Doping in sport

[Greenlantern101]

The International Association of Athletic Federations has had a leaked document that shows a third of medal winners and 1 in 7 off all athletes has had a suspicious drug test result.

According to the experts, the database reveals:

• A third of medals (146, including 55 golds) in endurance events at the Olympics and World Championships between 2001 and 2012 were won by athletes who have recorded suspicious tests. It is claimed none of these athletes have been stripped of their medals.
• More than 800 athletes - one in seven of those named in the files - have recorded blood tests described by one of the experts as "highly suggestive of doping or at the very least abnormal".
• A top UK athlete is among seven Britons with suspicious blood scores.
• British athletes - including Olympic champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill - have lost out in major events to competitors who were under suspicion.
• Ten medals at London 2012 were won by athletes who have dubious test results.
• In some finals, every athlete in the three medal positions had recorded a suspicious blood test.
• Russia emerges as "the blood testing epicentre of the world" with more than 80% of the country's medals won by suspicious athletes, while Kenya had 18 medals won by suspicious athletes.
• Stars such as Britain's Mo Farah and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt recorded no abnormal results.
• Athletes are increasingly using blood transfusions and EPO micro-doses to boost the red cell count.

Looks like athletics is just as dirty as cycling.
BBC Sport - Leaked IAAF doping files: Wada 'very alarmed' by allegations

Did anyone watch the Panorama special a few months ago. A reporter who was also an amateur athlete did an investigation on Salazar and a personal doping experiment with EPO. He trained hard for I think it was 4 months to get as fit as he could, then started injecting EPO whilst still training hard for the next 14 weeks. He recorded a 7% increase in performance in the EPO phase in just the first 7 weeks. Throughout the process he was sending off weekly blood test as required and was never picked up on his cheating.

It's easy to cheat.

BBC iPlayer - Panorama - Catch Me If You Can

 

[Brogan]

Sadly most of the results in the modern era (going back 50+ years) are suspect for one reason or another.

They're never going to prevent it so why not just have a free for all?

All the current approach does is penalise those who are clean.
I personally experienced that as I have never taken a single performance enhancing drug yet I was training with people who did.
It's impossible to compete equally.

 

[Incubus]

Am I right in thinking that caffeine is on the list of prohibited substance in motor racing?

I know it definitely was in the late eighties where they passed some kind of legislation in F1 that stipulated something along the lines that too many cups of coffee would make you excessively aggressive on the track. Which particularly affected Sandro Nannini who regularly drank seven or eight xpressos on a typical day. I think they dropped that because of the impossibility of regulating all the substances that contain caffeine such as paracetamol but I'm not sure?...

 

[cider_and_toast]

Before we can effectively clean up sports we need to clean up the governing bodies. These self appointed and almost completely unregulated bodies are the root cause of many of their own sports problems. The IAAF's response to the story was to threaten the Times with an injunction. Hardly the reaction you would want from the governing body. Add to that what we know about the FIA and FIFA and it's no wonder there is so much cheating, corruption and scandal in all sports.

 

[Titch]

Sport, Governments and Religions all have their problems. Is it any wonder that so many of todays young people are in despair ?

 

[Hamberg]

It's never been any different. Just more people have access to information.

 

[Titch]

You mean it's all the press see fit to report. Dig up all the dirt and print it. Positive news is dull ?

 

[cider_and_toast]

Yeah, I'd much prefer hearing about how my local MP opened a new art gallery than if he was fiddling his expenses or not. Investigative journalism is so negative isn't it?

 

[RasputinLives]

Maybe the news should just play that "Everything is Awesome" song on repeat?

On an aside I have to ask the question - are there performance enhancing drugs that would benefit and racing driver?

Other than the recent Frank Montangy noise candy I can't think of many reported incidents. They obviously do check though so they must be looking for something.

 

[Titch]

Bad news, doom and gloom, shit happens is OK then ? I mean as a daily diet ? Lets all wait in line to throw ourselves of the nearest bridge.
Of course corruption is rife, why can't News delivery be balanced by good stuff, there is good stuff, but we just don't get enough of it. So now NEWS isn't NEWS unless it's negative. And, lets face it, negative news is what most people want.

 

[RasputinLives]

I think thats the attitude they had in the 70's. Hence the dozens and dozens of child molesters getting away with it for about 40 odd years.

"We could publish this story exposing Jimmy Saville and stopping him ever abusing again but I reckon we should bump it for the skiing squirrel"

"So the 8 times champions has been doping for decades? Well no point saying it now lets do the story about the mating pandas"

 

[Titch]

Whatever.

 

[RasputinLives]

Sorry Titch I didn't mean to be obtuse. I just don't think you can blame the news for reporting it. Its happening whever the news reports it or not. Isn't it better people know?

 

[Titch]

I agree we should know. We should see those who are doing bad things punished. But what I said was that it's all The Press see fit to print, and why can't they balance good news with the bad. I didn't say lets bury our heads in the sand, and pretend it's not happening.

 

[FB]

I used to really enjoy watching sports such as athletics and cycling but when anyone wins a race by a significant margin, or proves to be significantly better than their peers, (yes, Chris Froome and Usain Bolt I'm looking at you) the only explanation must be doping. It would help the sport if the those found cheating were banned for life, the nonsense with Justin Gatlin makes athletics look like a joke, and those caught for doping in the past shouldn't be allowed to train other athletes, Linford Christie for example.

BTW, snooker has had it's share of drug problems with the use of beta blockers to avoid nervous problems. There probably isn't a sport in the world that isn't affected by this problem. At least in F1 if one driver blitzes the field it's usually because the car is better than the rest.

 

[Brogan]

yes, Chris Froome and Usain Bolt I'm looking at you

So you believe they're both cheats?

 

[Dash Racing]

In light of the fact that E-sports are moving toward drug testing following some important admission of the usage of performance enhancing substances (e.g. Aderall), I have been wondering whether there are performance enhancing substances that would help a racing driver.

My thought was that using the same performance enhancers as some pro-gamers admitted to having used may provide a similar performance enhancement to racing drivers. Clearly, the key in improving e-sports performance is in reaction times, which would also be a benefit to racing drivers. Any thoughts?

 

[soccerman17]

Well cocaine didn't help Franck Montagny too much

 

[FB]

So you believe they're both cheats?

Yes

 

[Incubus]

But it's the taking of a recreational rather than performance-enhancing drug he was suspended for soccerman17. Whether it made any difference to the terms of his suspension is another matter but it's probably not what this topic's about?