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Three Olives posted:I hate that this is being phrased as cheating, when there are sponsorships, cash prizes and lucrative pretty much guaranteed lucrative endorsement deals at stake as far as I am concerned it is straight up stealing money for personal gain. I agree. "Cheating" is Rosie Ruiz not running the entire Boston Marathon. This is basically running a drug ring for the purposes of commiting fraud.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:41 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 18:44 |
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Nonvalueadded User posted:When it comes to sports, not to get all "think of the children!", but a failure to vigorously screen and punish cheats of any sorts, including dopers, is an implicit message to children (among others) that it's OK to cheat to get ahead. Here's an explicit message to children: If you want to play at the world level in a lot of professional sports, you'll have to dope. Even if not every single person you are competing against is doping, enough are that you will never come close to ranking slightly above 'Who? They were in that race?" if you don't dope too. Bike racing, poo poo, everyone dopes. Lance Armstrong dopes, the next million guys under his time doped, the loving gopher on his training staff probably dopes to get him a water .387 seconds faster. The only way you play clean and win a biking award is if really intense testing that year manages to bump the next 68 guys ahead of you and they decide to award a winner anyway, and not just mark the race off as a wash. Sure, if you get caught you get in trouble....but there are people willing to spend millions of dollars to ensure you get the best medical help needed to perform at your peak and pass screenings. In the time it takes you to dump out after your morning breakfast, they will have invented some new poo poo people don't even know to look for yet. You are injecting pure baby heart into your eye sockets, that poo poo is *tight*. The lesson for our youth is this: Winners *don't* use drugs. If they got caught using drugs, they wouldn't be winners, they'd have their records taken away. So don't get caught.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:44 |
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Eggs posted:What is the evidence that "every competitive cyclist dopes"? The 2% difference between the first and 150th place cyclist in the tour.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:45 |
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Eggs posted:Isn't Lance somewhat renowned for being a gigantic rear end in a top hat? Let me give a good example of Lance's character. There was a rider named Filippo Simeoni who used the same doping doctor as Lance. Simeoni used the drugs provided to him by Dr. Ferrari and then spoke out, admitting he took these banned substances. One thing about the tour is that winning a stage is a big deal. For a lesser known rider like Simeoni, winning a stage in the tour makes the whole year worth it and is the big pay day. Late in the TdF, Simeoni and a few other riders broke away. They were in no threat to Lance and usually the yellow jersey would sit in the peloton and let the break away fight over the win, but since Simeoni spoke out against doping and Lance's doctor, Lance surged to the breakaway. Lance rode up to Simeoni and the breakaway and told Simeoni to come back or he would ruin the breakaways chance at a stage win and pay day (the peloton would panic and ride up the the breakaway and Lance). The other riders begged Simeoni to drop back so they would have a chance, and he did. As he rejoined the peloton he was spat on by the other riders and Lance infamously did the zip-the-lip motion. Don't you dare speak out about drug abuse. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=taWGQNKUgQQ
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:50 |
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nickhimself posted:There's no way one man beat out so many others year after year without doping as well. Can you ACTUALLY prove this outside of your gut feelings? I'm not saying that he didn't do it, I'm just saying that you people are using logical fallacies in this one aspect of the story. At least the blood tests and testimony of other racers can count as actual data that can be checked, but you're just saying "nuh-uh, no way he could do that, NO. WAY." without any info to back that poo poo up.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:53 |
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Not an Anthem posted:We allow doping of animals in races (dogs, horses, whatever) so why not humans? Either stop killing animals for races, or start killing humans (and I'm a meat eater). I hate people who think like this. Competing is seeing what you're made of and working hard to get better. It's not about being good because you took an injection. Whatever happened to the idea of earning something?
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:57 |
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ElwoodCuse posted:I agree. "Cheating" is Rosie Ruiz not running the entire Boston Marathon. This is basically running a drug ring for the purposes of commiting fraud. This is the problem with so many drug discussions. You aren't wrong necessarily. You're just naive, and are completely discounting the realities of the situation in favor of your ethical outlook, which is commendable and stupid at the same time. The reality here is that people will continue to dope. They will continue to go undetected, while some people who are caught will play the scapegoat. Regardless, the idea that we could stop doping is laughable. I can't think of any way to react to your post that isn't some version of "so what??"
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:58 |
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Malevolent Toilet posted:I hate people who think like this. Competing is seeing what you're made of and working hard to get better. It's not about being good because you took an injection. Whatever happened to the idea of earning something? Just a few EPO injections and even you can transform from everyday schlub to 7-time Tour de France winner!
