Am I the only one that still gives credit to dopers achievements?

LoneStarXC wrote:

BTW, antibiotics don’t “destroy the immune system”. They kill bacteria. Hence the name, “antibiotics”. Let’s look at amoxicillin, for example, used to treat ear infections, strep throat, and pneumonia, among other things. It works by destroying the cell wall of bacteria.

#1- You apparently don't know that the immune system is composed of bacteria;

#2- Many children have gone deaf from the needless, ignorant, and idiotic use of antibiotics.

I've always thought it would be great to have a special Steroid Olympics - where people can take whatever drugs they want and we see how fast they can go. If we agree Bolt ran 9.58 clean, what could he have run if he'd been on the juice for years beforehand, without needing to even hide it? 8.99? Could Bekele or Geb have gone under 26 mins for 10k?

Well, I guess OP proved that even hell has its heroes.

I have no idea what Mr. Olympia titles are but if Schwarzenegger cheated and cost clean contestants money that was rightfully theirs I'd be fine with stripping him of the titles and humiliating him publicly. Why not?

HRE wrote:

I have no idea what Mr. Olympia titles are but if Schwarzenegger cheated and cost clean contestants money that was rightfully theirs I'd be fine with stripping him of the titles and humiliating him publicly. Why not?

We really need to give up this “cost clean contestants money” mantra. It’s been proven time and time again that anti-doping authorities will let you down in terms of nailing dirty athletes. So, when you are turning up at these games, 100% clean, quite frankly, you aren’t in it to win it.

Being blindly faithful to the abilities of WADA and USADA is what’s costing you the money. That - and your stubborn principles.

Really???!!!!! wrote:

HRE wrote:

I have no idea what Mr. Olympia titles are but if Schwarzenegger cheated and cost clean contestants money that was rightfully theirs I'd be fine with stripping him of the titles and humiliating him publicly. Why not?

We really need to give up this “cost clean contestants money” mantra. It’s been proven time and time again that anti-doping authorities will let you down in terms of nailing dirty athletes. So, when you are turning up at these games, 100% clean, quite frankly, you aren’t in it to win it.

Being blindly faithful to the abilities of WADA and USADA is what’s costing you the money. That - and your stubborn principles.

Chiming in again as the guy that Kiprop stole off.

I reckon I could steal someone's wallet, purchase a few things worth a few hundred bucks, and chuck the wallet away without getting caught - my blind faith in the cops doesn't run high enough that they would catch me.

My "stubborn principles" and social standards are all that stop me from stealing someone's wallet, not the authorities.

Nope I'm with you.

You are 100% correct.

Principles really aren't of much value unless they're stubborn ones. I have no faith in the ability of USADA and WADA to clean up the sport as long as the people currently running USATF, IAAF, etc. are running the sport. No sport can be trusted to police itself. And none of this is costing me any money at all. But as a fan of sports, I want to know what athletes are capable of doing through legitimate talent and preparation. If someone eventually runs a marathon in under two hours I want to know how that compares to what Clayton ran and I can't do that if I think there's a lot of drug use in the two hour time. If I'm going to appreciate Barry Bonds knocking Hank Aaron off the top of the home run list I want to know that all his home runs were legitimate rather than that 20% of them would have been warning track fly balls without PEDs.

Let's imagine that someone manages to sneak into a major marathon a mile into the race, runs 25 miles at 4:50 per mile and out kicks a couple other guys who started at the actual starting line and ran 26.2 miles at 4:50 pace because he's fresher for having run a mile less. Running 25 miles at that pace is a great accomplishment. So you'd be okay with having Mr. 25 Miles winning the race, getting the first place prize money and the greater number of endorsements that would have gone to one of those other guys had Mr. 25 run the same distance?

The drugs give them a physical advantage but it still takes a lot of mental fortitude, hard work and execution to win even with that advantage.

Yeah that 1992 OG 100 sf 1 is here... and that's John Walker commentating.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K2Iq5CLunik

not that broke wrote:

Chiming in again as the guy that Kiprop stole off.

I'm glad that Kiprop kicked your whiny little butt.

