August 01, 2006

• in competitive cycling, the sin seems to be in getting caught. it really is the most hyprocritical of sports with regard to doping.
• Bad apples!
• And once again, Greg LeMonde potentially winds up with egg on his face ...
• Athletes in every sport take performance enhancing drugs. Every sport. Yes, even golf. Why wouldn't they? Millions of dollars are at stake. If their peers are taking the drugs and getting better, then they need to take them to keep up or they will get left behind and lose their millions. I would love to see the NBA get tested. Look at how those guys fill out over the years. The press loves to look at pictures of Bonds and McGuire from their rookie season and compare them to later photos. Do the same with Michael Jordan or any other NBA player. The difference is staggering.
• The natural thing was silly anyway because it would've shown up on his earlier tests.
• Never mind Lance Armstrong, Lanids got his mom to speak out on his behalf. So he must be telling the truth, right? I also love how this guy keeps demanding an opportunity to prove himself innocent. You had that chance when they asked you to tinkle in the bottle, boyo. In all seriousness, I think it's just an instance of either the masking agent failing, or given the massive loss of time the day before, pulling a Ben Johnson and taking too much extra outside of the prescribed regimen. Not to mention that he's on a cocktail of drugs for his bum hip and something can easily be added to that and disguised, and also the fact that he's on a stimulant Ritalin-like drug for his Attention Deficit Disorder... Put it all in the open. Regulate, monitor, sell millions in drug sponsorships. Have people still die early. Just get rid of the hypocrisy.
• I wonder if he gets his mennonite membership revoked for this?
• It's sad, but I think the only way to discourage it is to really come down hard on innocent people. Floyd is positive? Suspend everyone on that team. Gatlin? Suspend the entire team. Bonds? The Giants are punished. No serious athlete will be willing to suffer because of the actions of one idiot if they know what's happening. It will never happen though. The lawyers would have a field day, and there'd be a lot more incentive to develop other compounds or masking agents.
• Sure convict him. Remember that OJ was found innocent and has been forced to spend his life seeking the real killer.
• meaning that landis will have to spend his life finding whose pee was in the sample? and how would he go about that, exactly?
• 1. Buy rubber gloves.
• The way to discourage it is to stop paying so much damn attention to rofessional sports and so much money to its participants. If we stopped caring who the hell was the best cyclist in the world, people would stop taking drugs to try to become the best cyclist in the world. As long as there's so much fame and money at stake, there will be people around who are willing to do anything they have to do their bodies in order to get it. We can either accept the drug use, or give up our obsession with these ladies and gentlemen. Or we can go on being hypocritical enablers.
• I see nothing wrong with paying athletes a fair proportion of what people are willing to pay to see them. A way to discourage cheating is to have a zero-tolerance policy toward cheaters. If they cheat, they're out of the league (or equivalent) for life - on their first offence. No more money. No more fame. Time to get a real job.
• Top Ten doping excuses.
• (for purposes of full disclosure, all of my urine is synthetic. I ran out of the real stuff years ago.)
• I see nothing wrong with paying athletes a fair proportion of what people are willing to pay to see them. Well, exactly. That's why I believe that the over-enthusiastic spectators are complicit in the drug use.
• The way to discourage it is to stop paying so much damn attention to rofessional sports and so much money to its participants. TUM, you're the voice of reason I never had. My upbringing was very strict Footballian, so the concept of sport not being the be-all and end-all of life's rich pageant is foreign to me. . . . like the Tour de France! Ooo! See how I brought that all back around again? Aww yeah! *endzone dance*
• I agree with rocket88. One strike and you're out, as far as doping is concerned. It's how baseball deals with gambling (to make a comparison with another one-strike rule), so why not doping?
• Why don't we just let them dope as much as they want? Let them turn into inhuman muscled freaks with hyper metabolisms, and die young. They're there for our entertainment. I'd love to watch them tear their own arms off while weightlifting (a la SNL drug olympics skit).
• It would be interesting to see what an all-steroid Olympics would be like. Esp. in the track and field events like shotput and hammer throw.
• It's sad, but I think the only way to discourage it is to really come down hard on innocent people. Floyd is positive? Suspend everyone on that team. Gatlin? Suspend the entire team. Bonds? The Giants are punished. No serious athlete will be willing to suffer because of the actions of one idiot if they know what's happening. Punishing people for something they didin't do only encourages the behavior you are trying to eliminate. There's no sense in not doing something if you are going to be treated like you did it anyway. I don't understand why anyone wants them to stop using steroids anyways. Steroid use should be required of professional atheletes.
• The reason why we should crack down on steroid use is to discourage young, impressionable wannabe pro athletes from taking the stuff in highschool and destroying their health. The kids won't stop juicing as long as the pros are being rewarded for it.
• Steroid use should be required of professional atheletes. Mh. I'd think that's the worst message that young people getting into sports could get. "It's not about keeping you fit and strong, but about getting your name in record charts and landing the n*ke deal". So even if then don't have a real chance of ever reaching the competitive level of pros, they start juicing from early on.
• MonkeyFilter: Gooned on the Juice
• The reason why we should crack down on steroid use is to discourage young, impressionable wannabe pro athletes from taking the stuff in highschool and destroying their health. The kids won't stop juicing as long as the pros are being rewarded for it. If this was really the case, then why the heck are we testing them in the first place, and then telling everyone when they fail? The only that an athletes steroid-use is impressed on a young kid is when he's tested, and the media is told the results. The process is about as wrong as it could be if the goal is to discourage young, impressionable wannabe pro athletes. This proccess could not better show the kids that steroids work. If we were really trying to discourage kids from taking steroids, we wouldn't test a single athlete for them, and we wouldn't further invade the athlete's privacy by telling the media the test results.
