Hecklers starting to joust with the Dope King

In article ,
"marco" wrote:

Michael Press wrote:
Do you regularly take drugs?


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

No. I have no way of knowing.

Now, are you going to treat this seriously
as you started out, or are you going to
run and hide from the hard questions?

--
Old Fritz

Michael Press wrote:
Do you regularly take drugs?

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

Frederick the Great wrote:
No. I have no way of knowing.

Now, are you going to treat this seriously
as you started out, or are you going to
run and hide from the hard questions?


Uhh... ok... I didn't realize it was a serious question. The answer is Yes
or No, depending on your definition. Do you consider a glass of red wine
with dinner as drugs? I consider as part of dinner ...food basically. I do
not regularly take anything typically classified as a drug or medicine, even
sometimes when recommended by a physician. E.g., I've been trying to get in
racing shape all year and was starting to make progress when I got slammed
with the worst bronchial and sinus infection I've had in at least a decade.
I refused to take antibiotics for it, and suffered for nearly a month. It's
still not completely gone, but my racing season is...

On Jun 9, 11:46*am, "marco" 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.

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

As far as you know. I don't "know" either. Sure are a lot of massive
high school football players around, these days.
--D-y

On 6/9/2010 3:36 PM, --D-y wrote:
On Jun 9, 11:46 am, 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.

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

As far as you know. I don't "know" either. Sure are a lot of massive
high school football players around, these days.
--D-y

A number of years ago (2000 or so?) a reporter at the Minneapolis
Star-Tribune went through archives looking up the weight figures
for kids that had been named "All Metro Area" at line positions.
He found something like a 50 lb weight gain over a ten year period.

And it ain't like Minnesota is the capitol of high school football.

Fred Flintstein

In article ,
"marco" wrote:

Michael Press wrote:
Do you regularly take drugs?

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

Frederick the Great wrote:
No. I have no way of knowing.

Now, are you going to treat this seriously
as you started out, or are you going to
run and hide from the hard questions?


Uhh... ok... I didn't realize it was a serious question. The answer is Yes
or No, depending on your definition. Do you consider a glass of red wine
with dinner as drugs? I consider as part of dinner ...food basically. I do
not regularly take anything typically classified as a drug or medicine, even
sometimes when recommended by a physician. E.g., I've been trying to get in
racing shape all year and was starting to make progress when I got slammed
with the worst bronchial and sinus infection I've had in at least a decade.
I refused to take antibiotics for it, and suffered for nearly a month. It's
still not completely gone, but my racing season is...

What I am getting at is people are on drug regimens or
not by choice; and it should all be protected under
patient-physician confidentiality. Drug testing is a
serious intrusion, and asking somebody what they take
is a serious intrusion. We should not undertake it
lightly, as many crusaders do and as many uninvolved
do. Endurance athletes need good, close medical
supervision. I will not deny them anything.

I have one or two drinks or the equivalent most days,
will drain half a bottle of wine occasionally, will
drink off a whole bottle of good champagne on my
birthday and New Year's eve. Otherwise not so much as
an aspirin.

With a case of bronchitis as you describe, I would take
the antibiotics. After a dental procedure I took the
antibiotics that he recommended because I trust the guy.

--
Old Fritz

On 6/9/2010 11:41 AM, marco wrote:
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!


Let's start with baseball. I think we can agree that as professional
sports go, baseball is pretty sedentary. Yet doping has had a huge
impact on the game. Baseball players spend almost the entire game
either on their cans or standing still. And doping has overrun the
game. So maybe a more refined question to ask is whether playing
clean hurts your income. I think the current set of MLB players is
giving you your answer, they think it is 'yes'. MLB had a 7% rate
of positives with their initial testing program that was purposely
designed to be inadequate. Using tests that people that are dirty as
hell can beat with their eyes closed. What that tells you is they had
7% that didn't even bother to take evasive maneuvers. Rather than
hire a Greg Anderson they were doing it on the cheap.

If you go to the beach you will be looking at dozens of people that
are doping strictly for cosmetic reasons. With little risk too. I
know there are those that think that cancer follows steroid use as
surely as summer follows spring, the scene at the beach tells you
that the risks are small and don't require a lot of brainpower to
manage.

What do you think it would look like if you paid people at the beach
large sums of money to take steroids. I think it would look like
MLB. You might have to require them to cut in an advisor to provide
training on getting past the tests. But I doubt that would change
things much. The Mitchel Report had enough names of confirmed users
to stock two teams. Clean players are certainly a minority.

I don't think it is possible for a clean player to win a tennis
grand slam event.

Ice hockey is well known for it's issues with steroid use.

High school (and college) football is populated with people that
very rarely see any testing at all and almost never see meaningful
testing. People that get a lot of positive feedback for good
performance and have a youthful sense of invulnerability. I think
that is you pulled a surprise test on just about any high school
team in this country you would get positives, and if it was a top
team there would be a lot of them. Player weights rose too much
and too quickly. We know what is behind that.

If you want to know why cycling has so many more problems with
this, the answer is simple. The sports that have a fewest problems
with doping are the ones that keep it all internal. Think about
that for a second. We never hear about doping issues in the NBA
except for recreational dope and usually the cops are involved.
Maybe dope doesn't help that much in a sport with massive physical
demands. Maybe NBA players just say 'no' in spite of the massive
financial rewards in the game.

Or maybe the NBA keeps it all in house. Like tennis does.

The sports that are having the most problems are the ones that
don't have a highly defined ownership or management structure
including some form of players representation. The sports that
are having problems are the ones that allow outside agencies
manage their testing. The Tour organizers will tell you how
important it is to have control over the testing process. When Vino
and Saunier Duval burned to a crisp there was no one looking out
for the Tour's interests. Dope test management changed the very
next year. The Tour has a much tighter grip on it's testing now.
Imagine that.

