Doping

In a taxi heading downtown
Rearranging my position on this friend of mine who had a little bit of a breakdown.
I said breakdowns come and breakdowns go.
What are you gonna do about it, that's what I'd like to know?


Like that Paul Simon lyric, I've rearranged my position on doping in professional cycling. I enjoyed watching several riders who have returned from suspensions in this year's Tour. I even tried to hold a grudge against Vinokourov, but it didn't work; like the others, he's fun to watch. Riders that I don't like, I just don't like, whether they are doping or not and whether they are caught and sanctioned or not.

So my current thinking is that doping violations and suspensions are just one more aspect of the sport, like tire punctures, mechanical failures, fans with purses and dogs, illness, and injury. Sanctions come and sanctions go, what am I gonna do about it, that's what I'd like to know.

How about you?

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Originally Posted by malkin

In a taxi heading downtown
Rearranging my position on this friend of mine who had a little bit of a breakdown.
I said breakdowns come and breakdowns go.
What are you gonna do about it, that's what I'd like to know?


Like that Paul Simon lyric, I've rearranged my position on doping in professional cycling. I enjoyed watching several riders who have returned from suspensions in this year's Tour. I even tried to hold a grudge against Vinokourov, but it didn't work; like the others, he's fun to watch. Riders that I don't like, I just don't like, whether they are doping or not and whether they are caught and sanctioned or not.

So my current thinking is that doping violations and suspensions are just one more aspect of the sport, like tire punctures, mechanical failures, fans with purses and dogs, illness, and injury. Sanctions come and sanctions go, what am I gonna do about it, that's what I'd like to know.

How about you?

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I watch and enjoy the races without worrying who is and who isn't anymore.

I'm convinced they all dope to one degree or another, and that when a rider gets pulled or suspended, it's just to make a media show and make an example of them. If they are serious about prosecuting it, they would find a way through the legal armor that Lance Armstrong has built with his multi-million dollar empire, and start with him.

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Originally Posted by Irulan

I watch and enjoy the races without worrying who is and who isn't anymore.

I'm convinced they all dope to one degree or another, and that when a rider gets pulled or suspended, it's just to make a media show and make an example of them. If they are serious about prosecuting it, they would find a way through the legal armor that Lance Armstrong has built with his multi-million dollar empire, and start with him.

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Well said.

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Originally Posted by Irulan

I'm convinced they all dope to one degree or another, and that when a rider gets pulled or suspended, it's just to make a media show and make an example of them. If they are serious about prosecuting it, they would find a way through the legal armor that Lance Armstrong has built with his multi-million dollar empire, and start with him.

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I'm pretty sure this is currently in process. I think Lance has a better chancing of winning in arbitration than anyone else, since he has more money to spend on his defense. But I think the odds are still against him.

I've had this discussion with some friends. Should we care if professional cyclists dope? Should auto blood transfusions be legal (because it is their own cells) but everything else be forbidden? If we say that doping at that level is ok, what does that do to young cyclists? Will they have to dope in order to be competitive? Again, should we care?

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Originally Posted by roo4

I've had this discussion with some friends. Should we care if professional cyclists dope? Should auto blood transfusions be legal (because it is their own cells) but everything else be forbidden? If we say that doping at that level is ok, what does that do to young cyclists? Will they have to dope in order to be competitive? Again, should we care?

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I had this very discussion with my BF who was a high level junior road racer in the 80s. I am a doping cynic. I have been invovled in high level sport as a health care professional for enough years to know that if they aren't all doping, then most of them are. My opinion has been, why don't they just make it legal? Let them dope and stop the farce that is drug testing. For one thing, it's not like the powers that be really take testing seriously. Professional sport is about money and they make money by getting people to watch. We watch because the athletes continue to entertain us with their amazing abilities. Their abilities wouldn't be so amazing without doping...

Don't get me wrong. I don't agree with doping. I'm just trying to be realistic. As a health care professional, it would be easier if it was all out in the open.

My BF is also a cynic when it comes to doping but much to my amazement, he adamantly states that it can't be legalized. Not really. Because of what it would do to juniors and he's right.

I had never thought about that angle. If nothing else, we have to at least maintain an image of trying to keep the sport clean so that youth riders can stand a chance at escaping the doping game. Hopefully at least the ones that never make it to professional cycling (most of them) will avoid using performance enhancing drugs that could kill them or maybe even give them testicular cancer in their mid twenties. Oops, did I say that out loud?

