[super69]

Perhaps this is old news, but I missed it. I'm not sure how I feel about the situation, and would like to hear other's thoughts.
http://www.worldbrid...g-geir-helgemo/

[hrothgar]

1. The WBF decision to try and align itself with the Olympic movement has been a colossal waste of time and money.

2. The WBF drug policy is a joke. No one takes it seriously. The list of banned substances really doesn't make much sense for a mind sport like bridge. (How can you not ban caffeine, nicotine, ritalin, aderall, etc? Why are you banning pot and the like which are now legal in many parts of the world)

3. Helgemo broke rules and deserves to be punished. (It should be noted that this is not the first time that Helgemo has committed an infraction. In the past, his team faked match results. He's also had some serious tax issues)

4. I have a lot of respect for Helgemo's decision to calmly and quietly acknowledge the violation, accept his punishment, and move on. (This might be an easy decision since he is serving this new suspension contemporaneously with another one)

At the end of the day, I wish people were complaining less about the fact that Helgemo is being punished or raising inane parallel's with F+N and doing more to try to force the WBF renounce "bridge as a sport", the Olympics, the CAS, ...

[eagles123]

no sympathy whatsoever, sorry but for a top professional who is paid monster amounts of money to blatantly flaunt the laws (as ridiculous as they may be) is just beyond stupid.

[pescetom]

I too have no sympathy. WADA's rules are perfectly clear and should be well known to a top professional who is subject to them. If he needed to assume these substances for health reasons then all he had to do is to request and obtain a Therapeutic Use Exemption. He has no excuse, as he seems to accept.

[Vampyr]

 hrothgar, on 2019-March-01, 04:14, said:

1. The WBF decision to try and align itself with the Olympic movement has been a colossal waste of time and money.

.....

At the end of the day, I wish people were complaining less about the fact that Helgemo is being punished or raising inane parallel's with F+N and doing more to try to force the WBF renounce "bridge as a sport", the Olympics, the CAS, ...

The “bridge as a sport” issue matters a lot in terms of VAT. But this is largely a UK issue, because I believe that other countries do not charge VAT for bridge and in fact in some bridge receives government subsidies.

[neilkaz]

Someone please tell me how the banned substances he used are to help one play better bridge? Thx .. neilkaz ..

[hrothgar]

 neilkaz, on 2019-March-01, 16:16, said:

Someone please tell me how the banned substances he used are to help one play better bridge? Thx .. neilkaz ..

Thats not the point...

I agree that the rules are nonsense.
I agree that the rules need to be changed.
I'd have a lot of sympathy for Helgemo if this was an act of civil disobedience. (But it wasn't)

Simply put, if you play a game, you're expected to obey the rules even if you don't like them...

[eagles123]

some of the crap on BW lol it's like a bunch of hormonal teenagers


I post there for bridge advice and I've had a lot of help over the years, as I have here, but that site on any political type issue, it just makes me laugh the same old suspects all the time with the ridiculous over the top statements!

as Hrothgar says, yeah, the laws are crazy. but he knew the laws and ignored them. it's only a year ban, not the end of the world!!

[mikeh]

According to some posts on BW, it is entirely possible that the substances Geir was ingesting were prescribed for medical problems, problems fairly common amongst aging males. If true, and I don't think anyone on BW as affirmed that it is, then it simply highlights how absurd it is to subject the almost uniformly old and aging field of bridge professionals to the same standards as athletes in their late teens, or their twenties, or early thirties.

As for whether what he took could have enhanced his bridge playing, I don't think it is as simple as whether a substance could enhance cognitive ability.

Anyone who has played in a long high-level bridge event will know how tiring it is, and I suspect that few who have not done this would grasp the level of fatigue. Steroids can, I think enhance stamina, so indirectly would seem capable of enhancing performance by preserving stamina and the ability to focus.

But, of course, so too, and almost surely more powerfully and immediately, does coffee. I remember playing in Verona in 2006. The Lavazza coffee company (Mrs. Lavazza has for years been the sponsor of the Italian national team, and in other events the team is entered as 'Lavazza') set up numerous espresso stations in the playing area, staffed by employees and offering (delicious) free espresso to all comers. Yet we ban performance-impairing substances such as marijuana but not alcohol

This is what happens when the game is run by politicians: people whose primary goal is to tell other people what to do, rather than to play the game itself or to enhance the opportunities for the players.

It is but one aspect of the situation. In 2000, the Bermuda Bowl was played in Bermuda, and attracted a sponsor who gave generously to the event. The politicians got free rooms and suites, and a car with a driver. They got dinners and a ball, to which ordinary players were not invited (tho well-connected players were). The rest of us got a free leather bag with the sponsor's logo on it.

