Why are drugs cheating?

Why was roger Bannister's first sub 4:00 a big deal? People had long since established that by using technology it was possible to cover a mile in less time than that. What made it significant was that Bannister proved that a human could do that unaided by anything other than his own ability and proper conditioning.

I doubt that anyone will ever run a sub 3:00 mile, but if that posiibility approaches, if people are running 3:03-3:05, there'll be tremendous interest. But what if the people running 3:03-3:05 turn out to have had their hearts replaced by artificial ones that can pump five times more blood than any natural one? What if those guys have had their leg muscles altered genetically so that they have a stride length that's three times our natural one? What if all those changes make people healthier than they'd otherwise be? Will there still be the same interest?

I'm less interested in the current 10,000 meter record than I was in Ron Clarke's because I was sure that Clarke's represented a time that was the best a human could attain. I'm not sure the same is true of the current time, though I'm not sure it isn't.

Interest in sports is related to numbers and records, but also to an assumption that those records and performances came under reasonably comparable conditions. Home runs and home run records have generated loads of interest in major league baseball. So why not shorten the fences to something like 225 along the lines and 290 to center? You'd have home run records out the ying yang. But there'd be less interest because the records have been cheapened.

Even if PEDs could be given without health risks, the people running the sport need to make sure that the public perception is that improvements in records and times are the result of the efforts of those setting them and not because of massive technological advances.

That's not absolute, of course. There have been improvements to things like tracks and vaulting poles which have contributed to improved records, just as baseball bats today are made more towards home run hitting than they were in Ruth's or Maris's eras. But some controls have always been exerted towards legal and illegal equipment as well, e.g. corked baseball bats, to maintain some integrity regarding records.

I agree, and by allowing the athlete's to use drugs openly we could all reasonably talk about Bannister's sub4, and now the new record of X aided by drugs. Now we can just suspect or give a nod and a wink to drug use (see Flojo's record in the 100m.)

Going back to the Pro v amateur analogy. Look at Bannister, we can now say how good would have been had he been a Pro athlete? With the advantage of training for a living, no worries about a studies, career after running etc.. He could have devoted all of his energy towards running.

Finally if not for drug use the men's 100m may very well be stuck at 9.9. Do we really want to see yet someone else tie the WR? Eventually physics will catch up and we will hit the wall for all T&F records (i.e. man will never run a 2 sec 100m), the use of PEDs maybe the only way to do that.

Do I really want to see yet another 9.9 if that's as fast as it's humanly possible to run 100 meters without some form of high tech assistance? ABSOLUTELY! If we just want faster times, why not have downhill tracks or forget about DQing wind aided marks?

And as we can never know exactly how much a drug aided performance is due to drugs vs. how much is due to the athlete's ability, you can never know how athletes compare to each other or to their predecessors. I think the sport will die quickly if winners, losers and record setters become more dependent on who has access to the best chemist.

How do you know for sure that Bannister's mile was clean ? I have heard that amphetamine use was fairly common in athletics in the 50's and 60's so there is no reason why Bannister would not have used this, especially when there was no form of drug testing back then.

I have also heard that even back in the 1920's runners like Nurmi were taking certain forms of steroids. Personally I would be very surprised if all of the German team of the 1936 olympics were completely clean.I know that the past eras look interesting but even back then you cannot be sure that everyone was clean. Means of boosting performance in addition to training have always been sought after at the highest levels of competition and as training has evolved, they have also evolved as well.

The feeling I get is that drugs will, in 100 years time, be accepted for use in sports together with the weird genetic/transplant techniques that you mention. However if you took a runner from say 1910, and you showed him the lifestyle of someone like Paula Radcliffe who by all press accounts sleeps all day in an oxygen tent, who takes magnesium injections if the weather is hot, who runs 100 miles per week etc etc, then I would imagine this runner would find this way of training and running as absurd as we would find someone having heart transplants and gene therapy to run faster. We are just seeing an ever changing process, and emotionally it is sometimes difficult to accept.

Jizzmo wrote:

But then again I'm for the decriminalization of marijuana and ecstasy too.

Why ecstasy?

I unnderstand marijuana, but ecstasy is just a mix of other illegal drugs/chemicals right?

Can't an X be a mix of cocaine, lsd, cough syrup, drain-o and other things?

There isn't really an "ecstasy" is there?

E is just a party drug and no it is not mixed with coke or draino.

It is simply a party drug that makes people feel good, you don't take X and beat up your gf or break into a house, or get into a fight.

Jizzmo wrote:

E is just a party drug and no it is not mixed with coke or draino.

It is simply a party drug that makes people feel good, you don't take X and beat up your gf or break into a house, or get into a fight.

