1984, not illegal to blood dope, leave Cova alone

You're right in that blood doping was not specifically mentioned in the rules. However, the fact that blood dopers hid and lied about what they were doing tells you that the vast majority of athletes, fans, and officials would classify it as doping once they found out what it was all about. That's why it was hidden and denied: they knew it violated the spirit of the rules.

So what??? So the better runner, McCleod, lost not because Cova was more talented and trained harder and smarter but because he underwent a medical procedure that should have been illegal but probably wasn't only because of the impossibility of testing for it then.

After all the rumors about Viren in the 70s, Cova knew how unacceptable blood doping was, whatever the "letter" of the law.

This is a pretty good question to debate, I think... Just what exactly violates the "spirit of the rules" before it in fact violates the language of the rules?

oxygen tents?

gatorade?

VAAM? (we talked about that a long while back)

TGH?

EPO?

blood doping?

If someone doesn't fess up to what they're doing, does that make it cheating, or does that just mean they're trying to keep (legitimately) ahead of the competition?

Seems to me that "spirit of the rules" is a pretty grey concept. For those of us who see the world in shades of grey, rather than black and white, what shade do we pick as the line that defines cheating versus fair play?

Anyone?

Your post about Cova and auto-emo-transfusion gives me the opportunity to tell something more about the argument.

1) When this practice was used for the first time by Finnish runners (Vaatainen, Viren till Vainio), the world of athletics spoke about "the most advanced scientific research by Finnish scientists". I was national responsable of Italian 4x400 in 1971 (my first official appointment with Italian Federation), when we opened the Italian Center in Tirrenia. It was on March, and there were also Swedish and Norwegian throwers. I remember that the very young Swedish javelin throwers (juniores under 19 years) had on their table, during lunch and dinner, a lot of pharmacs that, later, I discovered to be anabolics of first generation (Stromba, Winstrow and others). They took tablets without controlling quantity, like we do with a chocolate. Nobody had idea of how much dangerous it could be, but also nobody had idea to do something unfair, and nobody tried to hide anything. Exactly like now with integrators or a burger.

The first time I was in US (January 1983 in Los Angeles, one month with Italian decathlonists), I found in your supermarkets a lot of anabolics (already considered doping about sport) for sale without any restriction for common people.

In this type of mentality, when the practice of auto-emo-transfusion was studied, athletes that accepted to use it (always with an apparatus of control back their shoulders) considered it an advanced scientific way for supporting their training, like weights, hills, heavy shoes, plyometrics, and every type of machine.

In Italy, this practice started in 1980, under the scientific organization of Conconi, and was used in different sports (ski, swimming, athletics, cycling).

When continuous studies and more advanced researches decided that it was a type of doping, so could not be admitted, soon in Italy that practice finished.

2) Under the practical point of view, athletes using this practice had very contrasting results : someone improved and competed very well (like Cova himself, or Scartezzini in athletics, or some specialist of ski cross), but some other else finished his career (like Franceschi, swimmer of 200m medley, one of the favourits in Olympics, that was no more able to swim at the level of before). This fact was due to different attitude of the body of athletes in relation to the possibility of working with 1 liter of blood more in their circulatory apparatus.

3) Regarding top italian runners that used this system (at that time, "scientific support", now, "blood-doping"), like Cova and Antibo (never Panetta, for example), I want to remember that Cova had his best season in 1985 (winning 5000-10000 in Europe Cup with terrible kick) WITHOUT USING ANY TRANSFUSION, and Antibo was able to improve very hard in 6 years becoming n. 1 in the world in '89-'90 after leaving this practice during the last 5-6 years.

4) So, I want to say two things :

a) Under the moral point of view, everybody is son of his time, and we cannot judge someone with the meter of today. For example, during the war, who takes some drug for increasing his attention while is in trench, is an hero ; during the normal activity is only a dugged. When Gauguin had to be drunk or drugged for better painting, was a top artist ; when you meet a man going zigzag on the road because drunk, he's a poor, drunk man.

b) Don't think that every type of doping can help your performances so much. The most important aid is psychological, as people think to be stronger and more sure about themselves. But, really, the 90% of doping has no effect on performances. The real problem is that EVERYBODY involved in sport has interest in overvaluing the effect of doping on performances : WHO GIVES DOPING BECAUSE CAN HAVE MORE MONEY AND MORE SUCCESS IF PEOPLE THINK THAT DOPING IS SO IMPORTANT FOR IMPROVING, and WHO MAKES ANTIDOPING BECAUSE CAN INCREASE THE IMPORTANCE OF HIS WORK HAVING MORE MONEY AND MORE ORGANIZATION.

