Nothing you say is any different from what you say in any other thread about doping. I may as well be questioning the existence of God to an evangelist.
Nothing you say is any different from what you say in any other thread about doping. I may as well be questioning the existence of God to an evangelist.
rekrunner wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
You never addressed one of my points - and nor did you contend with those supplied in the articles I provided links to - because you can make no credible response to any of them. You typically ignore what you cannot disprove and then choose to re-state or misrepresent arguments so that you might discredit or refute them. It is what you always do in every thread on the subject of doping when confronted with an opposing view. You troll others - and dishonesty is part of your method.
You further say there has not been any debate over the course of the thread - so why do you persist in commenting and only in response to mine? If you aren't debating, what are you doing? Is endless tiresome repetition of your own opinions your objective?
I realise that on social media generally and in a thread like this - which you seem to forget I originated as the OP - there will be some who choose to comment who have little knowledge of the subject of the thread , or whose agenda is to deny any claim of doping, or who are simply here to give vent to their particular personality disorder (of whom there are quite a few). In your case, it appears it could be all three.
You whine like a baby when your sensibilities are offended but the answer to your objections is quite simple: don't come here, don't read the comments, don't bother to respond, or start your own thread - but whatever you do you are unlikely to find an echo chamber that matches perfectly your particular parcel of delusions.
I responded to all of your points collectively. My response to your points was that if you put them all together, you cannot logically conclude "Nadal shows doping", unless you assumed it in the first place, because of the many knowledge gaps and logic fails. It's not so much that you have an opposing view, but that your "headline" cannot be supported without liberal doses of faith - a faith which I do not take for granted.
I could ask about small details like where tennis' #4 doping ranking comes from -- according to WADA's latest ADRV report, tennis is not even in the top 10. But then what would be the point? That might come across as pedantic.
The rest seems to be a lot of fabrication, if not projection, in your post but I'll just highlight one I find illuminating -- you think I'm looking for an "echo chamber", as if that is the kind of thing that anyone should be looking for. I don't seek the emotional support of others saying things I like to hear. Is that why you started this thread?
Nothing you say is any different to what you say in any other thread about doping .
Armstronglivs wrote:
Dope Hardstrong wrote:
Of course Dick Pound was the head of WADA. He was the founder. I still think he's bitter that his idea didn't work out like he hoped it would so he just hurled accusations.
You should have started following Nadal earlier when he beat Pat Cash as a virtual child.
He beat Moya when he was 16 and Federer when e was 17
Do you really think Uncle Toni doped him as a child?
Nadal didn't beat Pat Cash as a child. At 15 he played an exhibition match against a retired player in his forties, which he narrowly lost.
Contemporaries of Nadal have said that as a junior he was just one of many other young Spanish players, and that the players who stood out were Djokovic and Murray.
I have seen video footage of a young Nadal. There was nothing truly exceptional about him - either physically or in his game. I saw him play a final at age 17, when he lost to the journeyman Hrbaty. Again he didn't signal that he was going to become anything like the player he has. That year he suddenly became transformed physically, developing what a former top French player described as "construction worker arms". He also transformed his stamina - which had been suspect. In his first match against Federer he wilted in the final set to lose it 0-6. Contemporaries said that in the time he took off the tour in 2004 he went from being another routine Spanish claycourter to "the monster" described by other players. This has all the hallmarks of doping (through growth hormone) more than physical maturation. I can well believe that those developing Nadal as a player knew when he was a junior that the best chance of maximising his success as a player would require physical attributes that would give him an edge over his competitors.
.
A young man suddenly transforming at 17 is totally normal. Millions of guys would tell you this.
Cash was born in '65 and played Nadal in 2001.
Armstronglivs wrote:
Nothing you say is any different to what you say in any other thread about doping .
Ditto.
This thread isn't really about doping per se, but about suspected doping based on performance.
rekrunner wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
Nothing you say is any different to what you say in any other thread about doping .
Ditto.
This thread isn't really about doping per se, but about suspected doping based on performance.
Which never results in a conclusion of doping - for you. That's ok- you're entitled to your religious beliefs.