In 2002, in Montreal, the politicians got free accommodation, free meals, two balls, free transportation. The players...nothing, unless they were well-connected in which case they got invites to the balls.

Some politicians thought it would be a feather in their cap if they got bridge into the Olympics, as silly as that notion was and is. Hence they imposed restrictions on the game not with a view to improving the game (as one example, the WBF was for decades unwilling to look at cheating as a problem) but to massage their egos. At least, that's my jaundiced view.

[hrothgar]

 mikeh, on 2019-March-01, 16:49, said:

Some politicians thought it would be a feather in their cap if they got bridge into the Olympics, as silly as that notion was and is.

My view is far more cynical...

I think that the pros wanted to be able to sell Olympic medals to well heeled sponsors.
I think that the powers that be wanted to attach themselves to the thoroughly corrupt IOC movement.

[fred]

 hrothgar, on 2019-March-01, 17:13, said:

My view is far more cynical...

I think that the pros wanted to be able to sell Olympic medals to well heeled sponsors.
I think that the powers that be wanted to attach themselves to the thoroughly corrupt IOC movement.

Your cynical view pertaining to pros is both factually incorrect and unfair.

I was close to the action at the time and I perceived a wide consensus among the US pros: "the Olympic thing is not going to happen". The pros very much did not jump on the Olympic bandwagon.

No doubt there existed some pros who were true believers (I don't recall any). But I don't think it is fair or accurate to assume that the only thing such people cared about (as far as the Olympics was concerned) was money.

[thepossum]

I clearly have no real skin in the game despite loving the game and adhering to the rules as an amateur. Also the experts above have the legitimate professional perspective but....

I personally think the Olympics has become a mockery with some of the things defined as sports in their movement.

I think Bridge needs its own rules on performance enhancement. I actually think it's getting somewhat ridiculous even allowing for increased professionalism that a game that has moved from smoky clubs and bars with anything goes to considering performance enhancement under WADA rules. Its also, despite huge skill and professionalism from top players, has a huge amount of chance so is not really suited to a sporting movement allegedly based on individual or team training and performance without luck. I know tournament bridge, team play, duplicate, IMPs etc do everything they can to remove chance. However is it possible in a large tournament of Olympic scale and many countries to actually deserve the title of Olympic Champion. It means something despite corruption and occasional sporting scandals. Olympic Medals have a meaning to the World

Clearly I'm not a professional and will keep playing my online ACBL tourneys under the influence of anything I feel like and hope I don't get a midnight knock on the door from WADA testers. I can just envision a group of harmless middle aged bridge players in an approved tournament at their local club being raided by USADA, ASADA (in Aus) etc and having their medications confiscated

PS what will an Olympic bridge stadium look like, a Casino Floor perhaps at the 2032 Las Vegas Olympics; or maybe in the form of a giant cruise ship. Or will the Olympics be moved to tax havens like Bermuda

And can you imagine the Bridge Team marching in along side the swimmers and athletes and weight lifters and gymnasts

Will kibitzing be allowed or will it be played in silence. How wil they have closed rooms in something allegedly aimed at spectators. Will people be allowed to cheer and applaud at a brilliant squeeze. Whats it going to be like

[barmar]

I've long been of the opinion that the rules against doping in sports have little to do with "performance enhancement", and they're more about social issues. Sports figures are expected to be role models for young people, and this is just a way to express "drugs are bad".

If sports federations were really against artificial performance ehnancement, they would also prohibit improvements in equipment. And many of the substances that are prohibited actually impair performance.

So don't look for logic in the rules about anti-doping.

And if your children say "I want to be like Geir", now you can point out that he got into trouble for taking drugs.

[pescetom]

 barmar, on 2019-March-02, 22:58, said:

I've long been of the opinion that the rules against doping in sports have little to do with "performance enhancement", and they're more about social issues. Sports figures are expected to be role models for young people, and this is just a way to express "drugs are bad".

You're hopelessly wrong here: presumably you have never competed in a more physical sport, otherwise you would be grateful that somebody is fighting the people who dope to beat you.

 barmar, on 2019-March-02, 22:58, said:

If sports federations were really against artificial performance ehnancement, they would also prohibit improvements in equipment.

They often do: no way can you swim with a full length swimsuit or ride with a fairing on your bicycle or run with springs in your shoes.

 barmar, on 2019-March-02, 22:58, said:

And many of the substances that are prohibited actually impair performance.

Usually in that case they are banned because they can mask a performance improving substance or mitigate it's negative effects.

[hrothgar]

 barmar, on 2019-March-02, 22:58, said:

I've long been of the opinion that the rules against doping in sports have little to do with "performance enhancement", and they're more about social issues. Sports figures are expected to be role models for young people, and this is just a way to express "drugs are bad".