Instead, if we can say what really is : people using drugs are very stupid people, not only because they risk their health, not only because they can be taken positive, BUT BECAUSE SPEND A LOT OF MONEY FOR SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T HELP THEM IN THEIR PERFORMANCES (it's not the case of anabolics, but of the most part of blood-doping), may be that our action against doping could have more success.

PEOPLE USING DOPING ARE IDIOTS, BECAUSE THE MAIN EFFECT IS TO ENRICH DISHONEST TRICKERS THAT USE THE EMOTION AND THE STUPIDITY OF SPORTSMEN FOR THEIR INTERESTS !

That was an extremely informative post. Well done man.

Wow, i'm blown away.

Awesome post, thanks!

Renato, do you really believe that only 10% of doping has any effect?

I respectfully disagree with Mr. Canova. There are many fads that come and go in athletics' training. Biorythms, running with plastic air-restriction tubes in the mouth, running with hand-weights, supplements like ginseng, creatine, etc.. There is one "fad" that stands the test of time: doping with hormones, steroids, EPO or re-infused blood are still around after decades of use and abuse. Why? Because they work, pure and simple. Anyone who has seen a bodybuilder add 20-30 lbs of muscle in a matter of weeks with minimal training as they begin a "cycle" knows what I'm talking about. A runner with a hematocrit going from 42 to 50 (due to EPO use) will have better endurance, pure and simple.

For a detailed personal perspective, read the article in the current Outside Magazine:

Thanks for the informative post. You can offer a great perspective on thes matters. However, I take major issue with this as it pertains to Cova:

"Under the moral point of view, everybody is son of his time, and we cannot judge someone with the meter of today."

Everybody knew blood doping was wrong in the mid-80's. It may not have been illegal, but it was certainly cheating.

Viren had already been taken to task as a potential cheater for this type of blood doping (who know's if he really did it?) so why would anyone think it was OK?

NU wrote:

Everybody knew blood doping was wrong in the mid-80's. It may not have been illegal, but it was certainly cheating.

Viren had already been taken to task as a potential cheater for this type of blood doping (who know's if he really did it?) so why would anyone think it was OK?

I concur. There was no debate on this at all by 1984. Every one knew doping was wrong. Cova cheated. He deserves to be remembered as a cheater.

Blood doping WAS NOT illegal, so how could it be cheating? If you train in fancy shoes, are able to never have to work a job, use a HR Monitor & Lactate meter, able to listen to the best advice from those that have come before you...while some other runner gets by with much, much less, who is taking the high road? If you want to call blood doping/packing a spooky controversial method I will agree, but it was not at that time cheating. Provide me reason(s) why blood packing should have been defined as cheating? Invasive Vs Noninvasive methods that all of getting ahead. Are the NOP/Salazar runners cheating? NO, there might be a lot of shit we can't get our hands on but the NOP/Salazar group are doing what they can & should do to get ahead in the sport under the heading clean. People are just afraid of what they don't understand or have no knowledge of.

He hid the fact that he was blood doping just like any top competitor might hide his training secrets from his competitors. It doesn't mean he actually views it as immoral or in violation of the "spirit" of the sport as you said.

Cheat and lie, lie and cheat. Can't have one without the other.

One thing for sure, drug users are not "idiots", as you called them. Is Charlie Francis an idiot? Dr. Ekkart Arbeit? Pamela Chepchumba's advisors? Brahim Boulami? Uta Pippig? Marti Vainio? Regina Jacobs?

If they are idiots, they are an amazingly high achieving group of idiots.

i agree with you renato that doping for distance running doesn't guarantee better results, except with regard to women. you can basically make a woman a man (jarmila).

[quote]gimme! wrote:

Blood doping WAS NOT illegal, so how could it be cheating? If you train in fancy shoes, are able to never have to work a job, use a HR Monitor & Lactate meter, able to listen to the best advice from those that have come before you...while some other runner gets by with much, much less, who is taking the high road? quote]

"Gimme!" a break! You're completely missing the point. There is no argument here. All the elite athletes knew doping was cheating. There's no discussion.

Here's the thing....I agree with you that it was wrong, but because there was no rule in place, you cannot codemn Cova. He could have doped right on the track, ran, and still legally won the gold medal. You and I both know it is wrong, but it was not against the rules and that's why he should keep the gold medal. The issue is not with Cova, but with the rules that allowed him to dope. If wearing spikes is found to be illegal tomorrow, should we take Geb's medals?

I can understand that my point of view is not shared by many people. They can ask "But if EPO (for example) doesn't work, why so many athletes do use it ?".