• The pros were using them long before we started testing them, and the resulting performance gains were well known at all levels of sport without the media's involvement. Once the media started reporting the phenomenon to the everyday fan (and, more importantly, the gamblers and bookmakers) there was a public outcry to discourage their use and the leagues grudgingly implemented testing programs.
• This stuff goes on all of the time at all levels of competition, I don't know why we act so shocked when someone gets caught. Zero tolerance just drives the need for more sophisticated ways of masking the drugs from testing.
• Outlaw the drugs, then only criminals will be athletes. Not only a life ban, but a life sentence - after a little torture in Guantanamo, to get the athletes to grass up their suppliers, etc.
• I take my steroid-based asthma inhaler before every netball game, yet I still play like shit.
• But it makes you look so manly.
• I eat poppy-seed rolls before a piss test, because I like living on the edge.
• My dad delights in recounting a paper he read where athlete subjects were asked if they would trade dying in five years time in exchange for an Olympic gold. The majority said YES. Which is why I think drug use in sport will always be with us and as with every other drug issue, harm reduction is the only sensible policy.
• tracicle - also have asthma steroid inhaler - unfortunately for my performance (bad at the best of times) not performance enhancing - cortico steroid as opposed to anabolic - As for the cycling - brother in law is a top flight b-grade cyclist - made a-grade cupla times - never the best - as he said the sport is full of it and he never willing to put health before acclaim!
• But, tracicle, compared to how you would play if you DIDN'T use the inhaler, chances are good it's still performance enhancing, yes? It's just a question of scale...or comparison...or time or something.
• "MonkeyBashi Implicated In Netball Doping Scandal" Oh dear! How will we face the neighbors??
• Won't somebody think of the children?!? I mean, 'cause I don't know what dosage to give 'em...
• Pah! Let's require athletes be paid no more than what the average American worker makes. Then let's make the pay for teachers and nurses twice as high as it is. Screw professional athletics--if they're druggies, they're out.
• They're entertainers, just like the movie actors and rock musicians who also make millions. At least athletics is acknowledging the bad influence drug users have on young fans, and trying to do something about it.
• but, but, what about "rock against drugs"?
• Crack is whack.
• both sports and entertainment should be paid "normal" wages. Then it wouldn't have every crack crammed full with no-talent hobag idiots for the kids to look up to.
• Sorry, nunia, but the answer we were looking for is Crack is Wack. "Wack". Not "Whack". Board goes back to roryk.
• Why you gotta tear down my thunder? *sniffle*
• Compulsory drug testing for rock stars!
• Yes they must be taking drugs or ffshht- they're outta there.
• Dehydration
• Floyd Landis is set to lose his Tour de France title and faces a two-year ban after returning a positive B sample for excessive levels of testosterone. Ha ha.
• At the risk of making people mad, why should we care about this? I don't understand what is so wrong about an athlete using performance enhancing drugs. I know, the idea is that their bodies should be pure and natural. Considering that pro athletes have professional trainers and dieticians and doctors and others that allow them to hone their bodies to a level that no person could ever acheive by themselves, why aren't performance enhancing drugs a natural progression? I'm seriously interested in why this matters to people.
• Then why not read all of the posts the preceded yours and find out?
• Also, Berek, you don't need to preface your comments with "at the risk of making people angry with me" or any derivatives thereof. We know you're tender about your treatment here, but you don't need to constantly prejustify yourself. And Ralph makes a good point about reading the threads before posting. People care about a whole bunch of things (and many of which I could not possibly care less about, such as the topic at hand), but your statement implies that other people shouldn't care about it either. You have a lot of potential to contribute, but that is often outshined by what I can only describe as a narrow perspective. For instance, it seems plausible that athletes should be able to modify their bodies in any way they see fit, but their actions do not happen within a vacuum; children who look up to them begin to see steroids as acceptable practice and start taking them themselves. Furthermore, as with many controlled substances, steroids have a tried and true history of having dangerous side-effects. But that's all I know, as I am not a specialist on the topic.
• And now, this: Marion Jones tested positive for the illegal blood-boosting drug EPO.
• Lance Armstrong suing some guy over dog collars that look like yellow wristbands.
• Great.
• "Animal Charity Collar Group, a for-profit company..." That settles the matter right there AFAIC.
• Well said, nunia! In addition, it's well known that steroids and other performance enhancing drugs damage the body. In ten years, when this dude's dying from kidney or liver failure, who pays the cost? Most likely society in various forms will have to pay the expense. Ten to one some idiot comes back and whines that they didn't realize what was happening, and "somebody should have stopped me/made a law." Ralph: Unfortunately, there's no law in having a company that sells something that makes a profit, yet has Charity in the name. Although, perhaps there should be! Chris Ohman, CEO of Animal Charity Collar Group, said the glow-in-the-dark pet collars were his company's idea. They come in white, yellow-green, pink and orange and have paw prints embedded on either side of the phrase. "It is not something that could be confused with a bracelet or any other product they have," Ohman said. Here's a pic of the Armstrong bracelet. How does this look like a dog collar? OK, maybe the Bark/Purrstrong phrase could be construed as imitative, but I, for one*, am totally SICK of any, all, and everything being patented, trademarked, and made off limits. *I, for one TM is now a trademarked phrase to be used by me, and me alone TM.* *hey, that, too!