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 15:59 |
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bazaar apparatus posted:Can you ACTUALLY prove this outside of your gut feelings? I'm not saying that he didn't do it, I'm just saying that you people are using logical fallacies in this one aspect of the story. At least the blood tests and testimony of other racers can count as actual data that can be checked, but you're just saying "nuh-uh, no way he could do that, NO. WAY." without any info to back that poo poo up. In endurance sports it's impossible to cleanly beat guys who are pushing hematocrits of 60. There is literally no way to do it 7 years in a row. Someone clean with a hematocrit of 40 cannot compete. It's not humanly possible.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:00 |
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Rerun posted:Let me give a good example of Lance's character. Wow, that's pretty bad.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:01 |
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bazaar apparatus posted:Can you ACTUALLY prove this outside of your gut feelings? I'm not saying that he didn't do it, I'm just saying that you people are using logical fallacies in this one aspect of the story. At least the blood tests and testimony of other racers can count as actual data that can be checked, but you're just saying "nuh-uh, no way he could do that, NO. WAY." without any info to back that poo poo up. It's not impossible, but it's unlikely he would be able to consistently remain on top without performance enhancing drugs. Your body just won't be in as good of shape seven years later without a little pep to your step. Even if your performance is only down by a few percentage points in a mathematical sense, that's still significant enough for someone to overcome you. And then cyclists are notorious for performance enhancing drugs, no doubt some younger doped up rider would have likely beaten Lance during his later periods. I still consider Lance the champ, because everyone else is doping, so he was competing on an even field, and he's raised millions upon millions of dollars for cancer research. He may be a gigantic rear end in a top hat, but he's a gigantic rear end in a top hat who's saved a lot of lives.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:02 |
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exquisite tea posted:Just a few EPO injections and even you can transform from everyday schlub to 7-time Tour de France winner! No but give me some EPO and I'll start winning crits. But that would be missing the point of a race and I'd be a complete loving loser for doing it.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:02 |
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Malevolent Toilet posted:I hate people who think like this. Competing is seeing what you're made of and working hard to get better. It's not about being good because you took an injection. Whatever happened to the idea of earning something? Lance Armstrong won a racing event filled with cheaters. We know this, we caught pretty much all of them of any note cheating. More have talked about their cheating on their own [I mean if you are going to cheat and *not* even win, why not at least admit you cheated and everyone else cheated too?]. It's a race where using various various performance enhancing items is the norm. In that sense, being the best athlete includes one more step: Dope. You still need to actually beat all those guys. Lance Armstrong won because he had a really good doping program *and* was the superior athlete. Other people used the same guy he did for dope, they didn't win poo poo.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:05 |
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Taima posted:This is the problem with so many drug discussions. You aren't wrong necessarily. You're just naive, and are completely discounting the realities of the situation in favor of your ethical outlook, which is commendable and stupid at the same time. Ok so we can't catch everyone who breaks the law so we shouldn't bother, cool
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:06 |
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Boogaleeboo posted:Lance Armstrong won a racing event filled with cheaters. We know this, we caught pretty much all of them of any note cheating. More have talked about their cheating on their own [I mean if you are going to cheat and *not* even win, why not at least admit you cheated and everyone else cheated too?]. It's a race where using various various performance enhancing items is the norm. Lance was not necessarily the best athlete, he was the best responder to the drugs available.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:07 |
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Nelson Mandingo posted:I still consider Lance the champ, because everyone else is doping, so he was competing on an even field, and he's raised millions upon millions of dollars for cancer research. He may be a gigantic rear end in a top hat, but he's a gigantic rear end in a top hat who's saved a lot of lives. As much as I think Lance is a douche for witness intimidation and lying and all the coverups and as much as I hate cheating I still kind of agree with this. If they're all cheating it's kind of an even playing field. Problem is I think guys were probably racing who didn't cheat.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:08 |
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I was talking to a friend about this. Does anyone know what Livestrong actually does? The bracelets raise money for the foundation, sure, but from what I can tell, the Lance Armstrong foundation is primarily concerned with getting the word out about cancer. I haven't seen anything about funding cancer research.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:08 |
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If you can't test against it then how is it illegal? poo poo makes no sense to me. Also if all the athletes knew that you could get away with doping then all the athletes are going to do whatever gives them a competative advantage. Also to the people who think it's all about money, just... 
