Does this affect you?

Really!

Who exactly does this apply to?

Lets start at base of our sport.

1) Schools? nope.

2) Fun runs and the like? nope.

3) parkrun?image wash your mouth out!

4) Local XC races, road races and track races? nope

5) County level of the above? nope.

6) Regional level of the above? nope.

7) Fringe international level then? nope.

8) Regular international level then? possibly, just.

9) World class international then? maybe, but then just a few.

For what it's worth I get to number (4). I have a training partner who operated between (7) and (8) and when asked about taking drugs declared it as waste of time as their results. ie not good enough to start with, to make any difference.

Tragedy.

Lets hope Lord Coe bans the miscreants for life. Its the nearest any of us will get to beating (some) world class athletes.

 

🙂

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Comments

  • VDOT52VDOT52 ✭✭✭
    I recently read an article claiming that level 7s are most likely to take drugs to get them into category 8 so that they can get some sponsorship from British athletics.



    I think the problem is probably more widespread though because today's society wants a quick fix for everything. It's a hop skip and a jump from beetroot juice and caffeine gels to the next wonder supplement/drug.
  • If its anything like cycling (and who knows if it is) then you'd probably find it happening at level 5 and 6 too.



    As VDOT says - I think people have used stuff to try and get them to the next level. I guess it might make a difference but it wont turn a donkey into a race horse.
  • VDOT52VDOT52 ✭✭✭
    The panorama guy got good gains in no time. As Cougie says it depends where they start from.



    I am more intrigued about how it unfolds rather than being surprised at the report findings.
  • RicFRicF ✭✭✭

    Oh yes cycling!

    I heard a story where the top professionals on a kind of 'back home holiday' event were being slaughtered by local club riders.

    🙂

  • There are plenty of websites offering performance enhancing drugs on the internet; well, offering what they claim to be performance enhancing drugs.

    Maybe someone should set up a tent at their next big local race with a big sign saying, "Anti-doping control" and see how many people are suddenly unable to run because of an injury?

  • In triathlon, doping is apparently quite common among top age-groupers, i.e. those trying to qualify for world championships.  Testing is virtually non-existent at that level.  Somehow I can't see V40 athletes doping to get a GB masters vest...

  • i heard a staggering %  bandied about for ironman events.......seemed unreal to me seeing the level that the majority were achieving...

    but I dont know what they were including in their survey.....if they including caffiene gels then that would have made the results very different to non caffiene gel......  etc

     

  • Who cares these days, allow the drugs then it's a level playing field and down to choice

  • Runnin man wrote (see)

    Who cares these days, allow the drugs then it's a level playing field and down to choice

    Because it rapidly becomes no choice, or rather a choice between running and doping, or not running at all, at least at any sort of competitive level.  And not just elites, it would filter down to lower levels, to the point where clubs are pushing doping to get good places in XC leagues, and so on.  We've already got schools telling kids to take supplements to bulk up for rugby, where would it stop?

    Also bear in mind that most of this stuff is at the very least unhealthy if taken for long periods, some is downright dangerous to life if taken without proper medical supervision.

  • senidMsenidM ✭✭✭
    No, this does not affect me at all. On a personal level I run local races, with no hope of ever winning one (although I used to get the occasional age grp win) and I don't run the "London" so am not bothered if a drugged up russian wins.



    BUT, if the people at the top of my sport, the IAAF, are seen to be turning a blind eye (at best) or actively colluding with drug cheats then why are they in control?



    This whole business stinks, and the sooner it gets sorted out the better, if that is possible, and the man to do it? Lord Coe, ex Vice-President, appointed 2007, of the IAAF, and now President?



    What are the chances? Answers on a postcard to "Head firmly up their fundamental Orifice"
  • Cheerful Dave wrote (see)
    Also bear in mind that most of this stuff is at the very least unhealthy if taken for long periods, some is downright dangerous to life if taken without proper medical supervision.


    Same applies to alcohol, Heroin, coke etc it's all a choice, it all seems a big fuss when athletics is a mass participation sport and really there are only a few elites who will benefit from or ruin it. 

  • Allowing drugs is a stupid idea. It's not a level playing field at all. Clean runners would be penalised. Why would you see that as desirable?
  • It will be interesting to watch Coe "come out fighting" as he promised, back in August (when he was still a long-standing IAAF vice-president, politicking like mad for the presidency).

     

    “It is a declaration of war on my sport,” Coe, an IAAF vice-president, said. “I take pretty grave exception to that. This, for me, is a fairly seminal moment. There is nothing in our history of competence and integrity in drug testing that warrants this kind of attack. We should not be cowering. We should come out fighting.”

    “These so-called experts – give me a break.”The IAAF has a commission of three independent experts who have tested and checked thousands of blood samples, Coe said. “I know who I would believe,” he added.


    Fun for the whole family. Refresh your memory and then use hindsight to glory in what a one-man clean-up operation he is. It's starting to look horribly like pro cycling.

    No-one's really surprised that Russia engages in systemic dishonesty in sport (or anything else), but some of us might have been naive enough to hope that others might have been at least trying.