+1 what Wahine said about the juniors...

As if the physical aspects of doping weren't bad enough, there's the psychological aspects too. Many of these guys seem to be in total denial and they have to kid themselves as much as they need to kid others. I really liked reading that (super long) interview with Landis on the topic. If you have many hours to spend on the topic, check this out: http://nyvelocity.com/content/interv.../landiskimmage (aka "The Gospel according to Floyd").

I second the conclusions of Wahine's discussion. I had a similar one at work (no health care experts present, but a few cycling fans). I enjoy watching cycling, but the doping is present at every level, not just professionals. Yesterday there was news of 2 amateur cyclists doping for the NY Gran Fondo (see Bike Radar).

I think seeking surges in performance is probably like any addictive behavior: some people may try it once and really long for the performance boost. That, to me, would explain why amateurs do it, too.

Don't kid yourselves that doping is only happening at the professional level. As pll said, yesterday the news broke of master's aged racers being caught doping at a Grand Fundo - the grand prize? An $8000 bicycle that many could likely afford. One of the racers has admitted to the doping - he won Tour of the Battenkill this year. Think about how it feels to be racing against someone, only to find out they were doping.

DH and his friends are sadly questioning the performances of more than a few local AMATEUR racers. They have the means to do it, and testing is virtually non-existent at our local events.

Put yourself in a racer's shoes. Every weekend DH and I are out putting in our best efforts on the local race scene. We don't dope. We pay our money, work our a$$es off, and have to question the performances of some of our peers. It's disheartening.

Oh - and EPO is readily available on the internet. And just yesterday, DH's rheumatologist quipped that even male enhancers (you know the ones advertised consistently during prime time TV?) would improve performance.

So, do the pros do it? Yes. Do the amateurs do it? You bet. Does that make it ok? Absolutely not.

SheFly

Doping is one reason I no longer care about professional sports. I don't believe in the integrity of the people that compete. I don't want to emulate them. I don't want my son to aspire to be like them.

I'm with Irulan, though I don't watch the races much.

I think it's always going to be a farce until they acknowledge that it is NOT about health, safety, fairness, or anything but sport. Make it about these amorphous ideals and people will feel free to violate them because they understand there's no real moral force underlying it - if there were, then the line would be drawn a whole lot closer to "natural." Outlaw LASIK, outlaw the arm pump surgery that all the moto racers get, outlaw the elbow surgery the baseball pitchers get, outlaw wind tunnel testing, outlaw metabolic testing, outlaw all of it, and only then will it be about a person, a bike and a course.

Or leave it the way it is, and acknowledge that the physical enhancement rules have no more moral force than the rules about the size of a lacrosse ball or the duration of the two-minute warning, but that those who violate the clearly defined rules will be penalized in clearly defined ways within their sport.

When I was in college and high school I knew many many people who were rxed adderal. Did this give them an edge academically because they could stay up for days straight studying? Absolutely. Would anyone ever consider this cheating? No.

It seems like something that has permeated all aspects of life. I'm not sure if we should accept it for what it is and move on. But I know we shouldn't stick our heads in the sand and pretend that it's not happening.

Please don't go there. There are those of us with legitimate ADD who use cycling to treat our issues but no amount of riding negates the fact that your brain constantly misfires. Academic advantage for people with real ADD, absolutely not, maybe a slightly more even playing field, yes.

[QUOTE=geaux;648560]When I was in college and high school I knew many many people who were rxed adderal. Did this give them an edge academically because they could stay up for days straight studying? Absolutely. Would anyone ever consider this cheating? No.

I didn't say anything about the legitimate use of ADHD medication. If you're staying up for days, you're abusing the drug, which I thought was obvious in my post. There are also legitimate uses for hormone therapy, and I'd imagine all other methods of doping. My point was that people use medical treatments for an advantage in many different ways and I'm curious about where the line should be drawn.

I used to think like some of you until I listened to an ethicist, Norman Frost, who was a guest speaker at the hospital I work at. He was had some quite compelling arguments about why doping is should not be considered cheating any more than using the latest technology is. I won't try to go into all of it here, but look him up some time.

He also convinced me that a level playing field is a complete and total myth. There is no such thing.

