Hecklers starting to joust with the Dope King

On Jun 8, 5:44*pm, "A. Dumas Fred" wrote:
marco wrote:
Why make the effort? Several reasons. First, the fallacy in the
"they're-all-doing-it-so-who-cares" argument is that not everyone
benefits to the same extent when doped, even if they were all on the
same program. It does not maintain a level playing field.

Second, they're not all doing it. As long as doping is against the
rules, there will be riders who have the moral fortitude to say "No" and
I think they deserve a substantial amount of anti-doping effort on their
behalf. Fighting for the underdog and all that righteous stuff. I have
friends who raced clean at various pro levels, including one who spent a
couple years on Pro Tour teams, and it breaks my heart to see and hear
what they're up against.

Third, it seems to me that cycling is at a crossroad in its anti-doping
"fight"... either it really steps up to the challenge, or it turns a
blind eye like many other sports have done. If the latter path is taken,
I have no doubt that doping will spread like a cancer into lower and
lower levels. *[...]

My main reason to be against doping is related to your third point,
namely that mandating it to whatever extent means that juniors will
eventually also feel pressured to dope or not get a contract later on.
They should not have to face that decision.

Junior high, if not middle school, parents are doing whatever they
think will advance their children's careers in sports. Paying for
hours of extra coaching time, buying expensive equipment, moving the
family to get into the "right" school district according to which
teams are proven winners.
Go price a decent middle-grade jumper horse sometime, for instance.
So, your "junior" is going to have "that decision" handed to them on a
plate. And that is nothing new, either.

I'm not "for" doping. I'd like to see testing that works, in the
interest of "fair" competition (to use the expression), and to protect
the health of athletes. But that's not in the cards, now or in the
foreseeable future. Not to mention that "fair" and "protecting health"
are complicated issues. A case can be made for blood doping, for
instance:

http://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/pa...leviewer.aspx?
year=2006&issue=06000&article=00005&type=abstract

Nothing a little infusion of nice clean blood couldn't improve...
("We're still in a primitive age")
--D-y

--D-y wrote:
Junior high, if not middle school, parents are doing whatever they
think will advance their children's careers in sports. Paying for
hours of extra coaching time, buying expensive equipment, moving the
family to get into the "right" school district according to which
teams are proven winners.

And if there was dope which would make them get better marks at school
and get scholarships or bursaries they would be buying that too.

On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:44:20 +0200, "A. Dumas Fred"
wrote:

My main reason to be against doping is related to your third point,
namely that mandating it to whatever extent means that juniors will
eventually also feel pressured to dope or not get a contract later on.
They should not have to face that decision.

Until the unhealthy obsession with professional sports ends, that
pressure will be there. Drugs are no more an indication than cities
distorting their budgets for a sports stadium, a bloated Olympics
considered to be any kind of standard of anything, and people killing
athletes after a soccer/football game. And, to be clear, I think
enjoying a healthy obsession with a sport, knowing it for what it is,
is fine. But sports in general have gone way past that. When a person
comes on the regular ESPN channel every day and talks about the
current fantasy sports - geez, we aren't even obsessing about sports
anymore, we are obsessing about fake sports.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

On Jun 9, 5:39*am, wrote:
On Wed, 09 Jun 2010 00:44:20 +0200, "A. Dumas Fred"

wrote:
My main reason to be against doping is related to your third point,
namely that mandating it to whatever extent means that juniors will
eventually also feel pressured to dope or not get a contract later on.
They should not have to face that decision.

Until the unhealthy obsession with professional sports ends, that
pressure will be there. Drugs are no more an indication than cities
distorting their budgets for a sports stadium, a bloated Olympics
considered to be any kind of standard of anything, and people killing
athletes after a soccer/football game. And, to be clear, I think
enjoying a healthy obsession with a sport, knowing it for what it is,
is fine. But sports in general have gone way past that. When a person
comes on the regular ESPN channel every day and talks about the
current fantasy sports - geez, we aren't even obsessing about sports
anymore, we are obsessing about fake sports.

Fake sports. "When real sports are just not enough..." Kinda sick.
The "pressure" is there without pro sports. How about soccer moms and
dads getting into deadly brawls over "whatever"-- good calls, bad
calls, playing time, trash talk.

"Bloated" is good. Houston went ape ****, building stadiums, light
rail (most dangerous in the USA because it had to be a showpiece), new
"events center", all to supposedly attract favor in a bid for being an
Olympics site. And how many taxpayer-bought stadiums have gone up over
the last ten or twenty years so that City X can "be a world-class
city"? Rammed right down the throat of John Q. Public who finds it
more and more difficult to afford a ticket.

Back to Lance as Evil Incarnate?
--D-y

I wrote:
Obviously, rbr'ers are not representative of cycling fans. The majority
of people here will follow the sport no matter what happens with the
doping fight. My impression of the more casual fan base is that they are
drawn to the drama and suffer factor. Once it becomes widely accepted
that most all pro riders are doped, I believe that the casual fans will
lose interest.