  • cougie wrote (see)
    Allowing drugs is a stupid idea. It's not a level playing field at all. Clean runners would be penalised. Why would you see that as desirable?

    I wouldn't see it as desirable, but I would say leave the few elites to do it, and let them worry about who is clean, then the money spent administrating pointless drug testing (clearly it doesn't work)  could be spent where most people actually care about, at grass roots

  • Brilliant. Bring more money into a sport while abandoning drugs tests. That will work wonders...

  • The banning of performance enhancing drugs is less to do with cheating as it is to do with protecting the health of the athletes. It eventually becomes a game of who is most prepared to push themselves towards risk of death or disability. All competitive sport is about achieving an advantage, e.g. the superfast swimsuits, better training, better food, etc that your opponents do not have.

    Once a ban is in place, of course it is cheating to use them and appropriate penalties should be in place for those who flout it.

  • Snap!Snap! ✭✭✭

    Doesn't affect me. I doped by accident a little while ago while suffering from a cold. My chemist friend told me so.

  • A sci-fi author I read has a series where all the sports are team events, as people stopped watching individual sports, as they were just gene splicing / medical contests, and just irrelevant. 

     

  • 15West15West ✭✭✭

    Yeah, doesn't affect me. Nor does Syria, Iraq, Russian annexing of Ukraine, Burmese elections etc.

    But still...it is kind of interesting that all those fantastic olympics I've watched over the years have been riddled with dope cheaters.  

  • Snap!Snap! ✭✭✭

    I don't think doping in athletics is on quite the same level as wars in Syria and Iraq.

    I doubt the average punter could tell you who won the long jump, pole vault, 800 meters or marathon, even those that paid an arm and a leg to watch it.

    If they say otherwise, thye're probably lying.

  • Back in the '80's we were constantly reminded that the Eastern Europeans and Russians (but particularly the East Germans) were pumped up to the gills on dope. We were expected to believe that the valiant and clean 'Westerners' were able to simply 'work harder' to beat the cheating so and so's....

    Now this 'it's the Russians' idea has been re-cycled, the valiant and clean 'Westerners' are still working harder to beat them?

    Bulls**t

    When the s**t-storm broke over cycling every other governing body in the world should have taken a cold hard look at their sport and asked whether it is possible that their athletes have simply ignored the chemical delicacies that are undetectable and easily available to all?

    Which sport will face up to their demons next? (without pointing to others and say, "They did it first!" or "They are worse than us!")

  • Snap!Snap! ✭✭✭

    I don't think most people care very much, certainly not as much as the newshounds would have us believe. 

    How many people stopped watching the Tour de France?

  • Meanwhile football sits by - unbothered...
  • Snap!Snap! ✭✭✭

    Supporters don't seem to care when players gang-rape teenagers and take cocaine so why should they care about doping?

  • 15West15West ✭✭✭

    I think a lot of people probably do care, which is why it was front page news everywhere.

    Footballers may be doping, but there has been very little evidence of this, and I'm I'm sure journalists have been doing their investigations as it would be part of the big story. 

    There's no getting away from it, athletics has got a big problem.

  • There is no way that football is clean. Just look at the rewards to be had. The WADA annual budget is less than the salary of a big name football player.

    Look at the Spanish Fuentes affair - bags of blood - they only investigated the cyclists - the rest they threw away. Weird eh ?
  • 15West15West ✭✭✭

    Yeah...well maybe they are doped up, maybe loads of other sports are too....but they are not in the spotlight so maybe it just isn't there that much. It is more clear cut why a track and field athlete would dope, as their sport mostly depends on endurance and strength, footballers and other sports have many other factors that doping wouldn't help. The highest profile footballer to have been caught doping is Maradona....and that was for coke...which I don't really think should be classed as a PED.

  • Snap! wrote (see)

    Supporters don't seem to care when players gang-rape teenagers and take cocaine so why should they care about doping?

    I think most supporters are very concerned about the former - I certainly wouldn't want a convicted rapist playing for my club. Taking cocaine? Hmmm. If someone was an addict and lied about it that'd be something. If it was a one-off youthful indiscretion I think there's scope for reforming a character....

  • VDOT52VDOT52 ✭✭✭
    I remember watching an interview before an mma fight. The journo asked the fighter if he thought his opponent had been taking steroids while training to get ready for their fight. The fighter just said something along the lines of "if that's what he needs to do to be ready, then that's what he needs to do".



    No one even raised an eyebrow.



    I just can't believe that Coe can fix this when he has been part of the problem. I think the start of Steve crams interview today was a gentle way of saying that Seb is not very good at his job.



    I just hope that there is a clause in the iaaf sponsorship agreements that lets the sponsors sue the shit out of them for tarnishing their business brands by sanctioning cheating. More likely they will just threaten to walk away unless it looks like it is being dealt with appropriately.
  • I must admit, I thought Coe might be a good choice, but was concerned he refused to relinquish his Nike sponsorship. I'm not sure I like administrators who are supposed to be new brooms taking commercial sponsorship in this way. Whether he can have any effect on the drug culture remains to be seen.

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