Dwain Chambers and drugs

token56

Whats your opinion on the guy. Should he be let compete in the olympics if he makes the time or competes in the english trials. I am just curious to think what everyone else thinks.

As far as I am concerned if you are caught competing with performance enhancing drugs in your system it should be a life time ban from the sport. Athletics has enough bad press with regards drugs at the moment and something radical needs to be done to try and clean it up. Michael Johnsons idea of making it a criminal offense might also work or both?

thirtyfoot

Snorefest. Boring, boring, boring. Can someone lock this and we'll talk about the hundreds and thousands of athletes who have always been clean and competing very well at the moment. Ian O' Riordan had an good article in the IT on saturday, at times I was wondering was he taking his thoughts straight from my head. Snorefest.

cfitz

Snorefest. Boring, boring, boring. Can someone lock this and we'll talk about the hundreds and thousands of athletes who have always been clean and competing very well at the moment. Ian O' Riordan had an good article in the IT on saturday, at times I was wondering was he taking his thoughts straight from my head. Snorefest.

I don't see any reason why this thread should be locked. Just because it may be tiring and depressing to read about the huge drug problem in athletics doesn't mean that it shouldn't be discussed. Just avoid reading it if you're not interested - the title of the thread gives a good hint as to what it might be about. Blame the people who are cheating, not the people who are talking about them.

Sqaull20

Dont think he should be allowed compete myself, the effect of the drug use would have woren off by now, so he's not cheating anymore, but its sets a very bad example.Lately they have taken a very strong line with drug cheats like Marion Jones and its the only the problem will go away..

If Chambers meets the qualifying time of 10.25 and is allowed to race, then young athletes will be even more tempted to use performance enhancing drugs in teen years, building them up nicely for mid twenties..

thirtyfoot

cfitz wrote: »

I don't see any reason why this thread should be locked. Just because it may be tiring and depressing to read about the huge drug problem in athletics doesn't mean that it shouldn't be discussed. Just avoid reading it if you're not interested - the title of the thread gives a good hint as to what it might be about. Blame the people who are cheating, not the people who are talking about them.

Thats the thing, is there a huge drug problem in athletics? Are we talking ourselves into there being a huge drug problem in athletics on chatboards, newspapers, radio shows, kind of like talking yourself into a recession. World Indoors in Seville had no positive tests, World Outdoors in Osaka had no positive tests. The sport is crippled and the big money that was there in the Johnson/Lewis/Christie heyday is no longer around. Can athletes have enough money to stay ahead of the testers any more? Now that the state run regimes of eastern europe are gone there are only a handfull of places where systemic doping can possibly take place. So its up to the athletes to fund their own doping and believe it or not its not a lucrative sport any more.

Usain Bolt runs an amazing time and people are suspicious. Are people suspicious when they see the physique of rugby players for example change so much in the last 10 years and the game change so much regarding physicality, speed etc? Are we suspicious of GAA players who are now 'as fit a professionals'? No because they are now professional (or training like pros) and modern science is so much better etc etc. The same can be applied to track. Yes there was a problem, a huge problem and if we keep talking about washed up people who took drugs we will never move forward and focus on the great things in the sport right now - Bolt, Dibaba and Jelimo.

Grand, I'll ignore the thread but I feel pi**ed off when I see the sport being dragged through the gutter every 2nd article, maybe I have some misguided notion that as someone involved in the sport I have a responsibility to talk the sport up and be positive and get more kids competing and all the benefits that will come with that. We've had our recession, its now time for the boom.

cfitz

Tingle wrote: »

World Indoors in Seville had no positive tests, World Outdoors in Osaka had no positive tests.

Edsger Dijkstra, a computer scientist, said that testing can only show the presence of bugs - not their absence.

Perhaps you're right and there are very few athletes beating the testers, but I reckon the sport is riddled.

Pherekydes

token56 wrote: »

Whats your opinion on the guy. Should he be let compete in the olympics if he makes the time or competes in the english trials. I am just curious to think what everyone else thinks.

As far as I am concerned if you are caught competing with performance enhancing drugs in your system it should be a life time ban from the sport. Athletics has enough bad press with regards drugs at the moment and something radical needs to be done to try and clean it up. Michael Johnsons idea of making it a criminal offense might also work or both?

I couldn't disagree more. All it would take is someone to pop something in your water bottle to get you banned for life.

Regarding Chambers, he's served his time. Let him run. It's gone beyond a joke at this stage. If he wasn't British, his case wouldn't be in the news at all, and he wouldn't be banned from the Olympics. Then the press could concentrate all their energies on Craig Pickering. Or Rio Ferdinand, most likely.

Loomis

Tingle wrote: »

World Indoors in Seville had no positive tests, World Outdoors in Osaka had no positive tests.

Like cfitz alluded too - that doesn't prove no one is taking drugs. It just shows no one was caught.
Marion Jones tested negative but has since had to give medals back for races she won seemingly clean.

Loomis

Slow coach wrote: »

I couldn't disagree more. All it would take is someone to pop something in your water bottle to get you banned for life.

Then could you not argue that it should be taken on a case by case basis? Chambers admitted to it. Jones admitted to it. Ban them for life?

Pherekydes

Logically, it can't prove anything one way or the other. Every single positive test is believed no questions asked; every single negative is viewed with skepticism and suspicion. You can't have it both ways.

token56

Tingle wrote: »

Grand, I'll ignore the thread but I feel pi**ed off when I see the sport being dragged through the gutter every 2nd article, maybe I have some misguided notion that as someone involved in the sport I have a responsibility to talk the sport up and be positive and get more kids competing and all the benefits that will come with that. We've had our recession, its now time for the boom.

I understand where you are coming from but I did not mean for this topic to become a discussion about who is on drugs or who is clean and who's not. I was trying to have a discussion about what should be done with the people who have tested positive and talking about an athlete currently going through this.

Trust me I have as much respect for this sport as you obviously do but discussions about the consequences of drug taking needs to be discussed so that it can try to be prevent or deterred, so that the sport can move on.

shels4ever

Well yo ucan look at it 2 ways, 1. There is a huge drug problem. or 2. There is a hugh success in catching cheats . Id love to see the results of the same amount of tests were done on rugby players,

Dodge

Tingle wrote: »

Are people suspicious when they see the physique of rugby players for example change so much in the last 10 years and the game change so much regarding physicality, speed etc?

Absolutely I am. No doubt at all in my mind that at the very, very least the majority of rugby players are using insane amounts of creatine.

In terms of athletics, I'd agree with life bans for those caught cheating. I'd also advocate all records and medals be taken from these atheltes, regardless of when the positive test occured. Dwain Chambers running can do no good for the sport IMO. I'm also of the opinion that he, and his fellow cheaters, are very much in the minority.