Would you use PEDs if it meant the differnce abject poverty and hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars?

Yes

Let's talk about this wrote:

Isn't it naive of us to assume that East Africans would choose not to use PEDs which would help them and their families escape destitution, hunger, and disease out of some high minded ideal that their use would be unfair to the already rich westerners (who likely have easier access to drugs)?

If sub-elite destitute farmers were cheating with PEDS, you would have so many champion level east africans complaining about the "cheaters" who aren't that good naturally and who started taking PEDS and winning races. After all it is taking away your earning and your winnings if someone less talented dopes and beats you. Do you hear any of that, like you do on and on and constantly in the west? The higher volume itself points to more doping in the west.

WOULD YOU ROB A BANK IF IT MEANT NOT BEING IN POVERTY?

This is a question that goes right to the heart of our moral and human centers. Using PED's is a cheat, and cowardly route to getting what you want, and is NO DIFFERENT than being a thief, on a grand scale if you are a professional athlete.

If you aren't a professional athlete, it is not the same, it is to that person's own detriment if they suffer health consequences from using them but otherwise there isn't really a victim.

But in sports, there are MANY victims. You cheat your fellow athletes out of victory, out of money, out of sponsorship opportunities, out of records even if you are beating others who are playing by the rules. You are defrauding your sponsors by completing your work using illegal methods. You cheat and defraud the fans who pay money to come to the meets, and support their favorite athletes who they believe are honest. It has NOTHING to do with whether they work hard or not.

You think successful criminals are often stupid? NO, many are often very capable and intelligent, hard working. Hard working enough to figure out how to scheme theuir way to money and riches. Hard working enough to keep up a massive charade for years, and trick many people into thinking that somehow THEY are the victim when people say "cheater". People like Floyd Landis for example, write books feigning innocence, and pleading for financial support in their defense. People like Marion Jones write books doing the same thing, feigning ignorance and innocence and then pretending to be some goodwill ambassador for the sake of children while still perepetuating all the BS.

People that answer yes if they were a pro athlete and would use PEDs and cheat, are the very reason it continues, because you seem incapable of connecting the dots that you are corrupting and cheating many honest people out of what they have rightly earned by your myopic view and your planet-sized egos.

It's not just the west, it is everywhere. A good example is my training partner qualified and competed in the world junior championships in Beijing in 2006. He competed against and soundly beat guys who had a significant progression spike following their step up to seniors. A good example here in Australia, typically we have athletes who are always in the mix for finals and in afew cases medals at a world youth and world junior level. Within a year of enetering senior competition these athletes have seen natural progression yet are all of a sudden losing by a considerable margin to people they previously beat. The problem in Australia is that with so many other sports/high cost of living they quit the sport more often than not. If PED's such as steroids were legal to import/ more mainstream like the United States you would see more white/anglo performers and hence not be as quick to discern nationality with drug use. The majority with opportunity will dope.

You just dont get it. Doping will always continue. Every professional athlete has some success as a junior. The most dedicated of which have spend near on full-time work hours from a young age training and recovering. In the sport of track unless your top 10 in the world you dont make an average salary. Your arguement boils down to forcing a young junior to decide between giving up and throwing his talent and hard work out the window to ethically not do what the elite are already doing. Will he get paid for doing this? Nobody will know that this person has decided to forego drugs and he will essentially have given up everything to be an insignificant also ran.

You can look at it from this stand point. You are Usain Bolt, doping is rife within olympic finalists. You are capable of running sub 10.0 but thats not good enough to beat the athletes doping. Do you decide to continue just for fun and fade into obscurity or do you prove your the best.

Your post its completely irrelent due to what your askingg athletes to give up. And if your rebuttal revolves around the fact that we dont know iff they are doping it only further illustrates the point I am making.

Deciding to put in 6+ hours of training per day is a huge risk. There is no reward for failure, and in this sport 11th or 12th in the world is failure. In Jamaica 9.99 is failure and obscurity. Its not NFL with the 11th best CB in the nation earning millions.

In theory, NO! But sometimes the brain often makes us do things that we wouldn't do, when we're in situations that we are unacustomed.

It would be difficult to say whether we would or wouldn't take PEDS if we were in poverty because most of us are lucky enough not to be in that postion.

I have a friend (a Sudanese refugee) who spent most of his childhood growing up in Ethiopia. I asked him about the topic of this message board, and whether Ethiopian athletes would use PEDs to cheat. In his words, "if you were revealed to be cheating, your family and your closest friends would shun you and it would be better to die than to bring that type of dishonor to your people." So apparently there is a strong ethic of not cheating woven into the tribal culture of Ethiopian people. I asked him more about the culture of Ethiopia and he talked about how they run all the time. It is woven into their culture. For example, after a big wedding celebration, they all get together and start to have running races for fun. Can you imagine people in an affluent western country decided to all go for a run after a wedding celebration just because everyone is gathered together and it would be fun? I think this explains why East Africans can dominate running. It's culture not PEDs that explains their ability as distance runners.

Would you use PEDs if it meant the differnce abject poverty and hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars?

Yes.

I trust this guy and think he is telling the truth. And this is backed up by Renato Canova who I truly believe his athletes are clean. How are Kenyans so successful from a young age and in such higher numbers successful if in such object poverity that they can afford a mass influx of drugs? It doesn't make sense, unless the Kenyans aren't cheating(and Ethopians). Now Morroco, Bahrain, Qatar, that's another story(especially on the womans side)