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Lance Armstrong - Finally The Truth ?
- Thread starter Beach Hut
- Start date
As I pointed out in my post that you quoted, I like skill sports like football, where drugs aren't much of an advantage. I don't expect the Spanish team to have used illegal drugs.
I think you'll find I was arguing with you about whether we should play Spain or Germany before we played Italy, and I said I thought we'd be better avoiding Spain before we played Ukraine.
Anyway, it's no surprise you've got it wrong.
It's always hard to tell when the testing is nowhere near as robust as in many other sports.
Hopefully you're right.
But with Spain being at the forefront of performance enhancing drugs, for 20 odd years.
With unnamed footballers and tennis players being mentioned in Operation Puerto.
It doesn't take the biggest leap of faith to join those dots.
Horton's halftime iceberg
Blooming Marvellous
Always believed that Puertos codes that referred to cyclists could be linked to Nadal and most of the Real Madrid team, but those sports did nothing to investigate them unlike cycling.
Obviously that's because there aren't drug problems in those sports....
It's odd how something with a description as exact as :-
Performance Enhancing
and the results to prove it, can be looked at as not applicable in my sport.
Performance Enhancing
and the results to prove it, can be looked at as not applicable in my sport.
Horton's halftime iceberg
Blooming Marvellous
Obviously that's because there aren't drug problems in those sports....
Clean as a whistle
BBC Sport - Football - Kolo Toure handed six-month ban for failed drugs test
When I think of people like Maradona (ok, bad example), Pele, Messi, Ronaldo etc, what stands out is there skill on the ball. I don't imagine that many drugs could make them better at that, and all the drugs in the world wouldn't make a normal footballer that good. With something like weightlifting, I don't see how some could win without taking drugs, unless the competition was also clean. Picking some other names from this thread, I don't imagine Stephen Hendry, Michael Schumaker or Tiger Woods would benefit from drugs.
Are they? Apart from road cycling, and recently football, I didn't think they were any good at sport. They've never done well at the Olympics have they?
If drugs can make you a much better footballer, then I'd imagine people take them. They'd certainly help your recover between games, but I don't know if that's a big enough reward for the risk.
"But the panel took into consideration the circumstances behind his use of water tablets belonging to his wife. "
So what do these water tablets do? Are they a good example of how drugs allow people to cheat in football? Will he be rubbish now that he doesn't take them?
Have you seen how much footballers are paid? Have you got ANY idea how much your run of the mill domestique is on in cycling?
Of course there are drugs used by people that would make them better footballers - if you can run for 90 minutes without stopping, and sprint faster than your opponents then you're going to have a better career than someone who can't. HGH, EPO, various steroids, etc will certainly assist with this, especially in training and the off-season. If you can recover quickly then you can train harder more often. This will help you be better at the activity you're training for, be it tennis, football or cycling.
Does it matter? If they're on the list of banned substances, or contain something that is, then they're illegal to use and should be considered cheating.
But if you can perform you're obvious skills, for longer, at a higher tempo, recover quicker, you'll want to enhance your performance.
Snooker and Golf both could benefit from 'assistance' for specific pin point nerve jangling shots.
I don't know but is that not what betta blockers help steady.
No I meant the Spanish laboratories are at the forefront of European performance enhancing drug manufacture and application.
There's some stuff in here, we could both pull out, to prove our respective opposite views:-
There is no drugs problem in football but testing is to be welcomed not moaned about, says David James | Sport | The Observer (first remotely relevant hit from google)
I would say 'what risk'.
Which side of the argument are you on? Footballers earn a lot, so there's a lot to lose, even for an average player. An average cyclist has a lot less to lose.
Yes, I can see that. Have there been many cases of doping in long distance running, I always associated it more with short distance running? Are footballers not tested much?
Fair point. I don't tend to think of the best footballers being the fittest, but no doubt it helps.
Yes, in the context of this discussion, it matters. If someone is banned for smoking hash outside a nightclub, that doesn't suddenly mean their sport is rife with performance enhancing drugs.
f*** it, I'm giving up watching sport then.
Gotcha.
Just saying it's big business, big money, big prizes.
Sport is no different to any other walk of life, some will work hard to reach the top, but a few will cheat.
Nope you've lost me there.
I thought you'd misunderstood my original point, thinking I'd said Spanish sport was at the forefront.
When, as I said above, I meant they've been at the forefront of the drug side of things.
In sport I think you have to work hard to reach the top even if you're cheating. And if you're getting away with cheating, others probably are too. It's just very depressing.
Gotcha = understood.
Tru'dat
The thing is, I firmly believe Cycling has gone through the wringer, and it came within a hares breathe of imploding.
But is slowly winning back creditability.
Maybe I'm too jaded by that experience to look favourably at other sports, or maybe I'm being realistic.
But should football have a similar scandal(s), because if one were to pop up it will be like a domino run, it will take a full generation to recover.
All very depressing.
Gregory2Smith1
J'les aurai!
betablockers-snooker
every fuckers at it!
every fuckers at it!
Oh I don't know that as a fact.
I was just pointing out there's a drug enhancement for any sport and situation.
I've a gut feeling it might have been rumoured years back, spookily enough along with darts!
As a footballer's earning potential is MUCH higher than your average cyclist's - to me that means there is much more to gain. If you can just be better than the next bloke you get to sign a big contract. Currently the risks are lower in football due to inadequate testing and sanctions.
There are different drugs to give different aids to athletes at different times. Have a look at what Dwain Chambers was on, the list includes EPO which is a blood-booster more associated with endurance. Football and tennis generally involve multiple sprints rather than the sustained effort of long-distance sports.
The testing in football is nowhere near as rigorous as in other sports. I'd be surprised if players have to sign up to the whereabouts scheme for out of competition testing, for instance. This might change with the olympics, but I won't hold my breath.
The "I took my wife's diet pills by mistake" excuse is as well-used as the "it was a cold remedy" one. They may contain a masking agent for other drugs, they may have an effect on their own. I don't know. However, I also think professional sportspeople should be clean of ALL banned drugs whether they 'work' or not. Those are the rules.
But it's not like an average person could make themselves good at football by training and taking drugs. You'd have to be good at football anyway, which means earning good money and having a lot to lose.
But a footballer is rarely out of competition.
Indeed, I'm only going on the evidence in the link posted here, and that suggested his well used excuse was actually believed (and given how well used the excuse is, they wouldn't believe it without reason).
I agree. He got banned. But that isn't an example of a footballer using performance enhancing drugs.