[CoachDudie]

Originally Posted by fiddy3

Nope, wrong again. I'm bothered by people who assume that about athletics while maintaining that football is clean. I'd never have a problem with a well-informed fan or writer lashing athletics, it's more than earned its dirty rep. It's when they fail to treat other sports the same that's annoying. It's pretty hard to test positive for this stuff if you don't test players randomly out of competition. The English and the French leagues are a lot better than the Spanish with testing, though still light years behind the way athletes and cyclists are hounded. The Spanish league, or Fifa, just aren't interested in exposing the problem, otherwise the soccer players involved in Operation Puerto would have been released, like the cyclists were.

Would it be fair to say the whole Jamaican athletic team are doping because they don't have proper testing?
That's what you are doing with Spanish soccer teams except there has been proof of Jamaican cheating.
What do you expect journalists to say without any evidence?
You cast aspersions over Real Madrid and Barcelona with little to back it up, if the same was done to any athlete you'd defend them. There's your double standards.

[fiddy3]

When the Jamaican athletics team try to hire the godfather of doping as their team doctor, then I will say the same. When a national french newspaper (one which wouldn't go making this stuff up or risk having their reputation ruined) reports that they have seen the doping programmes of bolt/powell/blake, then i will apply the same opinion to them. When the jamaican athletics team is coached by someone who tested positive himself during his own career, then I'll hold them to the same standard. When the jamaican athletes are seen visiting the offices of the greatest doping doctor in the last decade, then by all means I'll lambast them. Until then, though, you are actually the one with the theory backed up by nothing at all but your own hunch. And by the way, I never said all of the teams and all of the players are doping, just that many teams and many players are. <Snip>

[CoachDudie]

I'm not saying I believe the Jamaican team are doping nor the Spanish teams are clean.
I'm saying there's about the same level of proof. The Jamaican team doctor is in charge of drug testing. Numerous Jamaicans have been caught cheating before, the improvement of Jamaican athletes to the highest level at the same time, the never seen before times some of them are running.
Operation Puerto was 5/6 years ago but you are casting aspersions on present players. What proof do you have? About as much as someone suspecting current Jamaicans. You hate the 'ah sure they're all at it' attitude but you do it yourself.
My sport of choice would be GAA, I know there is drug use in it (not to a big scale) and if a player tested positive I'd say ban them for life, not go pointing fingers at other sports.

[T runner]

Originally Posted by Pherekydes

It isn't though. The BOA are breaking the rules by doing what they're doing. The rules they are breaking are WADA's. They are the World body for drug testing. CAS has found in WADA's favour; their decision is binding on all subscribing bodies.

The BOA want their athletes to be honourable and live and compete by the rules; they should too!

You have missed my point. In my opinion the BOAs attempts at lifetime bans were correct because there is some evidence that an athlete finds it more difficult to break new ground than to run times already run. That means that drug aided PBs offer an athlete a permanent advantage. There is also some strong evidence that anabolic steroids cause permanent adaptions in muscles.

Your opinion seems to be that WADA's rules are always correct therefore the BOAs position are incorrect as they are both in conflict. I agree with the BOA implication that WADA are not infallable in general and that the 2 year ban is incorrect in principle.
If there are advantages to doping after 2 years then doping athletes are gaining an advantage under WADA rules. Ergo they are incorrect in their method of achieving their primary task of punishing drug cheats. The correct term of punishment should cover the duration of gains from drugs used by doping athletes and that would seem to mean a liifetime ban.

[myflipflops]

For athletics, I strongly believe a permanent life ban across the sport should be put in place. No exception and no excuses. As it stands, the potential rewards massively outweigh the punishments if you get caught so this needs to change.

[Pisco Sour]

While 4 and a half years old, this article hits the nail on the head about doping in football:

http://www.german-times.com/index.ph...1834&Itemid=74

[Pisco Sour]

Originally Posted by fiddy3

Yes, and who paid for his treatment....... BINGO, FC Barcelona! I guess they just wanted a tiny Argie to have a better life for himself, right? Anyone who doesn't think Barca and Real Madrid dope players has their head in the sand. Interesting last week how Pep Guardiola was lauded as a hero in the media as he stepped down. This is a man who was positive for nandrolone during his own career in Italy. This is a man in charge of a club, who, in 2005, tried to hire Eufemiano Feuntes as their team doctor. Who's Dr Fuentes.... just the godfather of doping in Spain who was nabbed in Operation Puerto in 2007, and had hundreds of elite sportspeople on his books. Funny how only the cyclists on his books got caught, mainly because as bad as cycling is, they at least aggressively pursue the cheats. One of the cyclists who was doped by Fuentes and got caught, Jesus Manzano, reported that he saw several high-profile Real Madrid players at Dr Fuentes' clinic in Madrid when he was there. The French newspaper Le Monde also reported at the time that it got access to Fuentes's doping programmes when police raided his house in the canaries, and saw doping plans made out for players from Real Madrid, Barcelona, Real Betis, and Atletico Madrid. Due to the police case being conducted, they couldn't report any specifics.

