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"It's Not About the Drugs"



 
 
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  #21  
Old July 31st 05, 08:29 AM
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DepartFictif wrote:
if you take EPO and HGH (to use your examples) durring training, and
are "clean" durring competition; ie: if/when tested you return a -ve
result.... are you cheating? What really constitutes cheating.


Well, that.

If you
take medication for a cold (the same stuff any non-athlete can get over
the counter in a pharmacy) durring competition you are "cheating"... is
this right?


No, then you're not cheating, because you know it isn't affecting
your performance. You're getting busted for not-cheating.

It's an imperfect world, with imperfect rules. We have rules against
running red lights. You can get busted for running a red light even
if you can see that no one is coming the other way, so there's no
actual danger in it. You can argue that the traffic or doping rules
are stupid or hypocritical (like having a speed limit that everyone
breaks) but we both know they're the rules.

Is there not a much bigger and more in depth issue here
than right/wrong, clean/cheat... it's a far more complicated world out
there than you realize...


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  #22  
Old July 31st 05, 10:15 AM
DepartFictif
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No, then you're not cheating, because you know it isn't affecting
your performance. You're getting busted for not-cheating.



So by saying that you are saying it is up to every individual to make
up his(or her) own mind as to wether he is doping or not... it's the
individual's morals... dangerouse mate... the door's WFO if you go down
that road..

No, I think you have to go by the rules, those are the only true
guidelines that don't involve individuals resting on their moral
upbringing to make a dicision... and sadly, if you go by the rules...
"you don't get cought, you're clean."
(In fact half the time wit lots of federations you can get cought and
still be clean.. but that's a separate issue alltogether. Let not go
into that.)

  #23  
Old July 31st 05, 03:55 PM
Sandy
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Dans le message de
oups.com,
a réfléchi, et puis a déclaré
:

Another thing I didn't like is the riders=Robocop cliche.
I gather this is popular among Armstrong-haters in France


No defense of France here, but I think you (and lots of others) may be
concocting your own vision of what the French think. On TV, FR2, for
example, he is the focus of enormous enthusiasm, idolatry, admiration and
respect, as a cyclist. Recently, the slightly "hot" version of Armstrong -
the Sheryl Crow stuff - makes him even more enviable and popular.

What I have written, what some (not all) French feel, is that broad scale
racing has suffered from the overwhelming focus on a single event. It's not
just Armstrong's monomania that nettles. It's the market domination and
dilution that accompanies it. I mentioned that if the World Series
(baseball) were like the Pro Tour and the TdF, no one would have to win
regularly, just show up for the round-robin final by invitation. And a
little like golf, where course management is all that counts towards the
final score.

The only race Armstrong won, of 20 in this year's tour, was one time trial,
and nothing in line. He is a masterful rider, and those who want to chant
"Drugs, drugs, drugs" seem more envious than critical. He wanted only one
prize, he did all possible to achieve it, and did it 7 times. Criticism is
not exclusively French in character, although I think Europeans are more
sanguine about doping.

Armstrong says he has finished. The next tour is eleven months away. I
sure hope other subjects manage to attract attention. This forum could
cavitate from the absence of both in the interim, and it would not be all
that bad.
--
Bonne route !

Sandy
Verneuil-sur-Seine FR


  #24  
Old July 31st 05, 04:26 PM
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allow me to intoduce myself. i'm the author of the article linked at
the start of this thread. i appreciate the comments - positive and
negative - on it. in defence of some of the negative criticism, allow
me to emphasise that is but one of three articles on the same subject i
published on sigla over the last year. reading the other two may give
you a fuller picture of my view of the sport.

possibly i do take a nostalgic view of the past. i think that is true
of most cyclists and former cyclists. the first of the three articles
acknowledges the role drugs have played throughout the history of the
sport. but where i see the major difference between the drug use of the
past and the drug use of the present is that, in the past, riders like
anquetil defended their position. today, we have riders who seek to
deny that it is going on and are actively seeking to silence anyone who
says what is going on.