He also challenged the widely held reason that testosterone should be banned because of risk of cancer.... it has actually been found that there is not a link between testosterone use and cancers. (btw - it is normal for testicular cancer to strike men in their 20's. It's not an old man's disease. 20-39 is the typical age range) To be sure some PED's carry risks, not necessarily of cancer, but real and severe health risks like making your blood too thick to circulate.... but better to have people doing it in the open and under the supervision of a doctor, than hiding it until they die.

(disclaimer - I'm joking!) Why not consider having been pregnant a PED :rolleyes: it does permanently raise your blood volume.....

That's basically the same thing I said.

Rules are fine. Sport can't function without rules. Bicycles have to be built in a defined configuration, ball fields have to be a defined size, basketball hoops have to be a certain height off the ground. And some drugs and surgeries are permitted and others are prohibited.

Quit pretending it's about anything else, enforce violations as sporting violations, and the endless debate goes away.

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Originally Posted by Eden

I used to think like some of you until I listened to an ethicist, Norman Frost, who was a guest speaker at the hospital I work at. He was had some quite compelling arguments about why doping is should not be considered cheating any more than using the latest technology is. I won't try to go into all of it here, but look him up some time.

He also convinced me that a level playing field is a complete and total myth. There is no such thing.

He also challenged the widely held reason that testosterone should be banned because of risk of cancer.... it has actually been found that there is not a link between testosterone use and cancers. (btw - it is normal for testicular cancer to strike men in their 20's. It's not an old man's disease. 20-39 is the typical age range) To be sure some PED's carry risks, not necessarily of cancer, but real and severe health risks like making your blood too thick to circulate.... but better to have people doing it in the open and under the supervision of a doctor, than hiding it until they die.(

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I agree very much with this. It's technological advancement, just with your body, not equipment. I do agree that riders should be monitored (for example, to make sure that hematocrit levels will not make them stroke out). As for the juniors issue, that's certainly a concern, but alcohol and tobacco are legal for adults and not kids...

I've been quite turned off by WADA and USADA's banned substance list, also. It's a little over encompassing, in my opinion. I saw recently that a BMX racer (16 yo female if I remember correctly) was suspended for caffeine levels over the threshold. It doesn't take much at all to exceed the "allowed" for many innocuous substances.

Interesting article on the subject today here.

I still contest that doping at the local levels is becoming more rampant.

SheFly

I'm not sure how I feel, except to say the whole doping issue is what caused my former exchange student to quit being a pro. First, financial support was withdrawn and then there was the issue of him feeling like it didn't matter what he did, he couldn't compete with those who were doping. Many months of therapy and going back to school cured that
I wonder if this was going on with some of the juniors when DS was racing. He often felt that some of those kids were just a little too good and somewhat entitled and secretive at the national training camps he went to.

The article is interesting, but IMHO it is completely impossible to compare one race to another because there are sooooooo many factors that contribute and some of them aren't even physical. Sometimes a race doesn't even heat up and get fast because of tactics that are playing out. It's not necessarily that the racers couldn't go faster, but there are reasons that they don't want or don't need to.....

Plus there is wind, heat, cold, rain, injuries, differences in the way the stages are ordered, dominance or non-dominance of a team or rider..... once race to another... always apples to oranges if you ask me.

I don't doubt there's doping on the local level. One of our local masters guys got a 2 year suspension for taking something. I don't remember exactly what. Some sort of steroid I think. He had it prescribed for a time because of a knee injury, but then didn't stop, because it was improving his performance and the temptation overrode his common sense. Even on the silly low down level, I know a lot of people who use inhalers, who probably do not have asthma, exercise induced or otherwise.... and I know people who borrow them, who definitely don't.

But it's "medical necessity" that takes the debate off into the la-la land of ethics and morality. If someone has asthma, then albuterol or whatever enhances their performance. If someone has MDS, then EPO enhances their performance. If someone has no legs, then prostheses enhance their performance.

There's no Platonic form of a human being that the regulators can point to and say, this person can be medicated until their performance reaches this level and no further - and if there were, then obviously they wouldn't be competitive in their sport, medication or no.

Some of those regulations do exist in insurance and Medicare coverage - it impacted my dad when his hematocrit rose too high for Medicare to cover his EPO. But those limits are around the level of bare survival and possibly ability to carry out ADLs. In an ideal world maybe you'd medicate the sick person to a higher level of wellness. But again ... when it stops being about sport, when we pretend the line is not arbitrary, then where is the line?

