|
Tennis is disgustingly doped, which is probably because the head of the ITF's anti-doping program constantly says that tennis is skill-based, and doping would not help at all. Meanwhile, Spain (who have a national doping problem) keeps getting better and better, and the average age of tournament winners keeps climbing and climbing, since doping has historically helped athletes stay competitive past their natural primes. Of course, if you ask tennis fans about this, their conclusion is that the next generation of players is just really bad. The big 4 are almost certainly doped, and Rafa Nadal is the most obviously doped athlete since Lance Armstrong.
|
#
¿
Jun 27, 2014 19:21
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 14:08 |
|
|
Jack's Flow posted:No, you see, his "athletic style of play" simply takes a toll on his body, that's why he's constantly injured and has to retreat to his home base to drink some milkshakes, so he can return a couple of weeks later and win another 50 matches in a row. What's funny is that since the slower courts across the board have made tennis more athletic, and arguably less skill-based, you'd think it'd help the younger generation, since they had an advantage over the older players in athletic matches going back, oh, the entire history of tennis. Of course, this isn't happening, and the same generation of players are dominating despite getting older and older. Tennis, and deluded tennis fans have simply decided that the reason of this is that the current generation are the greatest tennis players in the history of the sport, to the point where Nadal fans are trashing the generation of Agassi/Sampras/Courier/Becker/Goran/Chang as a goddamn "weak era". It is complete bullshit. Feels Villeneuve fucked around with this message at 19:22 on Jun 29, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2014 19:19
|
|
|
Incidentally, I hope the OP will do something about Spain's complicity in the modern doping scene, especially wrt Operation Puerto.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2014 19:42
|
|
|
Incidentally, here's an article about how ATP tournament winners keep getting older and older, and no young players seem to be breaking through. http://www.changeovertennis.com/atp-dark-age-coming/ Unfortunately, in an example of how tennis has shut down discussion on doping, the author's conclusion seems to be "The next generation of players is really bad".
|
|
#
¿
Jun 29, 2014 22:39
|
|
|
I want to instinctively say that the insane five/six hour finals are a very recent thing, but I can't really find data at the moment.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2014 12:51
|
|
|
Vando posted:Ah yes it's because of the courts they play on that matches are ridiculous marathons now, very good nothing to see here no sir It's a significant factor. The slower courts emphasize a stamina-based game, and the stamina-based game is susceptible to doping.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2014 23:31
|
|
|
I think the ability to draw out the play is much more dependent on court speed than you seem to be saying. Even a super doped Nadal probably wouldn't be able to beat, say, Boris Becker on a 90's fast hardcourt, for instance- as much as Nadal could run around all day, it wouldn't help if the court speed was fast enough that you could just volley past him.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2014 04:39
|
|
|
also i think doping is much less of a moral issue and much more of an issue as to why people are interested in sport in the first place.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2014 17:22
|
|
|
BWV posted:I was hoping someone would bring some of this up but I guess I'll bite the bullet and expose myself to the collective rage. You won't. SAS seems to be reasonably pro-doping.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2014 21:06
|
|
|
Tacier posted:If this is actually the prevailing opinion of the thread then I'll just show myself out because that statement, in regards to tennis specifically, sounds completely insane to me. There's no reason a world class clean tennis player couldn't easily beat a doped one in a routine 2 or 3 set victory where the difference in physical conditioning barely comes into play. This is doubly true for a player with an attacking or serve-and-volley style which keeps the points short. I have no trouble believing some of the top guys are doping, but every guy who cracks the top 10? That's almost inconceivable. Serve-and-volley has been absurdly neutered due to modern court conditions- stamina, the quality almost certainly most susceptible to being improved by doping, is about as important as it has ever been in the history of the sport.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2014 03:22
|
|
|
lmaoboy1998 posted:also the argument that 'wow! we see more 500 yard passes!' is really stupid in my opinion. the only reason a 500 yard pass is impressive in the first place is because its something of our own performing it; I compare it with my own abilities as a human being, and am amazed at the difference. if I saw a machine launch a ball 500 metres I wouldn't be amazed, because I know machines can do that. similarly, when I see someone on a cocktail of drugs throw a long ball I'm not particularly thrilled, because that's just what cocktails of drugs allow you to do. there's no real surprise, its not an achievement, who gives a poo poo. agreed and it doesn't have anything to do with "morality", which is what SAS seems to like characterizing people who care about this sort of thing as, some kind of morality police. It's about why sport is interesting in the first place, and you only need to see what happened to cycling to see what it can do to a sport's image and mainstream appeal.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2014 12:28
|
|
|
I'm surprised baseball isn't the national pastime of Spain. Dirty, dirty sport.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2014 16:54
|
|
|
Jordan7hm posted:He's pretty much trolling (or at least playing extreme devil's advocate). There isn't any good way to quantify just what impact PEDs have on elite level athletes though, because nobody publishes actual results (for obvious reasons). Instead we get anecdotes and studies that test drugs out on athletes (or just regular individuals) who are far below elite level. Probably true. However, the weird baseball fan logic seems to be "The effect can't be quantified precisely, therefore it must not exist", which is asinine.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2014 23:21
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 14:08 |
|
|
Smorgasbord posted:It's really unfortunate that the sports that actually give a drat about drug testing like Cycling constantly get dragged through the muck as a dirty sport because of the constant drug headlines from actually catching cheats. That's not to say cycling isn't a horrifically dirty sport but at least they're trying to do something compared to all the other sports that just look the other way so they can carry on the charade of being clean. I basically agree, with the caveat that Sky/Froome's results over the last few years have hardly kept cycling's reputation good on that front either.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 9, 2014 14:05
|
|