I wouldn't say that cycling is the dirtiest sport. I think that
soccer is. There is an order of magnitude more money and almost no
outside intervention there.

Cycling is certainly one of the most poorly managed.

Fred Flintstein

On Jun 9, 9:41*am, "marco" wrote:

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

Well, I don't actually think pro sports in say the US are
any cleaner than pro cycling. In fact, the dollar amounts at
stake are greater, and it's hard to imagine that the culture
and moral virtue of the people involved in US pro ball leagues
are restraining them from dipping further into the pharma.

Road cycling is an endurance sport, not a skill sport (except
for the occasional Savoldelli mad descent) and doping,
particularly doping that changes one's hematocrit, makes
a real difference. You can't change a donkey into a racehorse,
but you can sure make a racehorse faster. In many pro
sports, this isn't as obvious - drugs will make a receiver
faster or a basketball player stronger, but they won't cure
hands of stone or a poor shooting touch. (On the other hand,
a stronger player is less tired by game's end and doesn't
make skill mistakes, so ...) But there is still a huge advantage
to be gained by being faster and stronger.

The idea of cycling (or say track) as a test of who is fastest,
plus the fact that it's both an individual and a team sport, I think
means that Joe Fan (and maybe Joe Cat 1) regards doping
as a more serious violation of the state of play. This doesn't
really make sense. It's pretty obvious when you look at
recent baseball or football that, other things being roughly equal,
players with steroids will beat players without steroids. The
same is no doubt true of soccer and either steroids or EPO.

It's likely that there are some players out there good enough to
play in the big leagues without modification. But even they
are still at a disadvantage and will find it hard to be at the
very top - if you ask how many TdF podiums have doping
suspicions, it's kind of like asking what fraction of home run kings
are full of andro. It's probably larger than the fraction of
journeyman infielders.

I have sympathy for somebody like Myerson who chose to do
it his way, suffered rbr making jokes about him getting lapped
in Euro races, and may see those who did charge up and have
success as hypocrites. But really, it's not like Myerson would
be happy if he'd gone the charging route. He'd be hating
himself for it, because that's his personality. I "wish" I was
cutthroat and self-centered enough to have a more
successful academic career, but honestly, I couldn't do it,
I don't have the personality for it. That's life as a
journeyman infielder.

It's okay with me if Myerson vents about how the whole
structure of pro cycling should be torn down, but I don't see
how you'd replace it with something cleaner, just something
better organized (like FIFA). Sure, if they banned all the
old tainted coaches and DSes, that sounds great, but for
every Saiz or Pevenage you ban, someone new will pop up.

People dope even when there isn't money at stake, so
with the money, what can you do? I think the only
solutions are ones like Chung's, where you have more
frequent testing and smaller penalties that are handed out
instantly. The two-week sitdown for breaking the
50% HCT limit is a good example of this. It doesn't rid
the sport of doping. It does lessen the advantage.

Fredamateur Ben

Fredmaster of Brainerd wrote:
It's okay with me if Myerson vents about how the whole
structure of pro cycling should be torn down, but I don't see
how you'd replace it with something cleaner, just something
better organized (like FIFA). Sure, if they banned all the
old tainted coaches and DSes, that sounds great, but for
every Saiz or Pevenage you ban, someone new will pop up.

People dope even when there isn't money at stake, so
with the money, what can you do? I think the only
solutions are ones like Chung's, where you have more
frequent testing and smaller penalties that are handed out
instantly. The two-week sitdown for breaking the
50% HCT limit is a good example of this. It doesn't rid
the sport of doping. It does lessen the advantage.

You're right, but unfortunately self righteousness and hysteria rules
just like it did in Salem (although with the expertise in microdosing
these days I'm not sure if a 50% rule would catch many potential Pantani's).

On 6/12/2010 1:13 AM, Fredmaster of Brainerd wrote:

I "wish" I was
cutthroat and self-centered enough to have a more
successful academic career, but honestly, I couldn't do it,
I don't have the personality for it. That's life as a
journeyman infielder.

You're the better for it. Though it would have been nice to declaim at
the award presentation, "If I've seen further than others it is by
standing on the necks of graduate students."

I think the only
solutions are ones like Chung's, where you have more
frequent testing and smaller penalties that are handed out
instantly.

and to team members.

The two-week sitdown for breaking the
50% HCT limit is a good example of this. It doesn't rid
the sport of doping. It does lessen the advantage.

Rather than punish the doping behavior as a moral offense, neutralize
the advantage as a sporting violation.

In article ,
Fred on a stick wrote:

On 6/12/2010 1:13 AM, Fredmaster of Brainerd wrote:

I "wish" I was
cutthroat and self-centered enough to have a more
successful academic career, but honestly, I couldn't do it,
I don't have the personality for it. That's life as a
journeyman infielder.

You're the better for it. Though it would have been nice to declaim at
the award presentation, "If I've seen further than others it is by
standing on the necks of graduate students."

I think the only
solutions are ones like Chung's, where you have more
frequent testing and smaller penalties that are handed out
instantly.

and to team members.

The two-week sitdown for breaking the
50% HCT limit is a good example of this. It doesn't rid
the sport of doping. It does lessen the advantage.

Rather than punish the doping behavior as a moral offense, neutralize
the advantage as a sporting violation.

I want to draw the line further.
Futbol is an endurance sport.
When FIFA begins to publicly
hand out doping sanctions, then
cycling can start.

--
Old Fritz