With the latest Track doping scandal hitting the news, on the heels of Landis' A sample testing positive, one has to wonder will we be able to view any event again without wondering how many of the atheletes are "on something". The fallout to Gatlin's positive tests has begun, his coach has been banned from US olympic training facilities, a number of athletes tied to Graham are not invited to a meet in Berlin next month and Gatlin himself faces a lifetime ban along with losing his WR time, if found guilty. I have to admit I thought the masseuse using a "tainted cream" excuse amusing.

story

This story helps explain why there has been no showdown between Powell and Gatlin, the current record holders at 100m (9.77s).

Listening to a radio show earlier this week, I practically found myself agreeing with a view, that they may as well just "legalize" the use of performance enhancing drugs, to end the never ending speculation.

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" The universe is running away
I heard it on the news just the other day
There's this new stuff called dark energy
We can't measure and we can't see..." - from Jimmy Buffett's What if the hokey pokey is all it really is about?

That might actually be entertaining.

The program would include all the competitors vital stats, including what drug program they are on.

We could have:

Open class, no limits
Restricted class, the usual steroid stuff
Modified class, whole blood only
Stock class, caffiene only

I wonder how many people in the open class would dope themselves to death for the sake of winning?

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

Yeah...I remember that episode of the BATMAN tv series. Michael Rennie played...wait a minute...nevermind. Rennie played Dr. Somnambula(The Sandman), a vengeful mattress salesman!

Coming soon, the cyborg olympics.

hehe

When I saw this post, I immediately thought about EOlympics (enhanced). Looks like its a commonly considered option, as the public perception is that sport will never be clean (poll result at the timeof this post was NO 100%).

Most athletes are good sports, and want to win through their own natural talent and perseverence. Its not fair to them that cheats may win events, and I have heard some of the testing proceedures they have to endure are well ... i wouldnt like to have to do them. Its a credit to their determination that they endure such an air of mistrust.

So bring on the ESports. If they choose to put crud into their bodies, lets see what it does to them. Genetic manipulation is next on the cards, .... willing guinea pigs (ah Igor, bring me the DNA sample) :

Basically, as long as there's money to be had, there will be people trying to get them through cheating.
Even with 4 levels of doping allowed, you'll get people trying to compete in a lover class than they belong in, just look at the trouble boxers go through to get their weight down so they can compete against lighter opponents.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

Yep - you're spot on there.

Money money money!

How can anyone truly get angry at someone who may be from a third-world country, and has a talent for some sort of sport - perhaps long distance running, but they're not quite good enough to be a world champion. So, what do they do? They go and train in the West, get doped up and win!

They make a heap of money, and they may be able to lift their family and relatives out of poverty. How can anyone truly condemn any athlete in that situation?

But then, where do you draw the line? Its actually impossible really, so as long as sporting fame and glory is a possible path to riches - there are going to be those who'll go to any length to get there - and who can blame them?

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BugMeNot A portal to bypass free-site registration.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer - renowned 19th Century German philosopher.

Sandbagging at the Sterolympics.

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Don of Borg - Cool, Calm, Collective.

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

It will never be clean. Its a chemical arms race to find the newest enhancer that can't be detected, only to have the overseers trying to keep up.

Just admit these idiots have every right to ride their bodies into the ground and let them jack themselves up with every chemical enhancer under the sun. We get two major benefits.

1) We remove a large number of Type A morons from the gene pool through death, sterility, and incarceration for crimes committed during a 'roid rage.

2) Sports will become FAR more entertaining as these fools actually perform at levels deserving of multimillion dollar contracts.

Win-win situation for sports.

The determination needed to wreck your body via physical effort may come from the same source that other people use to win Nobel prizes. Thus the gene pool may be made worse in this regard.

In this case, the source (parents) are left intact. Therefore, one child will become the 25 year old decathalete who's heart explodes, and the other will become a reasonably well paid researcher in the field of biochemistry or computer science who has a few kids after he's 30 and geek attractiveness eclipses the attractiveness of the few remaining athletes who's broken, warped and poisoned bodies require intensive medical support to carry on.

Darwin still functions.

Yeah, but what about athletes who hire coaches with tons of higher degrees in sports science who analyze their body motion with computers and then train them to do things in a way that beats their less wealthy competitors? And just think of the speed skaters who invest huge amounts of money into skates that are engineered to slide faster than those of their less wealthy competitors?

Somebody brought up the issue of cyborgs, and that's kind of interesting as well. I wonder if people with fillings are prevented from entering fast eating contests. Otherwise, the person might devise some artificial tooth that allows faster munching or something like that.

When it comes down to it, I'm pretty laissez faire on this issue. If they want to pollute their bodies to get the gold medal, why not let them do it along with all the other technology, and we'll get to see faster times (and very few elderly former athletes...)

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As above, so below

We have close friends whose daughter is an all-American runner with several titles. She will be going pro next year. The family is squeaky clean, no alcohol, no drugs, they don't even buy soda pop at their house. However, last fall when the girl had an injury that was going to keep her from competing at a big event, her mom said she was taking some "meds" that would make it possible for her to run anyway, but gave her horrible nightmares and had other side effects that sounded even worse. Mom and Dad didn't like it, but the girl is 21 and it was her choice. What's interesting is that this young woman and her parents still consider that she is absolutely clean.
I don't know. I guess it's getting so the line between those who compete using enhancers and those who don't is getting very, very blurry.

Personally, I think it starts for most honest of them after their first injury (the following message is Doodler's personal opinion, please feel free to interject corrections).

They get that first hip, knee or some other odd performance hindering injury, and their competitive nature won't let them take adequate time to rest because they look at the recommended times for recovery and the consequences to their careers if they're sidelined and they get desperate. They, through their contracts or through their own obsessiveness, get into a perform or die mode of thinking, and suddenly anything that gets them back in the game is worth looking at, no matter how legally hazy.

The rest fall to the boogieman of their own perceived inadequacies as an athelete. They've got some shortcoming that they can't live with, so they want something to cover their flaw. Its not about determining the limits of one's potential anymore, but how to drive a person's performance into some preconceived mold of what's required to win. They can't live with their own limitations, and they're trained and conditioned every day to exceed them, these enhancements aren't anything other than the logical conclusion to their need to overachieve, and the environment they work in encourages them through praise and worship. Its a pretty vicious and self reinforcing cycle.

Atheletes were asked if they would be willing to take an undetectable drug that would turn then into gold medal winners for a year and then kill them. If I remember correctly, something like half of them said they would take it. My own father said he would take the drug but not until he was 80. After all, winning a gold medal when you're 20 isn't that impressive. Winning one when you're 80 is astounding.

Actually, the only problem I see with drugs in sports is when it becomes so acceptable that amateurs take them as well.
Eg. apparently steriods are becoming the norm even for amateur bodybuilders, since they see it as a fast and easy track to looking like their idols, never mind the heart problems, the impotence and the anger management problems.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.

I think bodyuilding is a different case - its a pure case of vanity at work there - there are no financial, or other, rewards available for most bodybuilders - even professionals don't really get much out of it unless they strike it lucky, no matter how much they roid up. Arnie really is the exception that proves that rule quite well.

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BugMeNot A portal to bypass free-site registration.

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident." Arthur Schopenhauer - renowned 19th Century German philosopher.

Since he made his fortune on fitnesscenters instead of prizemoney.

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And the "driving on the freeway on a scooter" analogy still holds true because the pilots are sitting in 7 to 30 ton aircraft o' doom and you are running around them in your very own Meatbody, Mark I. Beep, beep.
Trying to make sense of computers, The Error Log.