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:09 |
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Josh Lyman posted:I was talking to a friend about this. Does anyone know what Livestrong actually does? The bracelets raise money for the foundation, sure, but from what I can tell, the Lance Armstrong foundation is primarily concerned with getting the word out about cancer. I haven't seen anything about funding cancer research. Funny you should ask! They stopped taking applications for research grants in 2010.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:10 |
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Pocket posted:Armstrong announced today that he will no longer fight the charges citing the USADA does not have the authority over him. this is a situation you'd expect from a corrupt petro-state. America is a corrupt petro-state because Lance Armstrong took steroids. Ok. If you say so.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:11 |
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Josh Lyman posted:I was talking to a friend about this. Does anyone know what Livestrong actually does? The bracelets raise money for the foundation, sure, but from what I can tell, the Lance Armstrong foundation is primarily concerned with getting the word out about cancer. I haven't seen anything about funding cancer research. It's a nonprofit, but actively lobbies congress in favor of cancer patients. 80 million bracelets have been sold, but the last total for the money raised for cancer research I last saw was $25 million dollars. Lance Armstrong also supported and lobbied for the California Proposition 29. So yeah, no matter how much of a cheating douche the guy is, he's a douche on the right side of this equation.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:14 |
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Boogaleeboo posted:Lance Armstrong won a racing event filled with cheaters. We know this, we caught pretty much all of them of any note cheating. More have talked about their cheating on their own [I mean if you are going to cheat and *not* even win, why not at least admit you cheated and everyone else cheated too?]. It's a race where using various various performance enhancing items is the norm. It's a bike race not a who dopes best competition. Same for any athletic event. Bear in mind that a lot of doping is in the getting away with it, so now it's a contest of who's got the best doctors and that is all total bullshit. Ride your bike and if you aren't good enough to win be a man and don't cheat.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:14 |
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Malevolent Toilet posted:I hate people who think like this. Competing is seeing what you're made of and working hard to get better. It's not about being good because you took an injection. Whatever happened to the idea of earning something? You do realize that it's much more than just "welp, got my dope injected, time to go win an international sporting competition!" These guys, even the most hardcore dopers, still train harder in a day than you or I probably would in a month. It's naive and downright dishonest to say what you did with a straight face because holy poo poo dude, doping or not these are still hardcore professional athletes and their training regimens most certainly reflect that.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:16 |
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Josh Lyman posted:I was talking to a friend about this. Does anyone know what Livestrong actually does? The bracelets raise money for the foundation, sure, but from what I can tell, the Lance Armstrong foundation is primarily concerned with getting the word out about cancer. I haven't seen anything about funding cancer research. I have a friend who does non-profit fundraising and the Livestrong foundation gives away a poo poo ton of grants.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:16 |
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thunderspanks posted:You do realize that it's much more than just "welp, got my dope injected, time to go win an international sporting competition!" These guys, even the most hardcore dopers, still train harder in a day than you or I probably would in a month. It's naive and downright dishonest to say what you did with a straight face because holy poo poo dude, doping or not these are still hardcore professional athletes and their training regimens most certainly reflect that. People doping can actually train harder because they recover faster so yup, you dope and you get to train twice as hard as a clean rider.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:17 |
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WoodyMangoMan posted:America is a corrupt petro-state because Lance Armstrong took steroids. It's well known that most winning cyclists gain their powers through clandestine association with government petromancers, so it's no surprise that the most winning cyclist would come from the most oily petro-state of all.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:18 |
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thunderspanks posted:You do realize that it's much more than just "welp, got my dope injected, time to go win an international sporting competition!" These guys, even the most hardcore dopers, still train harder in a day than you or I probably would in a month. It's naive and downright dishonest to say what you did with a straight face because holy poo poo dude, doping or not these are still hardcore professional athletes and their training regimens most certainly reflect that. No poo poo I never said these guys don't train hard or aren't good without the drugs dude. But doping to win is not earning a win. Period. No matter how hard you train or how high your VO2 max is. My point was that it's a bullshit attitude that everybody doping is OK or that doping in any sense is OK. It's bullshit. Work hard, train your best, and if it's not good enough at least you competed. That's what sport is about.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:18 |
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Sports has not, nor has ever been, nor ever will be about honesty and integrety. Each sport has some bullshit in it where you manipulate the system, ie cheat, to gain a competative advantage against the other players. They will always do it, and it is part of the sport.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:18 |
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Veskit posted:If you can't test against it then how is it illegal? poo poo makes no sense to me. Because the people who are developing these drugs are naturally going to be ahead of the curve of the testing process. IIRC for the longest time HGH was banned by most if not all American sports leagues, yet couldn't be tested for without a blood test (which wasn't agreed to the respective CBA's).