In theory having separate "clean" and "anything goes" categories has a lot of appeal. It will never happen. There will be very little interest in the "anything goes" division. Why do virtually all sports now have some sort of testing and anti-drug policies? Because it's very clear that fans want the sports they watch to be clean, natural, etc.

The problem is that this desire is in conflict with, possibly superceding their desire for their favorite teams and athletes to succeed. What fans really want is to believe their favorites are clean and to win. So they tend to believe that their favorites are legitimate and clean and that the drug problem is because others, who they don't like, are using. If you like Rupp and the NOP you're inclined to think it really was Testoboost that he was taking when he was seventeen and that NOP athletes go "right to the line" of what's illegal but not beyond. If you don't like Rupp or NOP you're likely to believe it really was testosterone and that NOP athletes cross that line.

The bind this creates for the people running any of these sports then is to convince fans that their favorites are clean and will watch them perform while not really removing the athletes or teams that fans want to see. So we have window dressing testing and punishment. An "anything goes" sport would not have to deal with this bind. But such a league wouldn't attract much in the line of viewership and the attendant profits. If the people running the NFL, MLB, Diamond League, etc. thought they could do as well financially with competitions where athletes were known to be drugged they'd have started one.

Their physical performances were still impressive but it wasn’t fair or credible. I am impressed by the physical abilities of everybody at that level but I don’t respect them, I respect the clean runners-up more than the cheaters who won.

HRE wrote:

t's very clear that fans want the sports they watch to be clean, natural, etc.

I like clean, natural sports. You don't.

I don't want to be constantly invaded and bombarded with drug BS and nonsense.

Yezzy wrote:

I respect the clean runners-up more than the cheaters who won.

Anyone who accuses someone else of being on drugs is a hypocrite, which means you.

You can't win fair and square, so you try to get other people DQ'd for drugs.

Therefore, based on logic and FACTS, I don't respect you because you're a hypocrite and a cheater.

Another clueless poster wrote:

HRE wrote:

t's very clear that fans want the sports they watch to be clean, natural, etc.

I like clean, natural sports. You don't.

I don't want to be constantly invaded and bombarded with drug BS and nonsense.

Where do you get the idea that I don't like clean, natural, sports and want to be bombarded with drug BS and nonsense?

A hypocrite is a cheater wrote:

Yezzy wrote:

I respect the clean runners-up more than the cheaters who won.

Anyone who accuses someone else of being on drugs is a hypocrite, which means you.

You can't win fair and square, so you try to get other people DQ'd for drugs.

Therefore, based on logic and FACTS, I don't respect you because you're a hypocrite and a cheater.

That’s cool, you’re entitled to your opinion and I am to mine. :) I can't prove who dopes or who doesn’t so I don’t automatically assume an athlete has doped until they are proven to have doped and get DQ’d but it was proven that Lance doped. I don’t believe doping is the norm as much as this board makes it out to be (I think there are a lot of jealous sub-elite runners who want to belittle the performances of true elites) but doping definitely has been routinely used at the top level of endurance sports.

Sorry to use another Bodybuilding example, and to pick on Herr Schwarzenegger again, but it just fits so nicely. First of all, the Mr Olympia competition is, was, and probably will be the pinnacle of all global Bodybuilding competitions. Arnold won it six times, which is still by today's standards quite amazing. He was talking steroids as were pretty much everyone else at the time. He Also was not the first to take them. Sergio Oliva, and many others were taking D-bol, Androgen, Thyromucase, and a whole host of drugs that were and still are forbidden. It came out into the public many times. The freak show got worse in the 80's and some people started pushing for All natural competitions. They still exist, but the sponsorship never took hold as many had hoped it would. It seems that people were simply obsessed with bigger and stronger. Although it is a very different sport, there are amazing similarities. We want to see records get broken. We want a sub 2 hour marathon. We love to watch the elite athletes take it to the next level. At some point, the Bodybuilding community gave up. They have some testing, but it is easy to work around it. Athletics, Track and field as they call it in some countries, is no different. Cycling is the same. Doping is happening across the spectrum. You will not stop it, ever! A bit like crime in general. It is sad, but it is reality. The only way to remove doping from major sports, would be to remove the money that gets earned in those sports. Take away the money and it gets cleaned up quickly. Folks...you can't push a river....