Zinedine Zidane was reported to have had blood transfusions in Switzerland during his career. Didier Deschamps was reported to have a haematocrit in the mid fifties during one test, over 50 usually means EPO unless you have a rare genetic condition. Arsene Wenger has stated in the past that he has seen disturbing blood values in several of the players who transferred to Arsenal from Spain and Italy which almost certainly suggested doping, which then normalised after a period there. What's more disturbing is the lack of effort to catch anyone in Spain, more than in England or France, for example. In La Liga, two matches are selected for post-match testing every Saturday, and from those team, just two players are picked. NO testing is done on Sunday matches. You do the maths on how likely a Messi or Ronaldo is to get tested on any given week. I make it about a 1 in 50 chance each week.

No one is pretending athletics or cycling is any cleaner than soccer. It isn't. What pisses people off is the double standards applied. For example, you have an <Snip> Irish Times writer Brian O'Connor writing about Barca during the week, asslicking of the highest order, while in the same article writing off athletics as not even worthy of mention due to how dirty it is. http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/...315049414.html
People as painfully ignorant as him perpetuate the idea among the public that athletics is rotten to the core... that the olympics aren't worthing watching because, as joe schmoe thinks...'they're all at it'. All the while never wondering if maybe, just maybe, there are some immoral people in their beloved sport, who, ya know, might just stumble on the idea to juice up if it means being able to run the legs off a team in their own league one Sunday, do it again Wednesday night in Europe, then do it again three days later in El Classico. Nah, sure drugs don't help soccer players.

Ask yourself this, if an athlete or a cyclist dropped dead in the middle of a competition, how would the reaction have differed from the way fans and media reacted to Muamba and Morosini's over the last few weeks?

Probably the best written post on boards so far this year. Bang on the money. Anybody who thinks football and rugby are clean sports are completely naive.

[MrCreosote]

I can't wait to see Dwain Chambers and David Millar back. There's no place no life bans- both athletes will have an asterisk next to their names no matter what they go on to do from now on. The real sanctions should be on the coaches and doctors. Both Chambers and Millar have gone into some detail about the pressures they were under to dope.

For me the best we can hope for is a testing protocol that gives nondopers a chance to compete, and keeps the sport interesting for spectators. <Snip> The blood passport has gone a long way in cycling (though could go further) and should be brought in in athletics as soon as possible.

It's interesting as well that even in a sport as dirty and lucrative as athletics, with records kept on the books from admitted cheats, there are still areas where fans get defensive and amazing performances are accepted without question. I'm thinking of African distance performances.

Hard to pick any sport that's cleaner though. Tennis, maybe?

[Pherekydes]

Originally Posted by T runner

You have missed my point. In my opinion the BOAs attempts at lifetime bans were correct because there is some evidence that an athlete finds it more difficult to break new ground than to run times already run. That means that drug aided PBs offer an athlete a permanent advantage. There is also some strong evidence that anabolic steroids cause permanent adaptions in muscles.

Your opinion seems to be that WADA's rules are always correct therefore the BOAs position are incorrect as they are both in conflict. I agree with the BOA implication that WADA are not infallable in general and that the 2 year ban is incorrect in principle.
If there are advantages to doping after 2 years then doping athletes are gaining an advantage under WADA rules. Ergo they are incorrect in their method of achieving their primary task of punishing drug cheats. The correct term of punishment should cover the duration of gains from drugs used by doping athletes and that would seem to mean a liifetime ban.

We'll have to agree to disagree about lifetime bans.

To quote Dwain Chambers' lawyer:

"It has, in my view, been an exposure of colonial arrogance that even the most extreme and blinkered should have realised could only serve to marginalise British opinion on the international stage."

Britain is out of step with the world, but it thinks the world is out of step with it. Says it all, really.

[T runner]

Originally Posted by Pherekydes

Britain is out of step with the world, but it thinks the world is out of step with it. Says it all, really.

No, the BOI was out of step with WADA. Not the same as the above. Wada aren't infallible. Neither are BOI obviously.

[ecoli]

Mod: Lads just a reminder please steer away from unfounded drug allegations. If someone has been found to have doped and there is evidence fair enough but try to refrain from unfounded allegations or sweeping statements. Its a good thread and should be allowed to continue as long as we remain within the constraints of Boards Policy

[CoachDudie]

Some people think sweeping statements are fine as long as they're not directed against athletics. Mad hypocrisy.
It's been going on for years in many sports. Downplaying the role of drugs in their sport because they don't want to believe it, even if it's staring them in the face. Then the drug cheats laugh all the way to the bank while these people are still there defending them.

[Pherekydes]

British shot putter, Carl Myerscough, will be delighted to win a place:

“I’m very happy. I feel a weight’s been lifted from my shoulders a little bit and the dream is alive again. It’s very exciting, really. I’ve got to qualify first but it’s about having the opportunity to do so.”

Unlike Chambers, Myerscough has always protested his innocence and believes a lifetime ban was too harsh a penalty for something he did not do.

“I never knowingly took what I was accused of,” he said.

[Truman Burbank]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/18303702

Middle, middle ground.

[the groutch]

imo the IOC need to have a complete zero tolerance policy, ie. any drug ban of any sort and you're banned from the Olympics for life.
it's the only way to stamp it out.