
No-one is doing that

Sorry, I read the ‘cycling is a dysfunctional mess’ (paraphrased comment by someone on the other page) as being in relation to drug use, hence my comment that it’s no more ‘dysfunctional’ than other sports.

Surely though all teams are ‘doping’ to an extent. However the difference in most is that they know the limits and stick to these so that they never fail a drug test. For those that say that is crap, open your eyes!!

It’s like anything though, you will try and get an advantage by exploiting the rules. It’s done in F1, its done in football, its done in every day life (tax a fine example!)

Don’t agree with doping in the slightest and hope none of the big guys are but they aint just taking ‘mineral water’!!

With Cookson running against McQuaid (which I assume also means Hein as well) we’ll soon find out if there’s been any dodginess in British Cycling/Sky.

Are these guys villains? Yes, they are cheats pure and simple.

Are we (supporters of cycling) guilty by association? Possibly? In the same way as the baying mob at the Coliseum.

I am pretty cyncical about pro sport in general and believe that drug abuse is widespread plus the distinction between a PED and medicines to allow you to computer when you couldn’t otherwise compete is blurred in practice and in morality.

Given a Libertaritan bias, I would be perfectly happy to let them all get on with it and live with consequences of their own actions. That would be a level playing field albeit one riddled with weeds and cow pats. But as a parent, who has seen how low drug abuse has extended down from pro sport into junior country stuff, I feel the need to protect the innocent and the vulnerable. At the moment, we seem to achieve neither.

Why do professional sports exist?

If you think, they exist to entertain and to advertise, they are not about competition as such. Competition is only a means to an end.

Is doping a problem?

If the reason for pro sport is to entertain and no one cares then no. If the audience start to have a problem with doping then the sport has a problem and needs to clean up.

I’ve always considered professional sport to be another branch of the entertainment business, morally equivalent to the X Factor or Shakespeare. And I couldn’t care less if the Bard was off his head on laudanum while writing Hamlet, either – as long as it’s entertaining, that’ll do.

What is interesting to me, however, is the extent of drug taking in amateur sport – in the same way that pop stars influence their fans, does cycling with its high-profile drug cases have a noticeable influence on club riders? Athletics?

Cookson has little chance due to the questions by some National cycling bodies, they think BC has cheated to win all the medals. Also the success has built a level jealousy that will make some vote for others. There are some alternatives to McQuaid and they don’t look good.

It’s a bold move to go for the job but if Cookson loses and McQuaid stays or a supporter of his gets in then it will have a knock on effect for BC and the athletes.

So how do you see the guys that choose not to dope?

Quite often 2nd and poorer. Which is why there is so much doping in a sport that in Europe has often drawn riders from poorer backgrounds

This is the problem. Either the ENTIRE peloton has been doing undetectable stuff that the recent whistleblowers know nothing about and therefore couldn’t grass them up or actually the majority are clean. I’m going for the latter.

Atlaz, wasn’t TH’s suggesting a hierarchy of drug abuse within the peloton rather than the either/or you seem to be suggesting? My read was that it was almost seen as a badge of honour to be selected for the super-juice camp rather than the watered-down or even water-only versions.

Is there any clinical proof that EPO improves athletic performance?

Yes there is, in double blind randomized trials. Here’s one, for example.

VO2max increased from 63.6 +/- 4.5 mL x kg(-1) x min(-1) before to 68.1 +/- 5.4 mL x kg(-1) x min(-1) 2 d post rhEPO administration (7% increase, P = 0.001) in the EPO group. Hematocrit, sTfR, sTfR-ferritin(-1), and VO2max did not change in the placebo group.

I share Shib’s sentiments about the choices taken by professionals. There are rules for the pro-peleton that we aren’t privy to.

Dammit, that was a rhetorical question 🙂

What is interesting to me, however, is the extent of drug taking in amateur sport – in the same way that pop stars influence their fans, does cycling with its high-profile drug cases have a noticeable influence on club riders? Athletics?

I’d be very supprised if domestic raceing was ‘clean’. My housemate used to shoot up with all sorts of crap bought off the internet, and that was just to improve his bench press and impress the laydeezzzzz. Throw in come actual competition and prize money, minor sponsorship/shop team spaces etc and I’m sure some cyclists will be doing exacly the same.

There was a chap last year got busted for EPO in New York, wanna say Cat 3, but just for effect (pretty sure it was Cat 2 though)

That must be why my points tally and positions are so low. All those E1234’s are on low dose EPO in my masters series.

Actually, it’s more likely to be ibuprofen, i’ll see if that is performance enhancing 😆

EPO at Gran Fondo NY

Bike Snob’s take

I think for the first time in the history of the sport there are clean teams and clean athletes competing equally at the very top of the sport

i think it actually takes testing more seriously than other sports – How are there no failed tests in football or in Tennis given the rumours ?

i think some folk will think that they all must still be cheating no matter what happens

It is funny the 100 metres had final full of cheats [ iirc two have never failed a test] yet no one taints Ussain Bolt or the current crop the same way they do cyclist.

It is probably unlikely any sport will ever rid itself of cheats

Surely though all teams are ‘doping’ to an extent. However the difference in most is that they know the limits and stick to these so that they never fail a drug test. For those that say that is crap, open your eyes!!

This.

Having read The Secret Race I find it very hard to believe they’re not all still at it, be it EPO, blood transfusions, steriod patches or whatever. The testers have something of an uphill battle on their hands – if they have a new test i’m sure it’ll be a matter of months before a workaround again and once again the peleton is ‘clean’ as all the bad eggs have been found. Just like last time.

I take EPO regularly…

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It’s hospital prescribed though and far from turning me into some athletic god, it just stops me from colapsing into a crumpled heap after walking up the stairs. I do have end stage kidney disease though (Dialysis three times a week – sucks nuts)

Video – Arm being canulated for dialysis.