[Vampyr]

Can someone explain to me how a person who has been done for drugs not even once but TWICE is ever permitted to compete again?

[JLilly]

Vampyr, on 2017-August-05, 15:38, said:

Can someone explain to me how a person who has been done for drugs not even once but TWICE is ever permitted to compete again?

I'm assuming you have someone in particular in mind.

And "drugs" can mean illegal performance-enhancing drugs (modafinil without a prescription in the US), legal-but-not-for-the-sport performance-enhancing drugs (dunno what the various bridge organizations' rules are), legal and fully licit performance-enhancing drugs (e.g., caffeine), and stuff that would only hurt one's performance (most of them, legal and illegal). If a bridge player is arrested outside of their bridge activities for possession of marijuana twice, that's a big different from using drugs that give them an unfair advantage at the game.

[Cyberyeti]

Normally I take a VERY hard line on this, but I have a lot of sympathy for Gatlin's first offence which was essentially a screw-up by his college that failed to ask for a TUE that he could have got for ADHD medication he'd taken for years while he was a young athlete. I have no sympathy for his second which I think should have attracted a longer ban than it did

[The_Badger]

Trillions of chemical reactions happen in the human body on a daily basis. Banning anyone that is using a compound that the body cannot produce is completely different than banning someone who may through no fault of their own overproduce a natural compound like testosterone or adrenalin. It's all relative.

[Vampyr]

The_Badger, on 2017-August-05, 20:14, said:

Trillions of chemical reactions happen in the human body on a daily basis. Banning anyone that is using a compound that the body cannot produce is completely different than banning someone who may through no fault of their own overproduce a natural compound like testosterone or adrenalin. It's all relative.

Yes and blood doping is extremely hard to detect. I am talking about intentional doping.

[Vampyr]

Cyberyeti, on 2017-August-05, 16:03, said:

Normally I take a VERY hard line on this, but I have a lot of sympathy for Gatlin's first offence which was essentially a screw-up by his college that failed to ask for a TUE that he could have got for ADHD medication he'd taken for years while he was a young athlete. I have no sympathy for his second which I think should have attracted a longer ban than it did

He's also got a Nike logo on his jersey. Your have to wonder how a company would agree to sponsor him, or a team he was on.

This while practically the entire Russian athletics team was banned from the event.

[Zelandakh]

Vampyr, on 2017-August-05, 15:38, said:

Can someone explain to me how a person who has been done for drugs not even once but TWICE is ever permitted to compete again?

Would you care to point to a male 100m champion from the last 30 or so years that you are confident was clean throughout their career? Just because Gatlin got caught and gets portrayed by the media as the "bad guy" does not mean that everyone else in the race is not doing precisely the same things. Remember that Lance spoke often about "never failing a drugs test" - there are similarities to be seen in athletics sprinting.

[Vampyr]

Zelandakh, on 2017-August-06, 04:09, said:

Would you care to point to a male 100m champion from the last 30 or so years that you are confident was clean throughout their career? Just because Gatlin got caught and gets portrayed by the media as the "bad guy" does not mean that everyone else in the race is not doing precisely the same things. Remember that Lance spoke often about "never failing a drugs test" - there are similarities to be seen in athletics sprinting.

I realise that athletics is one of the worst sports For performance-enhancing drugs. But could that not be, in past at least, due to the lack of a serious deterrent?

[Zelandakh]

Vampyr, on 2017-August-06, 11:31, said:

I realise that athletics is one of the worst sports For performance-enhancing drugs. But could that not be, in past at least, due to the lack of a serious deterrent?

There is nothing special about athletics here - cycling, weightlifting, swimming are 3 other high profile sports with well-known drug problems and increasingly the risk-reward ratio is tilting towards drug usage across the board, even for sports that are traditionally comparatively clean such as football.

The truth is that a ban of less than an olympic/world cup cycle for deliberate usage is pathetic. The sports bodies seem to have decided that a ban longer than 2 years is counter-productive and since the length and application of a ban is implemented locally, the real effect is often much less.

The result, in my view, is that it is now rare to see a major sporting event without some form of illegal method being used behind the scenes. Whether any of the competitors are actually caught cheating is neither here nor there. If a sport is catching competitors it will release statements about hos effective the anti-doping program is; if not then it will claim not to have a problem. Since the latter is easier to sell, there is some pressure on sports bodies notto make their testing too effective, which in turn only makes cheating more appealing. The problem is not going to go away - the best way of effecting change is to stop watching. Only when the money in the sport is affected will there be any real change.

