David Millar busted.

Roadie_scum wrote:
Have you never made a mistake in your life? A two year ban from
performing the one activity to which you have dedicated your life,
eliminating the sole form of income you earn, is more than a 'slap on
the wrist'. I'm as down on drug cheats as anyone else, but the riders
are only one aspect of a bigger picture. Life bans for them are
draconian.
How about as well as disciplining riders, we move the focus to the
organisations that encourage it. Directeur-sportif? Coach?
Manager? Soigneur?



On your first point - please get real. These guys are told and told
about the risks they take both with their health and their careers.
Cycling is becoming an international joke and is now rightly viewed as a
pariah among sports. I find this extremely disappointing.

On your second point I entirely agree with you - give them life bans as
well. It's the only way to clean up the whole mess.



--

wrote:
Originally posted by Spider1977 On your first point - please get real.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. I am real G.
These guys are told and told about the risks they take both with their
health and their careers.
Maybe, but this doesn't mean that the punishment should exceed the crime
if they do transgress. Also, does the importance of this to you mean you
think they shouldn't get life bans if they can show they haven't
received education, or worse and quite likely, were part of a structure
which actively encouraged doping?
Cycling is becoming an international joke and is now rightly viewed as a
pariah among sports.
I'm not sure about this. Most people I speak to think that drugs in
sport are a bad thing, but not that it tarnishes only cycling. BALCO?
Ever seen Inga de Bruyn's expanding jawline? The number of 100m sprint
(running) olympic finalists with braces? (7/8)
And drugs don't tarnish the performances of those of us who are clean
either (at whatever level of the sport we compete).
I find this extremely disappointing.
If it were entirely true, so would I. To the extent that doping occurs,
yes, it is very disappointing.
On your second point I entirely agree with you - give them life bans as
well. It's the only way to clean up the whole mess.



I don't believe that my point was that officials and directors should be
given life bans. Financial penalties would likely be more effective.
Life bans negate the possibility of redemption for anyone; they might be
appropriate in the most extreme cases, but they offer negligible value
as a deterrent and there's no reason the punishment shouldn't fit the
crime in sport.



--

In article , usenet-
says...

Drug-taking:
Cycling is becoming an international joke and is now rightly viewed as a
pariah among sports. I find this extremely disappointing.


Is this because more testing and investigation of cyclists takes place
than in other sports?

Cases in point: English Rugby World Cup team - why did they look so much
more "CUT" than other teams? Was it just the shirts?
American Football: do that many men really grow that big and
strong?
American Basketball: how tall?
Who was that Dutch female swimmer - so quick to soften her jawline
by letting her hair out of her cap?
The Irish female swimmer?
100m athletics track sprinter - which one?
Power Lifters?
What's the story with bodybuilders and Hollywood leading men?
The huge Australian heavyweight weightlifting Gold medallist (tuna
fisherman) who went back to being a "90lb weakling" after he finished
competition?

So you say: where's your proof? That's right - because cycling seems to
do more to catch some of its "cheaters" than other sports.

Sometimes it appears there is really only one clean rider in the pro
peloton?

--
Mark Lee

Mark Lee wrote:

In article , usenet-
says...

Drug-taking:
Cycling is becoming an international joke and is now rightly viewed as a
pariah among sports. I find this extremely disappointing.


Is this because more testing and investigation of cyclists takes place
than in other sports?

Cases in point: English Rugby World Cup team - why did they look so much
more "CUT" than other teams? Was it just the shirts?

Was it a good/bad/different training program? Did they do a higher level
of endurance training to cut their body fat instead of the
strength/speed/agility based programs that most rugby players do? Did
they consume totally legal fat-metabolisers?

American Football: do that many men really grow that big and
strong?

No, they just wear a lot of padding. When you see them without their
padding on they're not that impressive. The dead giveaway that they're
not that huge is their legs.

American Basketball: how tall?
Who was that Dutch female swimmer - so quick to soften her jawline
by letting her hair out of her cap?

Do you mean Inge de Bruen? She's not very pretty, is she. That's
probably why she never got much publicity except for winning races. Was
she really letting her hair out of her cap to soften her jawline? Dunno
about you but I wouldn't care much about how I looked after winning a
huge race. For a start, I'm a triathlete and the first thing I do when I
hit the beach is rip off my goggles and cap. They're uncomfortable, the
goggles are great for underwater but not good on land and the swim cap
gets very hot. It's also the first thing I do at the end of a swim
session. I don't give a **** about softening my jawline.

The Irish female swimmer?

For a chick, I'm huge, particularly for a distance athlete. I don't use
drugs, never have and never will. It's all left over from when I was
fighting, and lifting weights, and gets maintained with a light
conditioning session once a week.

100m athletics track sprinter - which one?

They have been tested, they have been found wanting...

Power Lifters?

Yeah they scare me. They all put their joints at risk so that they have
to lower the bar less e.g. in the bench where they arch their backs as
much as possible. They should all be taking glucosamine.

What's the story with bodybuilders and Hollywood leading men?