of the three articles, i think this last one is the weakest and least
effective. what they should have been was the first, dealing with the
history of drug abuse, the second, pointing how that it is still rife,
and a final one that actually addresses the issue most cycling fans i
know can't get their heads around - how do you still love a sport that
is as corrupt as you know it is.

instead, i wrote an article that touched on issues without delving into
them in the way they deserve. the article touches on the fact that
david walsh was once one of the blind monkeys who knew what was going
on and said nothing. one day i'd like to know what brought about his
damascene conversion.

the article tries to explain that there isn't really a black and white
in lance armstrong. those who say he's doping, can't prove it. but
neither can those who say he's clean.

the only real point i think i make in the article is that the sport's
law of omerta is even more damaging than the drugs. as fans, we know
too much today to buy this silence. i don't think any of us really
believe that the drugs have gone away. i doubt if many of us believe
the drugs will ever go away.

re the robocop issue. that is taken from an essay in robert redeker's
le sport contre les peuples, published in 2002. redeker's main argument
throughout the series of essays (which cover a range of sports) is that
money is the root of all evil. but i still like his robocop / lara
croft analogy, still think it is worth quoting.

again, for the comments - both negative and positive - thank you.

  #25  
Old July 31st 05, 04:50 PM
B. Lafferty
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wrote in message
ups.com...
allow me to intoduce myself. i'm the author of the article linked at
the start of this thread. i appreciate the comments - positive and
negative - on it. in defence of some of the negative criticism, allow
me to emphasise that is but one of three articles on the same subject i
published on sigla over the last year. reading the other two may give
you a fuller picture of my view of the sport.

possibly i do take a nostalgic view of the past. i think that is true
of most cyclists and former cyclists. the first of the three articles
acknowledges the role drugs have played throughout the history of the
sport. but where i see the major difference between the drug use of the
past and the drug use of the present is that, in the past, riders like
anquetil defended their position. today, we have riders who seek to
deny that it is going on and are actively seeking to silence anyone who
says what is going on.

of the three articles, i think this last one is the weakest and least
effective. what they should have been was the first, dealing with the
history of drug abuse, the second, pointing how that it is still rife,
and a final one that actually addresses the issue most cycling fans i
know can't get their heads around - how do you still love a sport that
is as corrupt as you know it is.

instead, i wrote an article that touched on issues without delving into
them in the way they deserve. the article touches on the fact that
david walsh was once one of the blind monkeys who knew what was going
on and said nothing. one day i'd like to know what brought about his
damascene conversion.

the article tries to explain that there isn't really a black and white
in lance armstrong. those who say he's doping, can't prove it. but
neither can those who say he's clean.

the only real point i think i make in the article is that the sport's
law of omerta is even more damaging than the drugs. as fans, we know
too much today to buy this silence. i don't think any of us really
believe that the drugs have gone away. i doubt if many of us believe
the drugs will ever go away.

re the robocop issue. that is taken from an essay in robert redeker's
le sport contre les peuples, published in 2002. redeker's main argument
throughout the series of essays (which cover a range of sports) is that
money is the root of all evil. but i still like his robocop / lara
croft analogy, still think it is worth quoting.

again, for the comments - both negative and positive - thank you.


A question, if I may. Are you aware of any serious critique of the Vayer
analysis found in the Walsh book? If there is, please point me in that
direction with a citation. Thanks!


  #26  
Old July 31st 05, 05:28 PM
Steven L. Sheffield
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On 07/31/2005 09:50 AM, in article
t, "B. Lafferty"
wrote:


wrote in message
ups.com...
allow me to intoduce myself. i'm the author of the article linked at
the start of this thread. i appreciate the comments - positive and
negative - on it. in defence of some of the negative criticism, allow
me to emphasise that is but one of three articles on the same subject i
published on sigla over the last year. reading the other two may give
you a fuller picture of my view of the sport.