Armstronglivs wrote:
rekrunner wrote:
Ditto.
This thread isn't really about doping per se, but about suspected doping based on performance.
Which never results in a conclusion of doping - for you. That's ok- you're entitled to your religious beliefs.
You show him, girl!
Armstronglivs wrote:
rekrunner wrote:
Ditto.
This thread isn't really about doping per se, but about suspected doping based on performance.
Which never results in a conclusion of doping - for you. That's ok- you're entitled to your religious beliefs.
Maybe now we are in agreement.
There are accepted ways to logically draw conclusions from sufficient data.
In these doping "suspicion" threads, we can only draw conclusions based on our beliefs, because there is insufficient knowledge to logically draw conclusions from the known facts. There is just enough for speculation and suspicion.
Dope Hardstrong wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
Nadal didn't beat Pat Cash as a child. At 15 he played an exhibition match against a retired player in his forties, which he narrowly lost.
Contemporaries of Nadal have said that as a junior he was just one of many other young Spanish players, and that the players who stood out were Djokovic and Murray.
I have seen video footage of a young Nadal. There was nothing truly exceptional about him - either physically or in his game. I saw him play a final at age 17, when he lost to the journeyman Hrbaty. Again he didn't signal that he was going to become anything like the player he has. That year he suddenly became transformed physically, developing what a former top French player described as "construction worker arms". He also transformed his stamina - which had been suspect. In his first match against Federer he wilted in the final set to lose it 0-6. Contemporaries said that in the time he took off the tour in 2004 he went from being another routine Spanish claycourter to "the monster" described by other players. This has all the hallmarks of doping (through growth hormone) more than physical maturation. I can well believe that those developing Nadal as a player knew when he was a junior that the best chance of maximising his success as a player would require physical attributes that would give him an edge over his competitors.
.
A young man suddenly transforming at 17 is totally normal. Millions of guys would tell you this.
Cash was born in '65 and played Nadal in 2001.
Cash retired in '97, after a succession of injuries. He was a grass court player who played Nadal in an exhibition set on clay, which he narrowly won.
Millions of guys do mature at 17 or thereabouts (perhaps you and I both) but there had been no one on the tour who showed the same massive overnight transformation as Nadal, which ensured the attention he received. No player had looked like him. Nor have we seen any equivalent since - or we would be talking about them. Perhaps you could name them?
You might also wish to explain his transformation back to "little Rafa" in 2009 when he lost over 7kg of muscle over a year and his groundstroke power went from 120kph at the beginning of the year to 107kph by year's end, when he couldn't take a set off another top ten player. Wilander couldn't explain it but said Nadal "played the same way but was smaller and less powerful". (I guess he "de-matured"). Nadal wasn't injured but said he lacked "confidence". I'm sure he did. That, incidentally was the year that the ITF introduced its drug whereabouts" rule - which Nadal strongly protested against. If he had stopped doping during the year that would have explained the diminution in his physique and his game.
At the end of the year it was revealed the authorities weren't rigorously enforcing their own rule. Within a month Nadal was physically back to where he had been a year earlier, putting the muscle back on and hitting 120kph groundstrokes.
rekrunner wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
Which never results in a conclusion of doping - for you. That's ok- you're entitled to your religious beliefs.
Maybe now we are in agreement.
There are accepted ways to logically draw conclusions from sufficient data.
In these doping "suspicion" threads, we can only draw conclusions based on our beliefs, because there is insufficient knowledge to logically draw conclusions from the known facts. There is just enough for speculation and suspicion.
I don't share your religious beliefs.
Nadal recently finished in the top places at a golf tournament.
The point was that your history is hazy and not accurate. Nadal was a actually only 14 and Cash was well under 40 and Nadal won against him.
Also Nadal beat Federer the first time he played him, lost the next time (the collapse you spoke of) then won the third time.
I would say Becker sort of blossomed at 17 too. Really any of the teen slam champions did.
Dominance ...
is always a sure sign of doping .
a core tenet , when see that dominance over many years in a highly competitive event .