[Cyberyeti]

Zelandakh, on 2017-August-06, 23:56, said:

There is nothing special about athletics here - cycling, weightlifting, swimming are 3 other high profile sports with well-known drug problems and increasingly the risk-reward ratio is tilting towards drug usage across the board, even for sports that are traditionally comparatively clean such as football.

The truth is that a ban of less than an olympic/world cup cycle for deliberate usage is pathetic. The sports bodies seem to have decided that a ban longer than 2 years is counter-productive and since the length and application of a ban is implemented locally, the real effect is often much less.

The result, in my view, is that it is now rare to see a major sporting event without some form of illegal method being used behind the scenes. Whether any of the competitors are actually caught cheating is neither here nor there. If a sport is catching competitors it will release statements about hos effective the anti-doping program is; if not then it will claim not to have a problem. Since the latter is easier to sell, there is some pressure on sports bodies notto make their testing too effective, which in turn only makes cheating more appealing. The problem is not going to go away - the best way of effecting change is to stop watching. Only when the money in the sport is affected will there be any real change.

Actually it's more a problem with the law in many countries than the sporting authorities. Athletics wants or wanted life bans, but the problem is that the "if this is in your body, it's your fault we don't care how it got there barring something REALLY strange" is incompatible with the legal systems of many countries and innocent until proven guilty.

Gatlin's ban was 8 years, but reduced massively by an arbitration court and then by him co-operating (I think it was halved twice).

[Zelandakh]

Cyberyeti, on 2017-August-07, 04:22, said:

Gatlin's ban was 8 years, but reduced massively by an arbitration court and then by him co-operating (I think it was halved twice).

Not quite. He was threatened with a lifetime ban but this was agreed to be 8 years after his cooperation considering the "special circumstances" of the first ban. An appeal subsequently reduced it to 4 years (2006-2010).

[mike777]

Vampyr, on 2017-August-05, 15:38, said:

Can someone explain to me how a person who has been done for drugs not even once but TWICE is ever permitted to compete again?

I would expect as drug use however you define it becomes more common usage in the general public we will become more accepting of it in our athletics.

For example coaching players was illegal, yes coaching it was considered illegal and unethical to receive professional coaching. As it become more and more common it was accepted into more and more of our sports. More recently was the issue of receiving money to play a sport, after a while it was accepted one could accept money and you were not called a cheater.

I would expect over time more and more types of drugs/chemicals will become accepted in our sports. And yes it will change the sport just as coaching and money has changed sports.

--------------


As far as PED, I think people forget what PED stands for, Performance enhancing drugs. Well most drugs, legal drugs enhance performance. Coaching is there to enhance performance, weight training and nutrition is used to enhance performance.

[billw55]

Zelandakh, on 2017-August-06, 23:56, said:

The problem is not going to go away - the best way of effecting change is to stop watching. Only when the money in the sport is affected will there be any real change.

Right. The status quo is that for the most part, fans and governing bodies like the enhanced performance more than they dislike the use of PEDs. So enforcement is generally token. In a way it is kind of similar to enforcement of underage drinking in the USA: most involved parties actually want it to happen, so enforcement is again token.

[mike777]

billw55, on 2017-August-13, 21:05, said:

Right. The status quo is that for the most part, fans and governing bodies like the enhanced performance more than they dislike the use of PEDs. So enforcement is generally token. In a way it is kind of similar to enforcement of underage drinking in the USA: most involved parties actually want it to happen, so enforcement is again token.

no no no

money is not the driving force good grief


performance enhancement is the driving force....the ability to replicate


Until you accept that you don't understand

all of this is not complicated

think the gene....the selfish gene

the selfish gene is the driving force, the ultimate driving force

[Al_U_Card]

mike777, on 2017-August-14, 23:40, said:

no no no

money is not the driving force good grief


performance enhancement is the driving force....the ability to replicate


Until you accept that you don't understand

all of this is not complicated

think the gene....the selfish gene

the selfish gene is the driving force, the ultimate driving force

Evolution and its quest for perfection. Pushing our abilities to exceed the previously established limit. It is our ingenuity and our technology that exacerbates this, most definitely selfish, pursuit.