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:20 |
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Rerun posted:Let me give a good example of Lance's character. So he's the biggest piece of poo poo of a bunch of shits. Now some posters here would apparently go "so whaaat? / Can't prove anything *can't hear youNANANANANANA* He's still my hero  " which is just...Sad. Guys like this do not deserve respect, no matter how much stolen money they toss at PR.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:20 |
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I personally believe most top athletes do PED's of some sort. They just have the mindset for it, you know? To do whatever it takes to become the best and reach their full potential and all that. Taking PED's during offseason training in order to train twice as much and recover much faster and avoid injuries easier is a really big deal for an athlete. With the amount of money and prestige at stake in some of these top competitions there's no wonder we get so many guys willing to "cheat" in order to get the top spot. The few olympic caliber athletes i've met have been pretty crazy when it comes to performance and I think that if they believe they can get away with PED's they'd most likely use it because they are just that driven and they know a lot of others use the advantage of PED's as well and they always have that in the back of their mind. If you cycle the drugs properly very few commissions will be able to detect your use
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:22 |
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Zzulu posted:I personally believe most top athletes do PED's of some sort. Unfortunately I think you're probably right.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:28 |
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1.) Allowing all PEDs in competition isn't going to work because there's always going to be a subset that you would never allow because of the acute health risks. Like something that will grow a donkey penis on your head and cause you to drop dead within five years. But, if this subset is outlawed, people will still do it to get an advantage, so you are right back where you started with regards to people injecting themselves with substances that the rest of the field doesn't know about. 2.) I don't buy the argument that just because all of the other riders were doping, that it makes Armstrong's doping wins legitimate. The fact of the matter is, we have NO IDEA what everybody else was on, so there's not way to normalize everything. Armstrong could have been on Winstrol, Deca, loving EPO, blood banking his blood, and maybe Landis could only get a hold of EPO and Deca. It's like having a black box attached to your bike with some sort of motor, but nobody knows what's in it. Is it a 5hp motor, or a 50hp turbo aspirated engine? Nobody knows, and it's impossible to compare or normalize any rider's performance. The solution really is to throw out everybody who can be convicted of PED's and give the titles to people down the line until they have been found out, then keep on going down the line. It's messy, but it's really the only solution that makes sense.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:30 |
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So, are they going to vacate the 7 Tour wins or are they rolling them down to (other?) dopers?
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:41 |
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"To all the cynics, I'm sorry for you, ... I'm sorry you can't believe in miracles. This is a great sporting event and hard work wins it." - Lance Armstorng. But we do believe in miracles... pharmaceutical miracles.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 16:48 |
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I'm a bit unclear on this:quote:The International Cycling Union, which has been fighting with USADA over jurisdiction in the Armstrong case, said Friday it would withhold comment until it receives an explanation from USADA on its decision. The cycling body said it wants USADA to “submit to the parties concerned a reasoned decision explaining the actions taken.” It said the World Anti-Doping Code requires USADA to do this in cases where no hearing occurs.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:13 |
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Hungryjack posted:I'm a bit unclear on this: No they don't. It's like NASCAR trying to strip Schumacher of his F1 wins. I'm more upset that our tax dollars are getting wasted on this bullshit.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:30 |
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It's almost like it's stupid to revere strangers for being good at sports, but that just couldn't be.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:38 |
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Lance Armstrong is not a stranger though, he's known in every household.
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 17:53 |
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| # ? May 23, 2013 18:44 |
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Vladimir Putin posted:1.) Allowing all PEDs in competition isn't going to work because there's always going to be a subset that you would never allow because of the acute health risks. Like something that will grow a donkey penis on your head and cause you to drop dead within five years. But, if this subset is outlawed, people will still do it to get an advantage, so you are right back where you started with regards to people injecting themselves with substances that the rest of the field doesn't know about. 1) I still think that they should legalize and regulate PED usage. Right now it's a culture of denialism and hush hush. Racing competitions are interesting because of the innovation factor. If society can create great athletes who use modern biological/mechanical techniques to improve themselves, why not? The racers/players should take a clear hard look at the options out there and decide themselves on what makes sense. The real solution is just to leave all Tour de France titles open because of the excessive rulebreaking - letting the second place cheater win doesn't make any sense either and letting the 10th place winner get the prize doesn't make sense either. If the actual results are illegitimate so why should there even be a winner?
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| # ? Aug 24, 2012 18:00 |
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