Also the explosive ,high intensity nature of event also suggests this when a natural burns out quite quick like in sprinting .
The biochemistry and endocrine sys, just can't handle stress and gets destroyed.
Another tenet and obvious that can't turn donkey into racehorse , these guys always had it , just getting to next level is what seeing .
So obvious with top 3 over what now 15 years , not physically possible naturally
And the other two started doping in early 20's , just Nadal got in there alittle earlier
and his real dominance still took afew years to come and perfect the regime like serbian .
Timing important as always with new dope like speed peptide ,
and can't wait about regardless of age and when Spaniard,s team got hold of it , that is when start just happened to be younger than others and anyways a ped that can take when younger and more gains in long run to be had.
What Swiss got hands on it , way before most 2003/4 then Spaniard 2005 to then serb in 2008 . All about timing ,doping.
And there were others in that timeline , but had less to build on initially and never quite got there , a French player and then the Brits as usual with , sorry the Scot ., , Other Swiss player and afew others .
Are you guys still arguing with this 67 yo third world infidel troll? Lol
Dope Hardstrong wrote:
The point was that your history is hazy and not accurate. Nadal was a actually only 14 and Cash was well under 40 and Nadal won against him.
Also Nadal beat Federer the first time he played him, lost the next time (the collapse you spoke of) then won the third time.
I would say Becker sort of blossomed at 17 too. Really any of the teen slam champions did.
So Nadal winning an exhibition match against a retired player a few weeks shy of his 15th birthday is proof that he didn't dope over a nearly 20 year career - notwithstanding the widespread suspicions that have accompanied him over that time? Ok.
You have very little to say about the strange and precipitate decline he showed in 2009 - which no one could explain - or the view of a top WADA official who confided to me that Nadal and most other Spaniards are doped.
It's possible to take the view that the case against Nadal hasn't been proven beyond doubt, but to discount doping as a possibility is to be living in a dream world. You might ask yourself, what would the winner of 13 French Opens play like if he had doped - and wasn't clean, as you believe? There are those who say his French slams are the greatest achievement in sport. If he is clean, that means his titles are better than any doped performance - like Armstrong's 7 yellow jerseys. Really?
aduck2022 wrote:
Dominance ...
is always a sure sign of doping .
a core tenet , when see that dominance over many years in a highly competitive event .
Also the explosive ,high intensity nature of event also suggests this when a natural burns out quite quick like in sprinting .
The biochemistry and endocrine sys, just can't handle stress and gets destroyed.
Another tenet and obvious that can't turn donkey into racehorse , these guys always had it , just getting to next level is what seeing .
So obvious with top 3 over what now 15 years , not physically possible naturally
And the other two started doping in early 20's , just Nadal got in there alittle earlier
and his real dominance still took afew years to come and perfect the regime like serbian .
Timing important as always with new dope like speed peptide ,
and can't wait about regardless of age and when Spaniard,s team got hold of it , that is when start just happened to be younger than others and anyways a ped that can take when younger and more gains in long run to be had.
What Swiss got hands on it , way before most 2003/4 then Spaniard 2005 to then serb in 2008 . All about timing ,doping.
And there were others in that timeline , but had less to build on initially and never quite got there , a French player and then the Brits as usual with , sorry the Scot ., , Other Swiss player and afew others .
To believe that a totally dominant athlete in this era can be clean requires that doping is ineffective. Yet it remains rife in so many sports. Why - if it doesn't really work? It means that some of the most talented sportsmen who dope still cannot succeed against the very best clean athletes. It also requires believing that amongst the most talented sportsmen none are doping. So, for 13 French Opens Nadal has never doped and he has seen off those competitors who will have. Welcome to a world of fairytales.
Armstronglivs wrote:
Dope Hardstrong wrote:
The point was that your history is hazy and not accurate. Nadal was a actually only 14 and Cash was well under 40 and Nadal won against him.
Also Nadal beat Federer the first time he played him, lost the next time (the collapse you spoke of) then won the third time.
I would say Becker sort of blossomed at 17 too. Really any of the teen slam champions did.