The reason that performance enhancing drugs are banned is that many of these have very nasty sides effects like killing the people who take them.

No doubt, there is also some moral signaling going on as well, however, the big issue is not tempting people with Achilles choice.

[mikeh]

In terms of moral signaling, and bearing in mind that I have no personal knowledge of the facts, beyond those made public and no knowledge at all of any extraneous motivations of the decision-makers, but I wonder whether Helgemo was punished as he was in part because of his history.

He ran into problems with (I understand) posting a score once.

He played for years on a team with Fantunes. Say what one will, I find it very difficult to believe that one can play for long events without forming any suspicion about the extraordinary results that one's teammates keep bringing back. Now, I do accept that there would be unconscious pressure not to look a gift horse in the mouth. In addition, I have played on teams where the policy was that we never discussed results with our teammates. I once played a week-long event, winning the CNTCs, without ever knowing any auction or card-play at the other table. Indeed, I read out our score and was told what the imp margin was, so I think I only ever knew about 2 or 3 contracts beyond assuming that push probably meant the same contract. But year after year? In matches that were on vugraph?

I'm not saying or implying that Helgemo knew or even ought to have known, but am speculating that this history and the sort of suspicion to which I allude might influence decision makers when he gets into trouble. It shouldn't but we're all human, including the people who make these decisions.

And of course there is the tax situation. However one views that, as innocent mistake or failed tax evasion, he comes out of it with some degree of black shadow.

Add all of this together, and it's not surprising that he got (as I see it) a pretty harsh sentence. He may well be simply in the wrong place at the wrong time for all of this (other than the wrong score issue, but even there may well have thought that he was in the right, from a moral perspective). Btw, I am, in my own mind, convinced that he was not taking the banned substances for any improper purpose, which is why I see the punishment as perhaps exceeding the crime (unless it was the minimum allowed by the rules).

[Cyberyeti]

 barmar, on 2019-March-02, 22:58, said:

And many of the substances that are prohibited actually impair performance.

This is true, but most of the ones that do are recreational drugs, or boost performance in other sports.

Anti-doping is a blunt instrument, you won't routinely benefit from beta blockers as a sprinter, but you do in shooting so they're banned.

BTW did you know capsaicin (active ingredient of chillies) is on the banned list .......... but only if you're a horse. Apparently if you rub some on a horse's legs during training it makes the legs more sensitive so hitting fences hurts, and they're encouraged to learn to pick their feet up when show jumping.

[pescetom]

 Cyberyeti, on 2019-March-04, 14:06, said:

Anti-doping is a blunt instrument, you won't routinely benefit from beta blockers as a sprinter, but you do in shooting so they're banned.

It wasn't a great example because I can imagine that they might really help a sprinter off the blocks at the right moment, especially if he was also taking some stimulant at the same time.
The same combination of beta blockers and amphetamine (or whatever) might really help in bidding too, come to that.
But yes, there is some degree of grouping of substances without precise discrimination per sport, more or less inevitable.

[PhantomSac]

 hrothgar, on 2019-March-01, 04:14, said:

(How can you not ban caffeine, nicotine, ritalin, aderall, etc? Why are you banning pot and the like which are now legal in many parts of the world)

You should check your facts on that one, ritalin and adderall are banned (I don't know all of the other ADD meds but I would guess they all have something in them that is banned also). Some googling shows that amphetamines are banned by WADA = adderall, and methylphenidate is banned by WADA = ritalin, but I also know this from personal experience since I don't take adderall at WBF events lol, and someone I know (who is extremely ADD) tried to get a theraputic exemption with 2 doctors notes and was rejected. Fair enough that they are strict with one of the few things that could actually be performance enhancing in bridge though.

Regarding caffeine...I remember that Lavazza was a sponsor of the world championships in veldhoven and they had espresso stands all over the place for the players and we were all freaked out that we might fail a drug test if we drank it and they told us not to worry lol.

edit: And I see I had the same story mikeh had about coffee, just 5years later!

[hrothgar]

 PhantomSac, on 2019-March-04, 15:36, said:

You should check your facts on that one, ritalin and adderall are banned (I don't know all of the other ADD meds but I would guess they all have something in them that is banned also). Some googling shows that amphetamines are banned by WADA = adderall, and methylphenidate is banned by WADA = ritalin, but I also know this from personal experience since I don't take adderall at WBF events lol, and someone I know (who is extremely ADD) tried to get a theraputic exemption with 2 doctors notes and was rejected. Fair enough that they are strict with one of the few things that could actually be performance enhancing in bridge though.

Regarding caffeine...I remember that Lavazza was a sponsor of the world championships in veldhoven and they had espresso stands all over the place for the players and we were all freaked out that we might fail a drug test if we drank it and they told us not to worry lol.

Thanks for the correction
I should have double checked this