Brad Pitt was airbrushed in Troy. Sorry girls, I know, I too wanted to
believe.

The huge Australian heavyweight weightlifting Gold medallist (tuna
fisherman) who went back to being a "90lb weakling" after he finished
competition?

Yeah that one is a bit sus, don't know the reference, maybe he got CFS
or something?


So you say: where's your proof? That's right - because cycling seems to
do more to catch some of its "cheaters" than other sports.

Sometimes it appears there is really only one clean rider in the pro
peloton?

--
Mark Lee


It's a sad thing to say but I guess it's a good thing. I mean, it's bad
if the sport gets portrayed badly as a result but it's great that
they're actually doing the testing, checking people out and punishing
them. Hopefully they can clean the sport up.

That being said I really don't think it's fair to question/test people
based on their appearances. Most drugs these days are a lot more hi-tech
than just making women look more masculine, etc., and really, do we need
to rub it in their faces any more? They know they ain't models, they're
athletes.

T

Originally posted by Tamyka Bell
Cases in point: English Rugby World Cup team - why did they look so
much more "CUT" than other teams? Was it just the shirts?

Did they consume totally legal fat-metabolisers?

Is there such a thing? I thought they were all simply amphetamines?

It's a sad thing to say but I guess it's a good thing. I mean, it's bad
if the sport gets portrayed badly as a result but it's great that
they're actually doing the testing, checking people out and punishing
them. Hopefully they can clean the sport up.

Sort of.. if they keep finding cheats, people will lose all respect for
the sport and not trust future performances. How do we know, once
positive results stop being found, that the athletes haven't simply
discovered a non-detectable drug? Once the sport is tarnished, like
cycling has been, there will, for a long time, remain an element of
doubt about the riders..

hippy



--

In article ,
hippy wrote:

How do we know, once
positive results stop being found, that the athletes haven't simply
discovered a non-detectable drug?

None of the current "scandals" involve positive drug tests anyway --
they're all based on admissions, phone taps, searches, etc. The
expression "I've never tested positive" is becoming one of the most
meaningless in sport.

--
Shane Stanley

Tamyka Bell wrote:
The huge Australian heavyweight weightlifting Gold medallist
(tuna fisherman) who went back to being a "90lb weakling"
after he finished competition?
Yeah that one is a bit sus, don't know the reference, maybe he got CFS
or something?



That was Dean Luken (sp?)

He 'got' 7 years for Amphetmine importing/trafficking Hence his loss
of weight.



--

hippy wrote:
How do we know, once positive results stop being found, that the
athletes haven't simply discovered a non-detectable drug? hippy



Most drugs are non-detectable over a certain time-frame. Exogenous EPO
can't be detected by any current test after about 2 weeks. Riders go to
Spain, or Mexico, South America or Asia, shoot up and train, and come
back in a little while to race and test totally clean. Athletes don't
need to discover non-detectable drugs when they can second guess the
testers and it clears their system quickly anyway. And don't think that
because the drugs leave their system they are no longer an advantage -
drug takers increase their capacity to train, and so get fitness
benefits that last much longer than the time it takes the drugs to leave
their body.

And then there are the 'non-detectables' like insulin-like growth
factors and human (and other forms of) growth hormones. There are also
many other borderline cases like testosterone and some anabolics which
are detectable in certain dosages over certain timeframes.

I say blood and urine test every athlete once a week every week from 6
weeks out from Athens until they have competed, and see who wins then.
Maybe that's not practical, but if the testers want to get smart, pre-
competition testing for some athletes is essential in the 6-1 week prior
time period.



--

Originally posted by Roadie_scum
snip
I say blood and urine test every athlete once a week every week from 6
weeks out from Athens until they have competed, and see who wins then.
Maybe that's not practical, but if the testers want to get smart, pre-
competition testing for some athletes is essential in the 6-1 week
prior time period.

With a seemingly impossible task like this, would it be better to just
let athletes free-for-all?

If it's so easy to cheat and "test clean" - why spend all this money on
testing? Why not just let them all do whatever they want and risk their
own lives?

They are still catching people so maybe druggie prep isn't quite at 100%
yet - the athletes need more practice with quantities and timeframes?
Once they start pooling data though, they are going be totally
undetectable and then it'll take huge dollars to reveal the cheats..

It's all so frustrating (for me at least!) to see some people getting
away with it and some being caught. Either test them so often there is
no chance of cheating or don't test at all! Arr!

Maybe all future Olympics should be like Big Brother... lock all the
athletes in a building with enough food and drink for a year and don't
let anything else in. They train for 12 months with what they've got
'inside' and then they compete. It would be similar to having control
tyres and control engines as in some forms of car racing...



--

hippy wrote:
Maybe all future Olympics should be like Big Brother... lock all the
athletes in a building with enough food and drink for a year and don't
let anything else in. They train for 12 months with what they've got
'inside' and then they compete. It would be similar to having control
tyres and control engines as in some forms of car racing...



Brilliant!

But they'd probably go tribal and eat each other for post-ride protein-
loading...



--