So Nadal winning an exhibition match against a retired player a few weeks shy of his 15th birthday is proof that he didn't dope over a nearly 20 year career - notwithstanding the widespread suspicions that have accompanied him over that time? Ok.
You have very little to say about the strange and precipitate decline he showed in 2009 - which no one could explain - or the view of a top WADA official who confided to me that Nadal and most other Spaniards are doped.
It's possible to take the view that the case against Nadal hasn't been proven beyond doubt, but to discount doping as a possibility is to be living in a dream world. You might ask yourself, what would the winner of 13 French Opens play like if he had doped - and wasn't clean, as you believe? There are those who say his French slams are the greatest achievement in sport. If he is clean, that means his titles are better than any doped performance - like Armstrong's 7 yellow jerseys. Really?
I was merely pointing out that Nadal was always more than just another Spanish claycourt kid.
Also Nadal won the Australian Open to start 2009. He was injured that year with his knee issues. A loss of power with knee issues is pretty normal.
Both him and Federer tried slimming down to alleviate the stress on their bodies. Federer also lost power when he tried that.
Nadal really isn't freakishly muscled. Many guys have arms like him. The fact that most top tennis players don't strive for those arms doesn't mean much.
Your WADA friend suspects Nadal dopes. He doesn't know he does unless he is involved in a cover up of positives.
Dope Hardstrong wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
So Nadal winning an exhibition match against a retired player a few weeks shy of his 15th birthday is proof that he didn't dope over a nearly 20 year career - notwithstanding the widespread suspicions that have accompanied him over that time? Ok.
You have very little to say about the strange and precipitate decline he showed in 2009 - which no one could explain - or the view of a top WADA official who confided to me that Nadal and most other Spaniards are doped.
It's possible to take the view that the case against Nadal hasn't been proven beyond doubt, but to discount doping as a possibility is to be living in a dream world. You might ask yourself, what would the winner of 13 French Opens play like if he had doped - and wasn't clean, as you believe? There are those who say his French slams are the greatest achievement in sport. If he is clean, that means his titles are better than any doped performance - like Armstrong's 7 yellow jerseys. Really?
I was merely pointing out that Nadal was always more than just another Spanish claycourt kid.
Also Nadal won the Australian Open to start 2009. He was injured that year with his knee issues. A loss of power with knee issues is pretty normal.
Both him and Federer tried slimming down to alleviate the stress on their bodies. Federer also lost power when he tried that.
Nadal really isn't freakishly muscled. Many guys have arms like him. The fact that most top tennis players don't strive for those arms doesn't mean much.
Your WADA friend suspects Nadal dopes. He doesn't know he does unless he is involved in a cover up of positives.
Nadal may have been better than just another Spanish claycourt kid, but he also lost to Gasquet as a junior - who was regarded as the greater talent. He wasn't seen as being the best by some of his contemporaries - Djokovic and Murray were regarded as much tougher. If you see footage of him in his mid teens he wasn't an outstanding athlete for that age group. (Look at footage of him at Wimbledon in 2003. He was "little Rafa".)
Nadal had knee issues from 2005. It didn't stop him from increasing his power over the next 4 years, when he started winning French Opens and then Wimbledon in 2008. He wasn't injured at the AO in 2009, and he wasn't injured when he lost to Soderling at the French in June that year. He claimed injury at Queens to pull out of Wimbledon. He was back on the tour at the next hard court tournament, which was the Canadian Masters. It was a break of only a few weeks - to completely recover from patellar tendonitis. Miraculous. He was not injured when he subsequently played. He said his problem, as he continued to decline for the rest of the year, was lack of "confidence", not injury.
In the years that followed, he frequently claimed knee issues. It didn't result in a reduction of power - or body size - as it had in 2009. He and Federer have never had the same body type or playing style. Federer's physique has never gone through obvious transitions as Nadal's has.
Nadals physique was previously unknown in tennis and there is still no equivalence on the tour today. However it is the combination of court speed, power and stamina that far outrank any other player in a game of exceptional athletes that are the cause for suspicion amongst many. He has frequently claimed injury yet has always recovered without impediment - or even surgery - when it has typically ended careers for others.