possibly i do take a nostalgic view of the past. i think that is true
of most cyclists and former cyclists. the first of the three articles
acknowledges the role drugs have played throughout the history of the
sport. but where i see the major difference between the drug use of the
past and the drug use of the present is that, in the past, riders like
anquetil defended their position. today, we have riders who seek to
deny that it is going on and are actively seeking to silence anyone who
says what is going on.

of the three articles, i think this last one is the weakest and least
effective. what they should have been was the first, dealing with the
history of drug abuse, the second, pointing how that it is still rife,
and a final one that actually addresses the issue most cycling fans i
know can't get their heads around - how do you still love a sport that
is as corrupt as you know it is.

instead, i wrote an article that touched on issues without delving into
them in the way they deserve. the article touches on the fact that
david walsh was once one of the blind monkeys who knew what was going
on and said nothing. one day i'd like to know what brought about his
damascene conversion.

the article tries to explain that there isn't really a black and white
in lance armstrong. those who say he's doping, can't prove it. but
neither can those who say he's clean.

the only real point i think i make in the article is that the sport's
law of omerta is even more damaging than the drugs. as fans, we know
too much today to buy this silence. i don't think any of us really
believe that the drugs have gone away. i doubt if many of us believe
the drugs will ever go away.

re the robocop issue. that is taken from an essay in robert redeker's
le sport contre les peuples, published in 2002. redeker's main argument
throughout the series of essays (which cover a range of sports) is that
money is the root of all evil. but i still like his robocop / lara
croft analogy, still think it is worth quoting.

again, for the comments - both negative and positive - thank you.


A question, if I may. Are you aware of any serious critique of the Vayer
analysis found in the Walsh book? If there is, please point me in that
direction with a citation. Thanks!




Not a direct critique, but:

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/sport.cfm?id=847262004

Also, consider Vayer's comments regarding what happens to one of his
clients:

Archived AFP story at
http://whenskiesaregrey.com/default....2&stid=8051757

"Le TAS vient de prouver qu'il n'est pas indépendant", a estimé pour sa part
Antoine Vayer, manager du coureur. "Il se dégage très habilement du dossier
mais sanctionne le premier repenti. Il est certain qu'il n'y en aura plus
d'autres".

Antoine Vayer s'en est pris à l'UCI: "Pour moi, c'est une première étape
vers la légalisation du dopage. Le message est clair: surtout, ne dites
rien. L'UCI est responsable."

His comments in that article make him sound a little paranoid, to my mind.




--
Steven L. Sheffield
stevens at veloworks dot com
bellum pax est libertas servitus est ignoratio vis est
ess ay ell tea ell ay kay ee sea eye tee why you ti ay aitch
aitch tee tea pea colon [for word] slash [four ward] slash double-you
double-yew double-ewe dot veloworks dot com [foreword] slash


  #27  
Old July 31st 05, 05:48 PM
B. Lafferty
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"Steven L. Sheffield" wrote in message
...
On 07/31/2005 09:50 AM, in article
t, "B. Lafferty"
wrote:


wrote in message
ups.com...
allow me to intoduce myself. i'm the author of the article linked at
the start of this thread. i appreciate the comments - positive and
negative - on it. in defence of some of the negative criticism, allow
me to emphasise that is but one of three articles on the same subject i
published on sigla over the last year. reading the other two may give
you a fuller picture of my view of the sport.

possibly i do take a nostalgic view of the past. i think that is true
of most cyclists and former cyclists. the first of the three articles
acknowledges the role drugs have played throughout the history of the
sport. but where i see the major difference between the drug use of the
past and the drug use of the present is that, in the past, riders like
anquetil defended their position. today, we have riders who seek to
deny that it is going on and are actively seeking to silence anyone who
says what is going on.

of the three articles, i think this last one is the weakest and least
effective. what they should have been was the first, dealing with the
history of drug abuse, the second, pointing how that it is still rife,
and a final one that actually addresses the issue most cycling fans i
know can't get their heads around - how do you still love a sport that
is as corrupt as you know it is.

