Malcolm Gladwell has read Epstein's book - wonders why dopers are condemned for trying to overcome genetic disadvantages

Where do you stop with this thought process?

Armstrong produces less red blood cells naturally than others so let him artificially increase that with PEDs to 'level the playing field'. What if Armstrong's body has a much greater reaction to the PEDs than other athletes (which seems to be true) so he now has an unfair advantage. Do we figure out how juice per athlete makes their physiology equal and then let them complete?? Then we have to keep testing to make sure bobody is taking an unfair amount of gear.

What about athletes from countries and societies that cannot afford the drugs or simply have no access to them. How is it fair to them? Let's set a limit of PED spending per country and hope they stick to it!

The argument that to legalise PEDs would make it a fair and even competition is complete tripe. It would turn legitimate sports into made up sports like Formula 1 where the owner with the most money has the best car.

These people that think that drugs can be legalized and that athletes will voluntarily stay at "safe" levels are dreaming.

It would make Jarmila look downright feminine.

http://completerunning.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/07/jarmila-kratochvilova-1max.jpg

Your post shows incredible ignorance of the way elite sport already operates; the countries shoveling the most money into sports are the ones that do well. Opening sport up to doping wouldn't change that.

Your Mom wrote:

the countries shoveling the most money into sports are the ones that do well.

Do you believe Ethiopia, for instance, has money to spend on sport?

On Armstrong, doesn't he understand that it is about the lies and deception as much, if not more, than the doping?

Plus, there are rules and the rules were broken.

Not agreeing with the rule doesn't give you a right to break them.

Why can't you cork your baseball bat or have a pitcher put spit on the ball?

I don't agree with those rules.

So I will just cork my bat and throw spitballs and hold press conferences on how I am not doing it and sue anyone that says that I am doing what I am doing.

I personally don't care much about Armstrong doping.

But I have no questions as to why he is viewed negatively.

And doping just can't be legal because it can't be done safely for those without the means.

* wrote:

And doping just can't be legal because it can't be done safely for those without the means.

And one may add, in a utopia, we would like to see sport, not chemistry competitions.

The issue with doping is the hypocrisy, plus the need for high school kids to dope to reach the ever increasing physical standards now in play for D1 and professionals. Let's face it, no one cares if these pros dope, it's the mendacity that makes us all feel like suckers in a rigged game. So, Pro sports leagues either make a sincere effort to stop doping, or make doping legal and then find a way to keep these impressionable high school kids, the vast majority who will never see any D1 action, let alone play professionally, from ruining their lives with 'roids, etc.

RobertELee wrote:

Let's face it, no one cares if these pros dope

I do. I don't want people to have to turn into the above to achieve in sport.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

RobertELee wrote:

Let's face it, no one cares if these pros dope

I do. I don't want people to have to turn into the above to achieve in sport.

That ship has sailed, the barn door is open and the cows are in the field, the toothpaste is out of the tube. Doping is now and has been for many decades an integral part of sport at every level. We can either see this as reality or do what we do now, which is to pretend that doping ISN'T now an ingrained piece of every training regimen. Age group runners dope to get faster. Any effort to eradicate, or even control doping has failed. The real issue is that we continue to pretend that athletes don't take drugs as a matter of routine.

RobertELee wrote:

That ship has sailed, the barn door is open and the cows are in the field, the toothpaste is out of the tube. Doping is now and has been for many decades an integral part of sport at every level. We can either see this as reality or do what we do now, which is to pretend that doping ISN'T now an ingrained piece of every training regimen. Age group runners dope to get faster. Any effort to eradicate, or even control doping has failed. The real issue is that we continue to pretend that athletes don't take drugs as a matter of routine.

You really think that? Why is it that women sprinters are no where near as fast their 1980s counterparts? Why is no one coming near the women's world records for 1500m and 3000m? Why is no one coming within half a meter of Randy Barnes's world record?

Any effort to eradicate theft has failed. People try and do steel from others every single day. What do you suggest we do about that?

How well someone responds to taking performance enhancing drugs is also governed by genetics. Legalizing them won't level the playing field at all, there will still be the strong responders [to doping] and the athletes that it doesn't help as much, it's no different than training in that respect, at least until gene doping is readily available.