Albuterol does not enhance your performance if you have asthma. It keeps you from dying.

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Originally Posted by ny biker

Albuterol does not enhance your performance if you have asthma. It keeps you from dying.

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Alive is definitely enhanced!

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Originally Posted by SheFly

Don't kid yourselves that doping is only happening at the professional level. As pll said, yesterday the news broke of master's aged racers being caught doping at a Grand Fundo

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Masters athletes have been the fastest growing performance enhancing drug user group for about 10 years now.

At sports medicine conferences the discussion isn't about whether doping is right or wrong. It's about what the latest drugs/doping techniques are, all the horrible things it does to your body, how to recognize an athlete that is using and how to manage that athlete medically.

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Originally Posted by Eden

He also challenged the widely held reason that testosterone should be banned because of risk of cancer.... it has actually been found that there is not a link between testosterone use and cancers. (btw - it is normal for testicular cancer to strike men in their 20's. It's not an old man's disease. 20-39 is the typical age range) To be sure some PED's carry risks, not necessarily of cancer, but real and severe health risks like making your blood too thick to circulate.... but better to have people doing it in the open and under the supervision of a doctor, than hiding it until they die.

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This may well be true and I don't know that it's testosterone or who knows what but the incidence to testicular cancer went up dramatically, very quickly in men in their early 20's in the 90's. What's interesting about that is not that it went up, but that the increased incidence was much higher in the competitive athletic population. I think the difference was about 25% more likelihood of a diagnosis in the athletic population.

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(disclaimer - I'm joking!) Why not consider having been pregnant a PED :rolleyes: it does permanently raise your blood volume.....

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I realize you're joking. But sadly, this has actually been done in an organized way by team managers and involving young women in sport. I'm talking teens.

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Originally Posted by ny biker

Albuterol does not enhance your performance if you have asthma. It keeps you from dying.

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Yes, but I used to take it before bike rides even when I was not having any symptoms and I always rode better. I imagine it is used for that purpose by those who do not have asthma. My asthma has gone away so I can no longer get it (and I'm grateful for the asthma having gone away).

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Originally Posted by ny biker

Albuterol does not enhance your performance if you have asthma. It keeps you from dying.

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I don't know anyone with asthma, including myself, whose instructions for their rescue inhaler tell them not to use it until they're on the point of death. It's the difference between a peak flow of x and a peak flow of x+100 or whatever. That's a performance enhancement. Now, if you want to talk about my Epi-Pen, which really is only supposed to be used when it's that or die ... extrinsic epinephrine is STILL a performance enhancement. Does the same thing to my sympathetic nervous system whether or not I'm having an anaphylactic reaction. Sorry.

Really, the philosophical issues go way beyond doping in sport, and get into the north/western concept of medicine as disease management. Most other medical systems view themselves as trying to bring a person (not a "patient") to their personal highest level of wellness, which would include athletic performance. But when north/western medicine does that, it's seen as "cheating." Maybe only because the techniques are usually so invasive?

FWIW- my husband had testicular cancer and absolutely never took anything. (He wasn't particularly athletic at the time).

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Originally Posted by OakLeaf

Most other medical systems view themselves as trying to bring a person (not a "patient") to their personal highest level of wellness, which would include athletic performance. But when north/western medicine does that, it's seen as "cheating." Maybe only because the techniques are usually so invasive?

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What system of medicine do you have in mind? How do you define the "highest level of wellness"?

For the most part, as I understand PEDs, we are talking about drugs that either have or may have deleterious effects with prolonged use -- for many, the effects of prolonged use are unknown. Even with an asthma inhaler, there are health costs, but for someone who suffers from asthma, the benefits of being able to breath outweigh the long run considerations, while as for a "recreational" user, there is no justification. Steroids might take you to the "highest level of wellness" in the short run, but kill you in the long run.

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Originally Posted by OakLeaf

There's no Platonic form of a human being

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Yup. This reminds me of discussing about women athletes and the testing they go through to show that they are "real women." Sorry, there is no bright line and there is no form of a real woman. Or man.

If there were a perfect, ideal human form, in actual real life, there wouldn't be any point in talking about it.