instead, i wrote an article that touched on issues without delving into
them in the way they deserve. the article touches on the fact that
david walsh was once one of the blind monkeys who knew what was going
on and said nothing. one day i'd like to know what brought about his
damascene conversion.

the article tries to explain that there isn't really a black and white
in lance armstrong. those who say he's doping, can't prove it. but
neither can those who say he's clean.

the only real point i think i make in the article is that the sport's
law of omerta is even more damaging than the drugs. as fans, we know
too much today to buy this silence. i don't think any of us really
believe that the drugs have gone away. i doubt if many of us believe
the drugs will ever go away.

re the robocop issue. that is taken from an essay in robert redeker's
le sport contre les peuples, published in 2002. redeker's main argument
throughout the series of essays (which cover a range of sports) is that
money is the root of all evil. but i still like his robocop / lara
croft analogy, still think it is worth quoting.

again, for the comments - both negative and positive - thank you.


A question, if I may. Are you aware of any serious critique of the Vayer
analysis found in the Walsh book? If there is, please point me in that
direction with a citation. Thanks!




Not a direct critique, but:

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/sport.cfm?id=847262004

Also, consider Vayer's comments regarding what happens to one of his
clients:

Archived AFP story at
http://whenskiesaregrey.com/default....2&stid=8051757

"Le TAS vient de prouver qu'il n'est pas indépendant", a estimé pour sa
part
Antoine Vayer, manager du coureur. "Il se dégage très habilement du
dossier
mais sanctionne le premier repenti. Il est certain qu'il n'y en aura plus
d'autres".

Antoine Vayer s'en est pris à l'UCI: "Pour moi, c'est une première étape
vers la légalisation du dopage. Le message est clair: surtout, ne dites
rien. L'UCI est responsable."

His comments in that article make him sound a little paranoid, to my mind.



Thanks, but the Scotsman article is not at all analytical of Vayer's
position in the Walsh book. If there is a problem with that analysis, I'd
like to read it.


  #28  
Old July 31st 05, 06:09 PM
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vayer's argument ... it doesn't hold a lot of water, in the same way as
*all* the lance arguments (pro and anti) don't hold a lot of water.
they're not supported by strong evidence. too many of them come down to
what an individual wants to believe, and are just used as supporting
buttresses for that belief system. vayer's argument seem to boil down
to the fact that "man goes up hill fast? drugs are the only answer."

i'm sure you can give an alalytical response to an argument that itself
is not nearly as analytical as it pretends to be. vayer's statistics
don't wash, no with me anyway. can you compare the times to go up the
same mountain in different races? what about all the contributory
factors, from weather through tactics through where the mountain falls
in a particular race. you also have to account for the overall changes
in the race itself - shorter, flatter, less tiring (though still not
easy). there would also seem to be an assumption on vayer's part that,
on a climb, riders go balls out base to summit. that simply doesn't
hold water. there are, at the end of the day, too many assumptions in
vayer's analysis.

on the other hand, there is a relevence to vayer's argument. michele
ferrari had certain areas of specialisation. vo2 max and hill climbing
being the important ones, where vayer's argument is concerned. maybe
vayer does have a point. but i don't think it's a well made point. but
then, maybe he was afraid of ferrari suing him, and so couched it too
carefully.

  #29  
Old July 31st 05, 07:00 PM
Ryan Cousineau
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In article ,
"Mike Jacoubowsky" wrote:

Here are some old posts from Benjo.


Brian: Thanks for offering those up, greatly appreciated, the type of info I
was looking for. It still doesn't change my opinion though (that the "bigger
lie" was from those insisting that drug use was all about recovery & pain
control vs performance enhancement).

But perhaps we're more willing to be honest about our use of drugs when
people like Bob Dole hawk Viagra. We didn't have such positive role models
for drug use back then.


To a certain extent, you might be right. But we're still mostly treating
ailments we've always looked for a solution for: the difference between
Viagra and previous treatments for impotence is mainly that Viagra works.