I'm not innocentist, and well know that somebody can use some drug. But, as I'm sure that the type of doping used for increasing strenght and explosivity (hormons, steroids and similar) works very much (and the demonstration is in the list of WR : where strenght is more important, like throws, WR are from 90 (shot), 86 (discus), 86 (hammer) and javelin is from 96 because IAAF changed the javelin. Also in jumps WR are from long time : 93 (high), 91 (long) and 93 (pole). And about women, that took the most important benefits from steroids, no records are after '88, except of course new events OR LONG DISTANCE EVENTS, that are "younger" than other disciplines. If we can think that Powell or Lewis, and Bubka, were talents greater than the athletes of today, the average of top 10-20 decreased so much that is not possible not thinking about the importance of doping on performances.

Instead, about middle and long distances, the big difference is due to the massive approach that African runners, 15 years ago not well organized, had had in the last 10-12 years. We must remember that their development was locked from 76 to 84 for boycott in OG, so many great athletes lost any motivation in training, without the focus of Olympics.

I explain because I think that blood-doping has really very little influence (or no influence) on top performances. I had the opportunity to follow the incredible improvement of Nicholas Kemboi from 28'19" to 26'30" in two months, using only training and their food, that is always the same (ugali, chicken, cabbage, some meat, some rice, and milk). Nothing else, and no supports : no integrators, no salts (also if I told him to use when he sweated too much), no vitamins, no iron. I cannot think that a guy not yet 20 years old is already on his top after 2 months of good training, because he can improve yet very much using continuity in training, improving yet some personal quality. And, like him, in 2 months Kwalia ran 3'50" (mile) and 12'54", Mosop (18 years old) 27'13", and the improvement of every one was very fast.

On the other side, I train some Italian runner, not young and not of big talent, like Nicola Ciavarella (1,64 tall, 34 years in 2002), working at school 8 hours a day, able running 2:11 in Marathon with more than 30:00 in 10k and 14:35 in 5k.

You understand that, if someone says that can exist some drug for improving of 3-4 min in a Marathon, I have to suppose that, giving it to Ciavarella, he could run a Marathon in 2:08.

If you suppose that there is something for improving of more than 30 secs in 10k, giving to Kemboi, he could run under 26:00.

And, really, I don't think that this is possible.

About Marathon, in particular, I'm totally sure about it.

If you know some marathon runner able running in 2:07 using EPO, give me him to train, and, using the same training of before, I bring him to 2:05.

Believe me, WITH EPO YOU RUN MARATHON SLOWER, because the increase in viscosity can limit the performance more than can help the transport of oxygen.

I know what I say. And, believe me, WHO USE BLOOD DOPING FOR LONG DISTANCES CANNOT HAVE ANY ADVANTAGE, but is a stupid for the reasons I said before.

Don't think that, also at top level, there are many people very informed about these problems. So, if athletes and coaches of top level use some drug, this doesn't mean that the drug works, because nobody tried to train them WITHOUT DRUG for having a comparison. The current fashion, for running fast, is to use some drug inside some group ; but the current fashion doesn't mean that all people perfectly know the signification of what they do.

I agree wrote:You're completely missing the point. There is no argument here. All the elite athletes knew doping was cheating. There's no discussion.

somebody sure is missing the point.

cheating = breaking the rules.

if you don't break the rules you are not cheating.

i remember when blood doping was talked about as just another technique, like altitude tents. there was no more stigma attached to it than the tents. if they outlaw altitude tents tomorrow, so be it. but don't come back here 30 years later and try to tell us all how "everyone knew" that it was cheating. bull.

I want yet remember you another important fact. Auto-emo-transfusion was not a secret practice, because many Countries studied and used it from long time (beginning of 70 years). As I already said, the famous "sisu" of Finnish was this practice. The great champion of cycling Jacques Anquetil, winning of 5 Tour de France before Armastrong, used to renew totally his blood at the end of every season using transfusions for having clean and fresh blood before the next season, and it from the end of 50 years.

So, nothing to do with the doping of today, like THG affair, unknown till yesterday and built on purpose for sport.

If some scientist wanted to consider doping that practice, had many years (15 about) for putting this practice in the list of unfair activities.

So, if scientists every where in the world discussed for long time IF THAT WAS DOPING OR NOT, you cannot think that, in the mind of Cova or Viren or Vaatainen this could be considered like doping. THEY DIDN'T WANT TO CHEAT, but tried to use the more advanced possibilities ("legal" possibilities) that the science could offer at that time.

If, next year, WADA decides to consider Creatine as doping, do you say that all the athletes that used creatine till now wanted to cheat ?

And what do you think about caffeine, that was doping some year ago and now is put out of the index of doping substances ? Athletes wanted to cheat before, and are morally clean now ?

For solving the problem of doping, we must to modify the mentality of people, saying the true, not only using stereotyped and emotional arguments.

I think that is better to educate people, SAYING ALSO HOW USELESS MANY SUBSTANCES ARE, than to talk always about "cheaters", "damages", "bans" and similar things.

People must be convinced that the most part of drugs are useless. Believe me, this is the best road, because you don't waste time thinking about something useless for your activity.