Doping issue: What kind of sports we (really) want?

There is been a lot of talk here lately about the doping issue, after we had one weighlifetr getting caught plus the story with our 2 sprinters (Kenderis - Thanou), who btw, would make less fool of themselves if they were caught by the doping control, instead of hiding for 5 days using unbelievable excuses . Totally, more than 20 athletes were caught in the Olympics, plus 10 more hiding or refusing to pass the doping control. And of course, thats only a small percentage of them - who can forget the THG scandal in the US which costed 3 or 4 medals in the athletics world championship last year, etc etc, there are so many stories in the past, we would need the whole forum to just mention them... The questions I wanna ask all of you here, are:

1. Is there (still) any of us who really believes that someone can run, for example, 100 mettres under 10 sec, with no such "help"??? I can only laugh inside, if the answer is "yes", and get mad if that answer comes from someone from within the sports . However, if you still believe that this is possible, then i dont know, u re maybe right, but the conversation, as far as me is concerened, ends here...
2. If the answer to the above question is "no", then we have to ask ourseleves: Do we accept that? Is that the kind of sports we really want? and its not only about cheating, its mostly about the athletes’ health (and most importantly the young kids’ health who have these ppl as their idols and 99% of them will never win an olympic medal in their lives). I don’t know, I still remember the line “sports and health”, I’m not ready to replace that with “sports, pills, thrills and bellyaches” . The answer here is far more complicated than a simple “no” . Are we sure we are ready to see athletes who, compared to todays’ champions look like mules compared to horses? Really looking forward to your opinions ;) .

Call me naive, but I do believe that with the right levels of training and support, including nutrition, athletes can push back the boundaries, and can run and jump faster than ever before. Records can be broken legitimately.

Unfortunately, there is now so much money waiting to be made by Gold Medal winners, and on the fringes of "amateur" sport in general, that certain individuals feel disposed to find ways of artificially enhancing their performance. This is the crux of the matter, the get rich quick syndrome.

To me, the true performance is that of the sportsman who trains hard, lives for the personal challenge, and strives to meet that personal challenge through legal and ethical means. I cannot and never will be able to condone any kind of cheating in competitive sport, be it taking performance enhancing drugs, tampering with a rival, or even moving the goalposts.

Originally posted by E.Costello Unfortunately, there is now so much money waiting to be made by Gold Medal winners, and on the fringes of "amateur" sport in general, that certain individuals feel disposed to find ways of artificially enhancing their performance. This is the crux of the matter, the get rich quick syndrome.

That's a very good point, really, i wanted to make that myself, but i tried to keep my post small. F.e. in Greece, the state awards gold medal with 190.000 euros (not counting that, among other benefits, they can get a place in the army, plus the money they earn from their sponsors etc etc). To me, its a clear message to the athletes: Go get a medal and u get rich (and if u dont get caught by doping control, even better ;) ). Still the question remains: Can anyone imagine an amateur athlete working all day and all year to excede his/her limits (given that ure right and im wrong) to break the record and get a medal, without counting on great money awards? I mean think about it, while we are studying, working, having a good time, who is crazy enough to sacrifise all these to win just the "glory" while he wont be able to pay the bills?

Depends on what your challenge is, and who it is to. An athlete will always try to better their previous performance, be it in training or competition. They will also try to beat any records they have set, it's second nature. However, once you have won everything, or beaten the targets you set for yourself, there may be nothing left to compete for besides cash. Glory and personal achievement always come first, you cannot beat the satisfaction of doing the best you can and finding it is better than those who were doing the same thing. Getting paid for it is a bonus, and should never be more than that.

Im an amateur athlete myslef (i still play volleyball), and i surely get what u mean (the satisfaction of getting better all the time). The thing is, what an athlete decides to do, if he knows he's the best and he realises that's not enough, compared to other's who use pill's and injection's help and win everything instead of him. Does he decide to stay clean, unknown, without any glory, or he decides to do the same as them. BTW, as Kenteris' case is concerned, when he won the gold medal in Sydney 2000, all the world thought it was a surprise as they never heard of him before. Well Kenderis was not nobody, he was one of the best of the world under 18, then he got "lost" untill he finally decided at his 27 to join that coach (who it was a "common secret" here he uses doping with his athletes). Maybe he got too tired of seeing worst than him, winning, who knows? Even if that's the case, that doesnt justify him a bit, but my point is, that maybe, we, the public, and the whole international sports system, are as guilty as him and the others having got caught...

The main problem is to agree upon a level playing field. Dope is here to stay and it won't be eliminated. I agree with Elias. The kind of records athletes are breaking these days are simply not achievable without outside help. And pervades all levels of sport. I had a collegue who was an amatheur marathon runner. You would not beleive the number of pills he'd swallowed through the week. I know beacuse I used to have lunch with him. All very legal but all very "suspect" and he was not earning any money with the sport just the odd freebie, days off work and some free travel.