There is an argument that certain drugs are being prescribed in marginal
cases ("lifestyle drugs," "medicating personality," "Prozac nation"...)
but the margins don't invalidate the great number of people who are
unequivocally helped by drugs. One reason we use more drugs today as a
society is that there are more drugs that work better on more problems
with fewer really wacky side-effects.

That's a cultural thing, which essentially argues that certain drugs may
just be seen as nearly universal quality-of-life enhancements. Like, oh,
Botox in LA, they'll be seen as the medical equivalent of eating right
and getting exercise. Depending on who you talk to, HGH is headed there.
Or it's got some really scary side effects. Either way, eh?

As far as I see it there is only one solution: legalizing drugs to a
certain amount, Anquetil-wise. It's a illusion that the "fight against
doping" can ever be won. As a doping expert was saying a few weeks go: in
the 90's the gap between the cops and the robbers was narrowing, but right
now it's widening again. Draconian legislation won't help any more than in
the "war against drugs'' in general. It will only stimulate the already
existing links with criminal organisations. The main impediment for
legalizing drugs: the fact that is has become a moral issue. Much more in
the United States than in Europe mayby, but I'm afraid that thanks to the
trials which are going on and all the publicity around the gap is closing.
I
can't say I'm very happy about it.

Benjo Maso


I read this basic argument (limited legalization) about once every four
months in rbr. I routinely post the same question: why bother? Here's
the difficulty: any "limited" legalization (which seems to generally
mean restricted doses of EPO, maybe a certain dose of some steroids, and
oh, who knows, probably no more than two Adderalls per race day) would
not create some magically pure group of riders, it would just explicitly
force the currently-clean riders (yeah, I believe in their existence) to
dope up to a certain level.

Who is helped by this? You'd still have to do drug controls to make sure
the riders were not drugging up too much (otherwise the temptation to,
oh, take 150% of the allowable steroid dose cycle would be unbearable
for the type of riders who cheat anyways), you've forced all the riders
onto the program to maintain a level playing field, and now you've got
all the riders on drugs which are still likely to have long-term side
effects, and maybe even some short-term side effects.

Does the racing get better? I doubt it. The races won't be any more
impressive, or more dramatic. There will, I'm pretty much positive,
still be a certain contingent of riders who will push the rules and do
really stupid things with drugs, sometimes with performance benefits.
But instead of being constrained by the dire consequences of positive
tests, I suspect the new feeling would be that with some drugs allowed,
pushing the limits would be perceived as a gamesmanship fine. I can see
the new commissaire's lists now:

SANCTIONS:
Jose Cuervo, improper jersey, 150 SFr
Jack Daniels, taking a tow from a team car, 150 SFr, -5 points
David Millar, testing 1.5x permissible EPO dosage, 200 SFr, -5 points,
2-minute GC penalty.

And so forth.

The worst part is not that all the riders would be doped, or that they
would cheat on the doping anyways, and that the doping test would have
to be at least as frequent as now, if not more frequent. The real
problem is that it's a ludicrous and expensive barrier to entry to the
sport. Now, if you want to turn pro, you're going to have to commit to a
couple of courses of EPO, a few cycles of deka, and take a bit of Hgh
just because, okay? the expense alone would kill off a considerable
number of aspirants.

I have no idea what kind of unholy chaos such an attitude to doping
would have in the amateur ranks, but I'm pretty sure daffy and
destructive wouldn't begin to cover it. Goodbye, junior development
programs, we'll miss the 90% of under-18s who just disappeared....

So "a little bit of dope" is essentially a solution that would maybe
make the peloton seem more honest for six months, would probably
decimate the sport in the long run, and would make the sanest, most
honest riders simply leave the sport for good.

I see a few holes in this plan,

--
Ryan Cousineau http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos
  #30  
Old July 31st 05, 07:27 PM
Ernst Noch
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Ryan Cousineau wrote:

[insightful analysis snipped]


And add to that the publicity factor. Suddenly, all the achievements in
the sport would be seen as a lone result of taking pharmaceutical
products and medicine.
Fake boobs work although everybody knows they are fake. But I think that
won't work in cycling.


 




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