Gladwell is a smart man and great writer, but he has shown time and time again he does not understand PED use. In this case, it seems either (a) he is completely ignorant to the premise of sports or (b) he is TRYING to manufacture a provocative POV by juxtaposing Tommy John surgery and PED use.

For one, the latter is an unbelievable flimsy argument. There is little statistical correlation between Tommy John surgery and performance enhancement, In reading his piece, you might think the original Tommy John had a miraculous career BECAUSE of his surgery. If this were true and the correlation between TJ surgery and performance enhancement was this profound, you'd have healthy athletes lining up to get TJ surgery every day. But how often has a healthy pitcher decided to sit out a year and get TJ surgery to enhance his Win-Loss performance? Has this EVER happened?

It's insane to me that Gladwell continually fails to emphasize and recognize that HGH, Testosterone, Insulin, EPO are all NATURALLY occurring hormones and that the combination of these hormones + height, weight, slow/fast twitch, will power, determination etc is PRECISELY what creates "talent" in humans. There is no good reason why "one man is allowed to have lots of red blood cells and another man is not" other than that is the luck of the draw. Some of us may be "very lucky" genetically, but that's exactly why we have sports - to show off the greatness of NATURAL human talent. Not everyone can do great things athletically. We watch sports because athletes are doing exceedingly difficult things that most of could never do. Having sympathy for Lance or arguing for "leveling" the playing field through chemical PED because some of us aren't "very lucky" undermines the entire premise of sports.

Jeff Wigand wrote:

RobertELee wrote:

Let's face it, no one cares if these pros dope

I do. I don't want people to have to turn into the above to achieve in sport.

Actually, if you read the article you'd realize that the argument is that you'll never achieve in sport. Whether or not you achieve in sport was determined the day you were born by the genes you were given. You can work as hard as you want, but you'll never be at the level of altitude raised-genetic freaks.

heyyo wrote:

Actually, if you read the article you'd realize that the argument is that you'll never achieve in sport. Whether or not you achieve in sport was determined the day you were born by the genes you were given. You can work as hard as you want, but you'll never be at the level of altitude raised-genetic freaks.

I certainly saw a lot of those supposed genetic freaks get beaten this year so I disagree

heyyo wrote:

Jeff Wigand wrote:

I do. I don't want people to have to turn into the above to achieve in sport.

Actually, if you read the article you'd realize that the argument is that you'll never achieve in sport. Whether or not you achieve in sport was determined the day you were born by the genes you were given. You can work as hard as you want, but you'll never be at the level of altitude raised-genetic freaks.

I thought his point was that doping is no different then anything else athletes use/do to get better: surgery, etc. Of course there is a genetic component to athletic ability, whether it be a genetic propensity to work harder (Pete Rose) or a genetic propensity for physilogic ability (Mickey Mantle)

By the way, the author completely ignores the liklihood/certainty that African runners dope.

heyyo wrote:

Actually, if you read the article you'd realize that the argument is that you'll never achieve in sport. Whether or not you achieve in sport was determined the day you were born by the genes you were given. You can work as hard as you want, but you'll never be at the level of altitude raised-genetic freaks.

What constitutes "achieving" is subjective, and isn't necessarily limited to winning Olympic medals.

RobertELee wrote:

I thought his point was that doping is no different then anything else athletes use/do to get better: surgery, etc. Of course there is a genetic component to athletic ability, whether it be a genetic propensity to work harder (Pete Rose) or a genetic propensity for physilogic ability (Mickey Mantle)

There's a distinction between repairing an injury (which I think most are fine with) and trying to use chemistry to change your physiology.

RobertELee wrote:

By the way, the author completely ignores the liklihood/certainty that African runners dope.

I think you mean Eastern Europe.

One could argue that nature, and safety are two good reasons.

Of course Lance did many drugs, going far beyond simple hematocrit restoration, and forced his teammates to do it too.

A drug "equalization" scheme would have to be well defined, monitored and controlled, to allow doping to a natural level and not more. The current approach is limited more by risk appetite, or the size of your bank account. I don't see strict enforcement of any drug "normalization" scheme happening at low cost.

It's not about how fast you run compared to someone else, it's about reaching your own limits, whatever they are. Failure to achieve builds character. Athletes who don't acknowledge their natural limits are cowardly denying the essence of our sport that provides us with so much fulfillment.