Jeff Wigand wrote:
Clean Sport wrote:We need to protect clean atlhetes. Dirty athletes banned for life - they can find another job.
I agree. But there has to be some reasonable definition of "dirty." Dawn Harper Nelson is currently banned because of medication she was prescribed following a cardiac arrhythmia incident. She looked up the medication's components on the reference site, but wasn't thorough enough. Lifetime ban?
Clean Sport wrote:
If this would be enforced, i truly believe the only ones doping would be the desperate ones, so yes there would still be people that try to cheat but far far less. Not what we see today - suspicions everywhere.
I don't think anyone taking EPO or steroids is thinking, "if I get caught, at least I can come back in two or four years." They're not imagining that they'll ever get caught. I think lifetime bans for serious offenses will help on those few cases where an athlete runs for a country that doesn't care about this fight and they're again able to compete at international championships.
I suspect elite cheaters look at cheating pretty rationally. We all know that running payouts are like a pyramid. The difference between first and second place is huge; even more so the difference between first and tenth -- not to mention endorsements, etc. that come with high level success. For a veteran elite runner or one trying to break into a top level, the incentive to cheat is undeniable, especially for the marathon, where even elites only do a couple a year. Look at the Boston Marathon payout structure:
http://www.bostonmarathonmediaguide.com/prize-structure/For a sport like running, significantly increasing the probability of getting caught will have a much greater impact than simply ratcheting up the punishment.