The aritcle written by Jonathon Vaughters is an interesting read regarding an athletes motivation to dope and the best way to prevent it.

(He also confesses to doping in it)

My view is that our opinion on former drugs cheats is not formed by their doping but by what they do afterwards and all of our other biases.

If, like Millar, they say sorry, knuckle down and try to clean then we warm to them. But Vino’s win in the Road Race still left a sour taste in the mounth as he is view as a serial doper who when finally caught did nothing but serve his ban and come back trying to win again.

Lifetime bans leave no room for the Millars of this world and we need them to win the war. Unfortunately to achive this we need to suffer the Vinos, Warren Gatlins etc.

You are saying that give them a second, third or fourth chance but they are getting an unfair and unnatural advantage over their clean competition.

Craig, I understand what you’re saying but that statement is based on the assumption that the competition is ‘clean’. Hand on heart…I cannot honestly share that belief…and it breaks my heart to have arrived at that place.

Nope, but 4years for PEDs and 2years of recreational.

Happy to have returning athletes back into the sport they were banned from, rehabs a good thing, so is forgiveness.

I do however think the financial side of athletes winnings ought to be considered. If banned then a repayment of all winnings 4years previous to the implimentation of the ban ought to be brought in. I guess here I’m saying I want them returned (almost) to a nutral position and not profit (too much) form the sport they discredit.

I know nothing about drugs, performance enhancing or getting high. I’m only asking the question to see what the resulting debate will be.
If the sports are so riddled with drugs then why not just let them fill their boots. The differences between the different events is huge with some having standard equipment and others using the latest hi-tech developments such as rowing and cycling within their parameters. If they all used a standard piece of off the shelve equipment then it would be down to the individual and save a lot of arguements about illegal standards afterwards.

IMO cheating in track & field (and other disciplines) is wrong on so many levels. I accept there are so many individual stories that should be looked at on a merit basis & I wouldn’t consider recreational drugs as damaging as performance enhancing but cheating & hoping not to get caught destroys the very fabric the Olympics SHOULD be about

Poor old Tyson Gay getting beat to bronze by his drug indused (now probably the cleanest man in sprinting) Justin Gatling is bad form.

Severe penalties for knowingly cheating may put off other dopers. All it takes is .2 of a second to be in the history books for ever.

Rip Florence Griffith-Joyner

Severe penalties will lead to more farcical Landis-esque protestations of innocence + cost the governing bodies loads in appeals/other legal mumbo-jumbo*, plus you’d never get anyone to talk about it.

*see ‘Lance Armstrong’

Testosterone:Epitestosterone Ratio Test – False Negatives and False Positives

No, it’s just sport. Drug takers need to be punished and then rehabilitated just like normal life. You don’t get a lifetime in prison for drug use, and sports has to be the same as normal life.

+1

For those that say “No” then why not just allow drugs?

This is a ridiculous argument.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/412715.stm

So if say the FA got wind of the Spanish football team being part of a doping ring; the UCI getting wind of a bunch of cyclists in a doping ring and the tennis governing body got wind of some big name players in a doping ring (all the same doping ring) is it not essential that each governing bodies stance on doping is the same? Lots of cyclists get called cheats dopers and get bans etc; lots of footballers no one says a thing as the FA don’t care same with tennis players.

I don’t know where I am going with this but I’m going somewhere

Lol

“Not all governing bodies think the same” is I thnk what you are saying.

TrueDat.

Yes they should be banned for life.

If they’re stupid enough to get caught, you can bet your bottom dollar they’ve been getting a training advantage through doping as well.

You simply have to get a grip on things like this – doping, match-fixing etc.

Nowadays, the ‘fairytale’ story is not possible without cynical winks and nods – Kenya’s ‘unbelievable’ win against Pakistan at a cricket world cup may have been a wonderful David vs Goliath victory, but that is now brought into doubt by subsequent findings.

To restore the balance more in the favour of faith over cynicism, cheats of whatever ‘genre’ must be caught, proven to be guilty and banned for life.

This also needs to happen over a prolonged period (a sort of ‘cleansing’ period if you like) so that an ‘old guard’ can be seen to have died out and gone away before the shadows of suspicion recede enough.

stupid enough to get caught?
that just means those teams/athl with the money to cheat better will get away with it.increasing the divide between them and the others.
armstrong is a good example.

read pvcycling post on this.wankmeister is a wise man

It’s only doping cheating if your caught.

There is redemption in life and in law. Why not in sport?

Because they are knowingly cheating their fellow professionals to beat them. Without a drug free (or all on drugs) olympics then there is no olympics as we know it

Just my opinion and thats not worth much with my family so doubt it’s worth sh!te here

Normal people knowingly lie, and then regret it. Criminals knowingly carry out crimes, and then regret it. Sport cheats cheat, and then regret it.

