Drugs in other sports

[Licramite]

maybe they should accept it and produce a list of safe performance enhancing drugs they can take.
I lived on anti-inflammatory,painkillers and dextrose doing the welsh 3000. - I dare say they are banned drugs.

of course its the Professional world thats screwed sport. - when sport was all by armatures and big business kept their snouts out it was far less corrupt. (well it wasn't actually but it was less to do with money and more to do with sport)

 

[raindog]

maybe they should accept it and produce a list of safe preformance enhaucing drugs they can take.

Sorry, but that's daft. We'd have the same situation as now, with some competitors taking drugs that aren't on the "list". And what about athletes who want to compete clean?

 

[Licramite]

Thats the problem - completely clean - allot of the so called enhancing drugs haven't been proved to actually enhance anything - they potentially could give an edge , they could be claimed to give an edge , theoretically they can give an edge - so they are banned. - hell I'm surprised they haven't banned sugar - it's a chemical compound that can give a huge boost of energy.
Interestingly I read of a health warning about red bull - there have been several deaths linked to red bull - as it should only be drunk before a period of intense physical activity , not a soft drink as its chemical make up causes huge stress in the body.

It won't stop drug testing but it would remove the harmful drugs and stop piddling around with safe drugs- after all what are we trying to do - protect the athletes from harming themselves or worry about who is actually the fastest at that race.

If someone thinks he is fit enough not to need the harmless drugs (chemicals) then thats his choice.

OK I admit I don't know enough about the ins and outs of the drugs but some of the stuff thats banned that occurs in natural foods is crazy - I know of a Friend who if he had an asthma attack, I think he said a month before an event ,he couldn't compete as his inhaler had a banned drug in it. - and he was only club competeing.

 

[Crackle]

Most of you have probably seen this now

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/feb/07/australian-doping-sport-drugs

Organised crime links to drug supplies, match fixing, peptides and hormones, makes cycling look saintly.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

Most of you have probably seen this now

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/feb/07/australian-doping-sport-drugs

Yeah, mainly because I posted in above and we've been discussing it...

 

[thom]

Yeah, mainly because I posted in above and we've been discussing it...

Now now, easy mistake to make.
Nobody's perfect

 

[Licramite]

peptides is what lance was on If I remember right , thats why it took them so long to nail him. -

me I'm on mars bars

 

[Crackle]

Yeah, mainly because I posted in above and we've been discussing it...

I was so sure I'd checked the links!

2 in the morning, most of us were snoring then.

 

[User169]

All sorts of stories going about of young players told to go and "bulk up" during the summer break, and if they're not up to weight when the new season starts they're out of the team. I think we all know what "bulk up" means. I absolutely love rugby, but I think it's drugs testing is about as feeble as football and tennis.

The 17 year son of a cabinet minister got busted last year. If the pressure is so intense on schoolboys, I can't believe it's any less so in the adult pro game.

 

[Hont]

Interesting that Nadal hasn't......

Nor David Ferrer. A player I have never even seen look out of breath, let alone tired.

Men's tennis, at the very top, seems to be more and more about who can physically outlast his opponent, which is cause for serious concern. And you know something's wrong when even the players are saying they are not tested enough.

 

[Hont]

maybe they should accept it and produce a list of safe performance enhancing drugs they can take.

There are too many problems with that unfortunately. How many "safe" drugs in your cupboard, on the little advisory sheet, say "take as many as you like"? We all know that sportsmen will take more if they think they'll get an edge. EPO/Testosterone/HGH are safe if taken in small enough quantities (they are all found in the human body naturally after all), so are you going to remove them from the banned list? Many of the substances on the banned list are masking agents for something nastier, so allowing them would be carte blanche to use the other product.

I'm sure there are anomolies, though, as I'm pretty sure that caffeine would be banned if it wasn't found in products that millions of people routinely consume and had been synthesised in a lab somewhere.

 

[BrumJim]

Genetic, cultural or peds. Michael Johnston was adamant it was not in fact genetic when he made a program last summer aired during the Olympics. He pointed to the importance of sprint track running in Jamaican culture.
Some people think there is a genetic legacy related to the selection of slaves for their physical characteristics.
It was only in reading this article that I realised 1/3 of the Jamaican sprint team from the 2008 Olympics have been sanctioned for doping...

Friend of mine recons that it is culture. Jamaican boys learn to run very fast at the sound of a gunshot from a very early age. (He's from Nevis, so allowed to make inter-Caribbean rivalry comments like that!)

 

[johnr]

The son of a colleague of mine plays League for one of the local pro teams. I asked her how often he's tested. She says, 'all the time'. He won't take any medications not given to him by the club. Apparently random drug testers came round to the house of one of his team mates in the middle of the night (this guy had previous involvement with PEDs). I didn't think that was permitted... but then again maybe a pro athlete's 'middle of the night' is different from ours.

 

[johnr]

This follow up on the history of corruption in football:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/feb/10/football-match-fixing-no-surprise

Good idea on an independent investigative body:
"It makes you pine for the equivalent of a World Anti-Doping Agency for match-fixing, to bash heads and set standards. But (Rick) Parry (former chief executive of Liverpool FC) suggests it will never fly, as sporting authorities are suspicious of any encroachment on their territory. Instead he calls for a transnational body to act as a police force, collating information and passing it on.

That makes sense. As does sports creating the right culture themselves. Parry says: "It isn't always about years of painstaking evidence. A large part is about making it hard for stings to happen. The British Horseracing Authority has the best integrity unit of all. If they gather intelligence prior to a race they send a security officer to a jockey to say: we are watching you. That's a big disincentive for criminals.""

 

[oldroadman]

Thats the problem - completely clean - allot of the so called enhancing drugs haven't been proved to actually enhance anything - they potentially could give an edge , they could be claimed to give an edge , theoretically they can give an edge - so they are banned. - hell I'm surprised they haven't banned sugar - it's a chemical compound that can give a huge boost of energy.
Interestingly I read of a health warning about red bull - there have been several deaths linked to red bull - as it should only be drunk before a period of intense physical activity , not a soft drink as its chemical make up causes huge stress in the body.

It won't stop drug testing but it would remove the harmful drugs and stop piddling around with safe drugs- after all what are we trying to do - protect the athletes from harming themselves or worry about who is actually the fastest at that race.

If someone thinks he is fit enough not to need the harmless drugs (chemicals) then thats his choice.

OK I admit I don't know enough about the ins and outs of the drugs but some of the stuff thats banned that occurs in natural foods is crazy - I know of a Friend who if he had an asthma attack, I think he said a month before an event ,he couldn't compete as his inhaler had a banned drug in it. - and he was only club competeing.

Why did his coach/himself get a TUE* for the inhaler? There are quite a few in use by peole who suffer when high level exercise and hard breathing heppens. It's not hard to sort it out with a competent doctor, and stay legal.
* Theraputic Use Exemption certificate. Allowed usage of certain compounds for health reasons. Check the WADA and UKADA sites, it's all there.