But what really rankles is that some athletes do have access to legalised forms of doping: few know that the US basketball team is exempted from certain kinds of drug testing because when they deigned themselves to join the Olympics they set such proviso because many drugs outlawed for the Olympic Commitee are however accepted by the NBA. As a result the US Team has an unholy advantage.

Ps. Spain should have won the Basketball Golden Medal. Had to say it! We only loose one match and that against a dope fuelled, almost talentless American Team.

Originally posted by Spotnick Well Canada has probably the worst doping history of them all.Who can forget Ben "I didn't do it" Johnson... But knowing that Carl Lewis probably was doped too, as it was said recently... well, if you don't get caught, you're fine.Next step is probably muscle implants...

Canada has the worst doping history? I think there's some very chemically imbalanced East German men/women who would beg to differ.

it's a poorly hidden secret that FloJo was using steroids and was caught before the 1992 olympics. however, sponsors had so much money invested in her that they told her sport's governing body that if she was pulled from competition they'd pull their ads from the olympics. the steroids finally contributed to her death and, according to my friend's aunt who works for the canadian broadcasting corporation's sports department, FloJo was by no means the only american athlete to get away with steroid abuse because of the sponsorship deals.

We want amateur sports. I cant take professional sport. If you rely on medals/stage wins/transfer cash to survive, then you are more likely to dope.

money+sport=trouble

Originally posted by Budvar Huber The main problem is to agree upon a level playing field. Dope is here to stay and it won't be eliminated. I agree with Elias. The kind of records athletes are breaking these days are simply not achievable without outside help. And pervades all levels of sport. I had a collegue who was an amatheur marathon runner. You would not beleive the number of pills he'd swallowed through the week. I know beacuse I used to have lunch with him. All very legal but all very "suspect" and he was not earning any money with the sport just the odd freebie, days off work and some free travel.

But what really rankles is that some athletes do have access to legalised forms of doping: few know that the US basketball team is exempted from certain kinds of drug testing because when they deigned themselves to join the Olympics they set such proviso because many drugs outlawed for the Olympic Commitee are however accepted by the NBA. As a result the US Team has an unholy advantage.

Ps. Spain should have won the Basketball Golden Medal. Had to say it! We only loose one match and that against a dope fuelled, almost talentless American Team.

Don't complain about the NBA, for your best player, Pau Gasol, is in the NBA, and he ha access to all the same things as the Americans.

About the US basketball team, we lost because we did not send four of the best five players in the NBA (Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Kevin Garnett, and Tracy McGrady. Our team was hardly a dream team, and I bet if Serbia had all of its NBA talent playing on the team, then the US would have lost by 30 or 40 versus the Serbs. For the next Olympics, we will either definitely coax our best players to play, or we will just send amateur collegiate players.

Originally posted by His Holiness, The Pope > Originally posted by Spotnick> Well Canada has probably the worst doping history of them all.> > Who can forget Ben "I didn't do it" Johnson... > > But knowing that Carl Lewis probably was doped too, as it was said recently... well, if you don't get caught, you're fine.> > Next step is probably muscle implants...

Canada has the worst doping history? I think there's some very chemically imbalanced East German men/women who would beg to differ.

I don't think any of the East Germans could have been classified as women.

Originally posted by Spotnick Next step is probably muscle implants...

Next step is genetic doping, so that we can oficially seperate the athletes and the spectators. Athletes will be getting paid to give the world "records" and "superhuman" achievements, and the spectators will be paying their money to admire these, and enjoyning (why not?) see them dying or geting sick from their effort... More a Roman arena spirit than an Olympic one . Some ppl say that if we legalise doping, at least we would be stop fooling ourselves - i cant be more opposed to that myself, but i do have to admit that this would be an improvement from today's illusion of the dogma that "only is someone is caught he is doped".

Originally posted by Elias > Originally posted by Spotnick> Next step is probably muscle implants...

Next step is genetic doping, so that we can oficially seperate the athletes and the spectators. Athletes will be getting paid to give the world "records" and "superhuman" achievements, and the spectators will be paying their money to admire these, and enjoyning (why not?) see them dying or geting sick from their effort... More a Roman arena spirit than an Olympic one . Some ppl say that if we legalise doping, at least we would be stop fooling ourselves - i cant be more opposed to that myself, but i do have to admit that this would be an improvement from today's illusion of the dogma that "only is someone is caught he is doped". Well, eugenics worked for Hitler. No wait.... Now it's time for the corporations to take over.

Injecting steroids is like injecting heroin, they should get the same punishment as junkies do.