OT: The PED Principle--Doping in Modern Sports

Argh. Meant to make this a diary.

Damn East German commies and their PEDs.

the length athletes will go to get ahead and turn a blind eye to consequence. Even in the 90's and late 80's when I was enrolled in the Kines program, the part where you actually took 500 level motor learning and biomechanics classes not rec management =) we studied the impact and effects of 290# linemen running low 5.x 40 yard dash and what that size/speed ratio meant to bone and muscle structure. Stuff like Creatine hadn't even become mainstream logic at that point. Even now as I teach middle school health this is one of the things we really break down as a Pandora's box. Steroid for an asthmatic in metered dose can be a lifesaving tool. At a rate 10 to 1000 times the medical protocol, it turns an above average athlete into a workhorse who can recover at remarkable rate and become superhuman. 

I've always seen the moral side of the issue and refused ANY and all discussion of it's use as a PED.  Pretty much as the Diary states, when you know an athlete is 'juiced' credibility is lost. I couldn't deal with that aspect of it even beyond the chemical, biological/ethical side of things. Knowing it wasn't REAL and earned seemed cheap. Unfortunately now we have linemen in the 300+ club approaching absurd sub 5 numbers with more force, more violence, more risk of career ending injury. We are just now seeing some of the effects with recent light shed on the loss of Junior Seau. He played in an era where PED was still taboo but gaining social norm to a point. Considering the conversation on potential impact from severe concussive trauma and depression, knowing the size, speed, and violence of his career compared to the numbers now, I can only fear what type of human stew we will create from players ten years down the road. Sorry for the long rant, but this topic is pretty sensitive to me.

I feel the same about Lance. I was drawn in to his success and really rooted for him during his success. A lot of Europeans had their suspicions early on which I thought were baseless. Now given all evidence regarding the riders he beat and testimony from his teammates, it's hard to imagine a scenario he didn't dope. To me, I now see Lance in the same context as Bonds, a man who accomplished great things but whose records comes with an big asterisk (written or unwritten).

There are rumblings that doping in soccer is a bigger problem that anyone wants to let on.  In a sport where players may run the equivalent of 6-7 miles a game, and in which only three substitutes are permitted, and where the season is incredibly long, you can see where someone might try to strengthen his endurance.

Part of the moral debate here has to center on the fact that a lot of these sports turn a blind eye to the use.  In soccer, for instance, I don't think there is much, if any, drug testing, so players may figure that they have nothing to lose.  When the decision to use or not use PEDs comes down to basically the honor system, discouraging players from using them is a tougher argument to make.   Testing standards need to be firmer.  If three substitutes isn't enough for soccer, change the rules to allow more.  

People doping in high school level is something that no one seems to want to talk about.  I played varsity sports at a division 4 school and several of my teammates used PED's.  Most of them got scholarships at the college level.  I even had a teammates parent approach me about them.

My brother got me into watching cycling when I was a kid and I have watched every tour since right after Miguel Indurain's reign. I also grew up in the Bay Area and Barry Bonds was the only reason I became a baseball fan, and Miguel Tejada was my other favorite player.  After paying attention to the BALCO scandal and cycling, I know far too much about PED's. 

You are right about cycling, everyone Lance beat was doping their minds out and Lance's teammates have said he demanded they dope, There was Tyler Hamilton's accusation of the fridge full of blood, and Floyd Landis' claims of the team doping.  Of course these two guys were caught red-handed and thus had incentive to lie about Lance's PED use, and both were banned from international competition (with Landis getting his Tour title stripped). It must be noted that the French Government and European Press did everything within their power to catch Lance.  The US government investigated Lance for improper use of government funds, as using US Postal Service sponsor dollars to fund and cover up his alleged doping would have been a serious felony, and found nothing. But of course the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence and so forth.

Doping in cycling is unique as you stated it's not about increasing muscle mass, it's about carrying more oxygen in your blood which is what the PED EPO is designed to do (what Lance is most accused of taking). They even had to ban Viagra as a PED because it dilates artieries and allows better blood flow at higher elevations (very useful when you climb the highest mountain in europe on a bicycle. So Lance was either a freak of nature who used his battle with cancer to motivate himself to ingore pain, and to never stop pedaling, or he is the greatest cheater of all time. I prefer the former.

I'd like to see two sets of Olympics - one in which every athlete is vigorously tested for doping, and one in which they can use whatever they want (doping, PEDs, etc.). Provide licensed doctors to consult the athletes to ensure that they aren't misusing, but otherwise use whatever means necessary to test the limits of the human body.

The cynic in me has always assumed that he was doping because everybody else in the sport was doing it.

On the other hand, I will concede that there is a narrow possibility that he is clean just because cycling isn't the most accessible sport.  With those fancy & expensive bicycles, there's just not many kids growing up and going into cycling.  Especially top athletes who are going to be steered to sports like basketball and football (both the American and the soccer variety).  So I suppose that it is possible that an exceptional athlete could dominate a sport like cycling the way that Armstrong has.  But I'm still inclined to assume that he was doping.  It just makes more sense.

The public never hears the results of testing in college for PEDs.

As I understand it, while the NCAA tests for PEDs in tournaments, for the most part testing is left up to the individual school.  And I don't know about any testing in high schools.

So when you see a physically huge and dominant team like 2012 Alabama, should'nt the average fan at least think about the possibility that those giants are juicing?

Was it not obvious when we looked at Jim Mandarich, Barry Bonds, Roger Clements, et al?

I say it is obvious when I look at these monstrous athletes who are bigger, faster, stronger.  This is not the result of Sabin being a better coach.  It is not genetics.  It is not demographics.  It is not recruiting.

If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, call it what it is and let the chips fall where they may.

Remember how much money is being spent on college football.