Okay but what is it? What is X?

I understand it makes you just want to chill and feel good, but so does heroin.

Not bashing you, just curious...

They've got a bracelet!

http://www.athletesagainstdoping.com/images/wristband.gif

I'm sure you can find out by doing a quick internet search I think its a drug ghb.

I've taken it more than a few times and it is a great great feeling. Granted it is not somethig you'd take to "chill out" the same way to chill out with some beers on a boat or by the beach. X makes you want to party and dance and have sex.

If you pop an pill and then went to chill at the beach you'd lose your Freakin mind, also sweat to death.

Jizzmo,

X is methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA).

MDMA is a synthetic, psychoactive drug chemically similar to the stimulant methamphetamine and the hallucinogen mescaline.

MDMA drastically alters the serotonin levels in your body, and can cause major problems down the road. And that is if you are buying pure MDMA, which is highly unlikely as most X pills contain only 30% MDMA if that much.

It is illegal b/c chemically altering the serotonin levels with a methamphetamine can lead to neuron malfunctions, causing mood, anxiety, depression, aggression, sexual activity and sleep issues later in life.

Yes, many people do freak out and beat/murder others as a result of taking MDMA.

In no way, shape or form should this drug be legal.

I would recommend that you stop taking this drug immediately, but I realize that sounds crazy over an Internet message board.

In my group, we have studied the effects of this drug extensively. We are already seeing a major increase in mental health issues as a result of the large number of young people screwing with their serotonin levels using methamphetamines.

Yes, it can be highly addictive.

Again, these issues are speaking to pure MDMA. Any X pill you buy is going to have a myriad of other substances within, most even more dangerous that the MDMA.

Excellent point about how Radcliffe would have been viewed 100 years ago. Maybe people will look back at this period in 30 to 50 years and chuckle at the witch-hunt we now have over PEDs.

Mr. Obvious wrote:

There is no proper use of steroids, epo, hgh and other PEDs in healthy athletes. None whatsoever. They were developed to help people who were sick. They were tested on people who were sick. All the guidelines, dosing schedules, and research were conducted on people who were sick. Most of these people were/are terribly sick and it makes sense to use drugs even when they have a high potential of negative side effects when the illness itself is very serious.

These drugs cannot be used in healthy athletes under "proper supervison." Anbody administering such drugs is by definition doing something improper.

all drugs are tested on healthy subjects for negative side effects before being tested for their effectiveness on the target condition. so any of this stuff that the FDA has approved is OK for healthy people in its ordinary doeses

Or maybe they'll have perfected testing, found other ways to discourage use, developed a better sense of ethics and have a totally drug free sport.

Really, what it comes down to is that cheating is however a society defines it.

"cheating is however a society defines it"

exactly. however that goes for anything: rape, incest, murder, etc. It is good/bad, ethically/morally acceptable/unacceptable according social creedance...

in reality, cheating in sport is not "moral" question; it's a legal question. And legally it's "wrong". The athletic "society" has attempted a definition of "cheating" in various manners; Landis...cheated. No argument. Lance...has not cheated. (or been caught)...that's the only way we can address the issue: what has and has not been deemed legal.

You can rape or kill anyone you want. But if you're caught, you'll spend the rest of your life in prison. Will you burn in the firing pits of hell...well that's a matter of debate.

Right. The definition that's adopted of cheating, rape, theft, income tax evasion, whatever, is all framed by how a society defines those terms. That's a larger discussion. But for us, right now, using certain kinds of PEDs is cheating because we've said it is. In the future, we may have a more liberal definition of what cheating is or we may have a more restrictive one. If we have really good chemists, maybe we can have adrug that you can take with you that will keep you from feeling those "firing" pits of hell. but would you be cheating if you used it?

Regarding previous comments about Bannister - it was said he ran sub-4 with only his ability and propoer conditioning. But what is proper conditioning? Training introduces a stimulus to your body and your body consequentially reacts to and becomes more adept at the action as a result. The knowledge we have about nutrition today allows athletes to modify what they put into their bodies so as to allow greater stimuli. Comparing this to PED's - certain PED's introduce a stimulus to the body (EPO being a hormonal stimulant) and the body sebsequently reacts to the stimulus (increasing the RBC count). Or, other PED's like HGH allow the body to withstand greater training loads. What is the difference between these situations?

The only point I can see is that PED's might be dangerous. Although I don't agree fully with this assesment. Every substance in existance is both damgerous and harmless depending on the quantity. Even water or oxygen can kill a person if enough is forced upon them. Alternatively arsenic and other poisons can be completely harmless in small enough quantities. So my personal opinion is the PED's are only dangerous because they aren't taken in safe doctor approved doses.