1984, not illegal to blood dope, leave Cova alone

Play by the rules wrote:

You're getting lost between the defintion of "morally wrong" and "legally wrong".

no, i was giving directions to "i agree" who had lost his way in this area.

legally wrong is objective. it is easy to check if your substance or practice is on the banned list or not. there is one set of rules that applies to everybody. morally wrong is subjective. there is no one code of morality throught the world. if everybody had the same morality we would not be having this discussion in the first place.

IOC banned blood doping in 1986. From that point on, I would assume, that you would concede if an athlete was still blood doping that they would be cheating. Yes, no?

Yes, sure the rules would say NO at that point. So do you get it now?

This has been an interesting article to read. I think gimme! is corect in that Cova was not technically cheating. Blood doping was not illegal at the time. However, I think others have made the valid point that what he was doing was considered ethically wrong by others. The "wrongness" of what he was doing was confirmed later (gimme!, notice I did say later). Does that mean Cova was wrong for doing what he did? I guess it depends on your own opinion. I don't think equate what he did with someone who trains full time or has better shoes than another is a sound analogy. Cova did something that other athletes could have also done, but chose not to for whatever reason (health, unethical, etc.). As for my personal opinion (which along with gimme!'s opinion and $2.50 gets you a cup of joe at Starbucks), I think that while this may not have been illegal, the fact so many athletes did not participate in it and the stigma that surrounded blood doping has to condem Cova to some extent. At the very least he was treading in a grey area. Some consider cheating to be more than breaking the rules. For those who do, Cova's accomplishment will never get any credit.

perspective wrote:

IOC banned blood doping in 1986. From that point on, I would assume, that you would concede if an athlete was still blood doping that they would be cheating. Yes, no?

yes

Being an old guy, I remember well the rumors about Viren when he doubled in '72. He never admitted to blood doping -- so either he never did it, as he claimed, or he was ashamed of it. Let's say he never did it.

All those who blood doped did so in secrecy. The feeling among most in the US was that blood doping was wrong in the same way that steroids was wrong.

At the world cross country championships in the Meadowlands in the early 80's, a friend of mine told me that just before the race he walked in on a group of competitors from Italy who were using intravenous equipment. At the time, I didn't know what to make of such a statement, as it seemed too incredible to me.

But now I begin to believe what he told me twenty years ago. My conclusion is that in certain circles blood packing was practiced and perhaps defended on the grounds that it was not specifically mentioned as illegal. Depending on how you look at it, we were either dumb or smart enough to believe it was cheating at first glance.

Gimme!,

I am willing to admit that I did not know the timing of the rule on blood doping. I believe there may have been a general rule that could have applied at the time.

You state, "WB, your a fool plain & simple." This may be so, but your English is awful. You should have used the word "you're." I hope English is not your primary language, if it is, you should do some remedial work.

I think I was clear that some of the things I was saying were being carried to their irrational extreme, apparently your ability to reason prevented you from understanding that.

When talking about Cova, I indicated that punishing him was impractical (and in light of the lack of specific illegality of doping, perhaps impossible). I also stated that a statute of limitations on this type of infraction would likely to benefit the sport. This further indicates my acceptance that stripping medals after such a long period is pointless.

If you'd make the effort to read and understand what is written here, it would prevent you from attacking someone who agrees that stripping Cova's medals & titles would be senseless.

Have a pleasant day!

Wayne

Hey thanks for the heads up on the written English I butchered, sorry. You are a fool Wayne, is that better? Wayne, the ability to reason is the first question, leave Cova alone. Cova did not use a drug but his own blood, do you have problem with that? WHY?

So Regina Jacobs is innocent because she took a substance that wasn't on the banned list?

I want to repeat what I wrote at the beginning of this discussion : ONLY 5-10% OF DRUGS CAN REALLY HELP PERFORMANCES, others are a "fashion" without any practical reason, except to enrich pharmaceutical Companies.

The idea to continue to overestimate "all doping" effects, provoked a bad and wrong skip of mentality in normal people, seeking some drug or, in any case, some aid, for making everything : sport but also studying, making music, working, dancing. WITHOUT SOME DRUG, IT'S NOT POSSIBLE TO LIVE.

This mentality is also due to the informations of who makes antidoping, that emphatize the importance of every type of doping on performances. It's true that, at the same time, they are speaking about the damages for health, and about the importance of banning guilty athletes. This is OK, the first part not very much.

Really does somebody think that people taking every type of drug only for beeing able to enjoy themselves passing time, and not involved in sport activity at top level, can have some trouble because there are tests anti-doping ?

If you are an amateur (and never some doctor tests them, for a problem of cost and the enormous number of peolple doing some activity), you can be sure about tests, and, if you think that taking some drug you can improve so much, you take, without any fright.

See the article in the front page regarding "Italian Director of Antidoping", that really is not the Director, but who from long time is making a terrible war against doping (his name is Sandro Donati, not Donetti).

But, what is not written in the article, is that at the moment, in Italy, about 400.000 italian amateur are doped, and in Western Europe about 2.100.000 (I think that in US are about the same). Beeing this "fashion" a big business, now criminal underworld is in first line in organizing peddling of doping. The pharmaceutical Companies produce pharmac that can be used for doping in quantity 6 times bigger than for the use in the hospitals, and refused to put in their medicines some "tracer" for giving the opportunity to recognize the substance.