I agree we want cheat-free sport

True ^ …. But still

I think I’d fit in more in 1945 nazi germany with my archaic views sometimes

Nope. Everyone deserves a second chance.

Because they are knowingly cheating their fellow professionals to beat them.

Not necessarily. What if everyone is doing it? Then you are not cheating to beat, you are just cheating to stay in the game.

I think it depends on severity. If someone has steroids or has been doping then yes a long ban should happen. However, it is also possible to get a ban for not attending. An athlete has to submit where they will be weeks in advance. If they are going away for a week training they have to submit this. If they change their mind or something happens that means they were not in that location and a drug testing official turns up, they can be banned for failing to give a sample even though they may be completely clean. this scenario has happened in the past through lapse concentration of logging location but it doesn’t mean they took anything.

Another spanner in the works….loads of tour de france cyclists are registered asthmatic so they can use ventalin, which opens the pipes in the lungs. Ventalin is a banned substance unless you are registered asthmatic and prescribed it. As most pro have team dr this is ddrug taking but no bans apply here.

Inderain was registered and had a resting pulse of 18 and max of 220. Won the tour 5 times in a row and was a cycling beast. Asthmatic..really. My mother in law is asthmatic and I don’t recon she could cycle down the road without suffering let alone up alp duez

I take your point alexd however your argument would carry more weight if you could actually spell the individual you cite as an example’s name correctly.

Miguel Indurain did indeed win the tour de france five times…and had the largest heart and lungs ever recorded. Whilst I’m not for a moment saying that drugs aren’t prevalent in professional sports, I will argue that they don’t turn a cart horse into a race horse.

Of course – but in a strong lineup of race horses, it has a big effect.

No. If you want to see harsher penalties then they should be extended to coaches, teams and doctors, not just longer bans for athletes. Also there shouldn’t be any ban for recreational drugs that aren’t performance enhancing or a masking agent. We have the normal law for that stuff

The ventalin thing is a big one.

Mark Cavendish is a registered asmatic 😯 Yeah OK. So are most of the pro tour. Pull the other one.

No. Cheats should be caught, exposed and vilified. Serve a ban. Long enough to be a substantial part of a career. But rehabilitation is also important. For those under pressure/considering doping, seeing clean ex-dopers achieve success, must help to highlight that the doping isn’t necessary.

^ a balanced post. Yeah I’m softening from my original ‘hari kari’ stance to the above but I’m still grinding my teeth

no, sport = entertainment

No. Cheats should be caught, exposed and vilified. Serve a ban. Long enough to be a substantial part of a career. But rehabilitation is also important. For those under pressure/considering doping, seeing clean ex-dopers achieve success, must help to highlight that the doping isn’t necessary.

this

No. If you want to see harsher penalties then they should be extended to coaches, teams and doctors, not just longer bans for athletes

and this

Because they are knowingly cheating their fellow professionals to beat them

Sad to say but this happens in many professional sports all too often.
Diving to get a penalty,feigning injury to get an opponent sent off in football etc etc

Can’t remember her name but the east German chick who beat Sharon Davies to gold many years ago. She was so
high on performance drugs she set several world records. Years later she was exposed. She admitted and asked fr all her records to be scrapped. They were indeed scrapped but Sharon Davies still had the silver. She served a ban but it still screwed everyone racers

Flo jo who died mysteriously in her bed set records that have been held for decades and peeps that know have said thy cant see these records broken ever again. Within a year her voice dropped several octaves …. She was never caught

Just 2 cases of drugs (one still not proven) and the damage it causes. Not for 1 olympics but forever.

Yes, it’s only sport.

But purely for the deterrent side effect. If you don’t have the balls and honour to do it clean, don’t do it at all. And balls to all the “we all make mistakes” folks – you shouldn’t if you’re aiming to be the best and you’re on the public stage.

Also there shouldn’t be any ban for recreational drugs that aren’t performance enhancing or a masking agent. We have the normal law for that stuff

They bring the “game” into disrepute by using illegal recreational drugs, so they deserve a ban for that too.

You can’t hold folk up as heros when they have cheated or done things that you’re trying to tell normal folk they shouldn’t do.

The Ventolin problem is interesting, and no two asthma cases are the same. I am surprised by the number people I meet, often fit people, who carry an inhaler because the odd incident, often years ago. Thrashing yourself in sport on cold mornings does sometimes expose weaknesses in the lungs. I’m not sure the bronchio-dilatation effect improves oxygenation over a non asthmatic.

Any doctors care to comment?