Fred Flintstein wrote:
I composed all sorts of replies in my head, but I'll stick to
one point that I think is central.

Is the scenario that you present above what happened to American
football when steroids came on the scene?

Baseball players have been doped since the invention of dope. Has
your scenario played out there?

How about tennis? When the sport of tennis embraced the syringe,
what happened to it's popularity and fan base?

I respect your opinions but I think you are bringing too much
emotion to your perception of reality. Even guys that are racing at
the Pro Tour level are better off going to college. Very few rise
above that. So while I sympathize with people that are trying to
do it clean, if someone doesn't get to dump time and effort down a
dead end of a career and instead has to pursue something that pays
better for less crap, I guess that for me the violins are playing
pretty softly.

I also think that if you cost out the needed effort to clean up
what is really a hobby for all but a very few, you really can't
justify it unless you also make an huge emotional investment into
elevating your hobby.

I appreciate your civil, well-reasoned response. Clearly you are correct
that those sports are just as popular as ever despite drugs coming to the
surface. I suppose the question you are really posing to me is, why would
cycling be any different? Fair enough. My answer is, in the US anyway, the
popularity of pro cycling is a fairly new phenomena and most fans are
nowhere near as knowledgeable and committed as baseball, football, and/or
tennis fans. For most, it's just kind of trendy to be aware of and follow
pro cycling. They are not hardcore fans, like rbr denizens for example, and
they are not yet aware of the depth of the doping issues, as made clear by
viewer/reader comments in mainstream media. I guess I'm afraid that it
wouldn't take much to lose their attention.

And yes, you are certainly correct that my views are colored by some emotion
and some personal experiences too. Thus, we've established that I'm a
defective bot ... so, this bot is going rogue and going to ask questions of
its author...

First, do you think doping is as deep and/or widespread in the three sports
you mentioned above as it is in cycling? That's not a particularly
well-defined question, so let me add: do you think it is possible to compete
successfully in those sports without doping? Can a rider be competitive in a
grand tour without doping? Why has cycling had more doping sanctions than
any other sport? Is it simply because cycling has turned the spotlight on
itself and the others haven't, or is it because the culture of pro cycling
is more infused with drugs than those other sports? Out of the last ten
years of Boston marathons, how many podium finishers were free of any
against-the-rules blood manipulation? How about TdF podiums?

The core of my questions is this: I think cycling at the Pro Tour level is
dirtier than most other sports, and I think a big part of the reason is that
the relevant doping techniques provide a substantial enough advantage that
riders who don't partake simply can't be there to compete.

Finally, I agree that in the grand scheme of things, 99.999% of people would
be better off to keep cycling as a simple recreational hobby and not get
hooked. Unfortunately, the romantic in me still respects and pulls for those
riders who give it a try and commit themselves to do it cleanly.

Don Quixote
ps. To Henry I'd say, yes, society is highly medicated and sadly that's our
culture but the difference I cannot get past is that in one case (society)
it is largely legal and directly impacts only the user, whereas in pro
cycling it's against the rules and impacts the user's brethren.
pps. To ED I'd say, I'm glad somebody out there is thinking of the children!

Michael Press wrote:
Do you regularly take drugs?


Only when reading/posting to rbr ...is it that obvious?

--D-y wrote:
Junior high, if not middle school, parents are doing whatever they
think will advance their children's careers in sports. Paying for
hours of extra coaching time, buying expensive equipment, moving the
family to get into the "right" school district according to which
teams are proven winners.


True, some do, but it's a very small minority of parents and kids. At least
where I live.

On Jun 9, 1:43*am, Betty wrote:
--D-y wrote:
Junior high, if not middle school, parents are doing whatever they
think will advance their children's careers in sports. Paying for
hours of extra coaching time, buying expensive equipment, moving the
family to get into the "right" school district according to which
teams are proven winners.

And if there was dope which would make them get better marks at school
and get scholarships or bursaries they would be buying that too.

Actually, there is. Lots of students use ADHD medication to help them
focus more and improve their grades. Lots of use of caffiene, and also
beta blockers to reduce stage fright (helps get those first chair
positions and that scholarship). Energy drinks (a.k.a. caffiene
delivery systems), etc.

Using dope for better athletic performance isn't much of a step for
kids. And, if the watch the evening news with their parents, or prime
time TV, you get bombarded with drug ads for every possible problem
("ask your doctor about XXXX...").

Brad Anders

marco wrote:

pps. To ED I'd say, I'm glad somebody out there is thinking of the
children!

So what you're saying is, someone with ED is thinking of children? Yuck.

marco wrote:
pps. To ED I'd say, I'm glad somebody out there is thinking of the
children!


Fred on a stick wrote:
So what you're saying is, someone with ED is thinking of children? Yuck.


Yeah, I should have called him Ted.

BTW, I just got a disquieting mental image of "Fred on a stick"...