Almost the totality of doping is not in elite sport, but in activity without goals of performances, like body building in gymnasiums, or amateurs in cycling or in running.

If athletes think that without doping is not possible to increase strenght, power, resistance, many ignorants (also among very rich soccer players, for example) take something without any reason. How many players there are taken positive for nandrolone ? And you must think that tests are very little (in some Country practically don't exist), not serious like in athletics. What are you thinking about baseball and football ? Or about boxing ?

Don Luigi Ciotti, an Italian priest that from more than 30 years is in first line for recovering drugged people, said

"the problem is in the cultural horizon of a lot of people, that want strenght, performance, success at all costs, giving to criminals the best opportunity for occupying a market already ready. The demand is in continue increase".

And Donati said : "All media give very wide space to great drugged athletes, but bad example created bad proselytes".

The most part of doping substances are in pharmacs with hormonal typology. The most part is made by main pharmaceutical multinational companies, that, beeing interested in increasing the global volume of sales, put on the market a surplus of products, bigger 6 times too to the real therapeutic needs of sick people".

At the end, there is the suggestion to follow the example of Denmark, where some gymnasiums agree to be controlled thru random tests, having the possibility to be certified as "clean gym".

This is my battle, because the real problem is the example that dirty champions can give to normal people.

So, I continue to say that the most part of doping doesn't work, that drugged people are idiots because spend money for nothing, and I want to put in evidence that there are top champions totally clean, many times at the top of the world.

If Regina Jacobs is doped, but Paula Radcliffe is clean, the message is that you win thru talent and hard work, not thru doping. Instead now the argument is the contrary : if you are strong, is because you are doped.

This is unaccettable, and is also the source of the most part of mistakes of our society.

An active athlete should not concern himself or herself that much with the drugging that is going on out there. His or her energies should be focused on developing running skills. Obsessing over drug use will only hurt the athlete's progress. This may well be true for the coaches of athletes as well.

But the administrators and the guardians of the sport should aggressively seek out and punish drug users and their accomplices. To turn a blind eye to drug users is to abandon the athletes who compete cleanly.

Too many of the top athletes have already tested positive for anyone to maintain that drugs are not impacting on championship results. Rey, Garcia, Jacobs, White, Chepchumba, Boulami, Chambers, Leghzaoui, and other champions have just recently been tested positive. Considering the extremely suspect events surrounding Lagat, Yegorova, and Szabo, the problem with drugs at the top of the sport is not illusionary.

It's real. For those in power: you're either part of the solution, or part of the problem.

...or part of the evolution of the sport, Get It?

Or its distortion and dissolution.

Great Word: perspective, get it? Think out of the box for a moment. Perspective, I really love it! Are you satisfied? Write back in 10 years, ok, ha!!

Renato Canova wrote:

More you go on with hard training, less EPO can help you.

THEREFORE, ARE AMATEURS AND NOT VERY STRONG ATHLETES THAT TAKE ADVANTAGES THRU EPO, NOT TOP RUNNERS.

... So, EPO is a short cut for middle results, but not the main road for top results.

Pure, unadulterated bullshit. Once you have reached your maximum, whether for the season, or your physiological capability period, the drugs will help. The improvement will not be as high a 'percentage' as it would be for someone with little training, or who is sedentary, but the improvement will be there. It is estimated that for a world class miler, the improvement gained from EPO can be anywhere from 4 to 9 seconds, depending on how the athlete is as a 'responder'. A drug allowing 2% or 3% improvement amongst world class distance runners would give the drug users an ENORMOUS advantage over those not juicing. This is why we see such a disparity among the top distance runners the last few years. Pushing your 'crit level to 50 or higher with drugs will definitely give one an advantage. Spot drug testing is not administered equally to all athletes. It's been mentioned here before how certain locales offer an excuse for the runner to be unavailable, and the money from sponsors doesn't hurt either. The IAAF has allowed a Frankenstein monster situation to build when it comes to North and East African distance runners, just as it did with American sprinters - who were busy pointing fingers at the Eastern bloc runners, and it turned out the American sprinters were just as dirty. The truth will come out eventually.

Gimme!,

After all the discussion related to Vieren (sp?) in the '70's, I thought it was very clear that blood doping was at least unethical. Why? Because putting one's own blood back into their system creates an artificially high concentration of red cells. To me, this constitutes an unfair advantage. Why do I feel it is an UNFAIR advantage? Because it is an artificial created situation, that the body will actually correct. If he increased his red cell count through natural stimuli (i.e. training, improved eating, etc.), it would be fair and ethical, but to achieve it by shooting additional blood into his system is, in my opinion, both unfair and unethical.

Wayne

gimme, i concede. you're right. i'm gonna hook up with a chemist and get him to manufacture all sorts of newfangled drugs that improve my performance. none of them have been banned yet, and hey, i'm just trying to boost my performance, so bugger off.

WB stop training because your body will correct it's self after a bit of lazy activity. Lasse Viren maybe the best ever. WB also live in a grass hut with no shoes to run in either because those nikes & alitude tent are an unfair advantage. You starting to bore me with youR ethics. See you at the races, do you run?

black now you are being smart. good luck to you.