My WADA friend is aware that the dopers remain ahead of enforcement and it is his view that many have become expert at this. He sees indicators of doping in many athletes - like Nadal - but without confirmed violations it cannot be proven.
If you think Nadal isn't doping, when you watch him crushing yet another opponent in a marathon slugfest, ask yourself how much faster, stronger, more powerful and more tireless could he be - if he doped?
(Further, if he is doping he won't be the only doped player out there - as I have indicated - so if you believe he is clean he routinely beats dopers. Do you buy that?)
Armstronglivs wrote:
Nadals physique was previously unknown in tennis and there is still no equivalence on the tour today. However it is the combination of court speed, power and stamina that far outrank any other player in a game of exceptional athletes that are the cause for suspicion amongst many. He has frequently claimed injury yet has always recovered without impediment - or even surgery - when it has typically ended careers for others.
My WADA friend is aware that the dopers remain ahead of enforcement and it is his view that many have become expert at this. He sees indicators of doping in many athletes - like Nadal - but without confirmed violations it cannot be proven.
If you think Nadal isn't doping, when you watch him crushing yet another opponent in a marathon slugfest, ask yourself how much faster, stronger, more powerful and more tireless could he be - if he doped?
(Further, if he is doping he won't be the only doped player out there - as I have indicated - so if you believe he is clean he routinely beats dopers. Do you buy that?)
So what your are saying is that Nadal's unique physique, previously unknown to tennis, comes from doping. Despite doping being rife in all sports and in all countries, it did not ever produce a physique like Nadal's -- yet his unique physique, never before seen, nor since, in a sport rife with doping, is a sure sign of doping.
I'm not sure what your WADA friend thinks if you are the one telling it. And even then, I'm not sure how important his view is.
Before asking "how much faster, stronger, more powerful" -- we would need to know a lot more facts about the impact of doping on elite tennis. For examples, some drugs might make you more powerful, but sap your stamina and endurance.
If Nadal is clean, and everyone on the planet doped, he would beat all but a handful. Nadal could even beat that handful, if they are not 100% of their level, say in a crazy year that may have impacted their training, or at the end of a long tournament, where they might be tired, or suffered a strain.
You said above that doping in tennis is "rife" (whatever that means), and they are ranked #4. I said I didn't want to before, but now I'd like to explore that a bit more. According to WADA's latest published ADRV statistics, tennis is not even in the top-10, ranked below aquatics. How are you ranking doping in tennis at #4? Can you provide a link with the data, compared to other sports, that establish this ranking?
rekrunner wrote:
Armstronglivs wrote:
Nadals physique was previously unknown in tennis and there is still no equivalence on the tour today. However it is the combination of court speed, power and stamina that far outrank any other player in a game of exceptional athletes that are the cause for suspicion amongst many. He has frequently claimed injury yet has always recovered without impediment - or even surgery - when it has typically ended careers for others.
My WADA friend is aware that the dopers remain ahead of enforcement and it is his view that many have become expert at this. He sees indicators of doping in many athletes - like Nadal - but without confirmed violations it cannot be proven.
If you think Nadal isn't doping, when you watch him crushing yet another opponent in a marathon slugfest, ask yourself how much faster, stronger, more powerful and more tireless could he be - if he doped?
(Further, if he is doping he won't be the only doped player out there - as I have indicated - so if you believe he is clean he routinely beats dopers. Do you buy that?)
So what your are saying is that Nadal's unique physique, previously unknown to tennis, comes from doping. Despite doping being rife in all sports and in all countries, it did not ever produce a physique like Nadal's -- yet his unique physique, never before seen, nor since, in a sport rife with doping, is a sure sign of doping.
I'm not sure what your WADA friend thinks if you are the one telling it. And even then, I'm not sure how important his view is.
Before asking "how much faster, stronger, more powerful" -- we would need to know a lot more facts about the impact of doping on elite tennis. For examples, some drugs might make you more powerful, but sap your stamina and endurance.
If Nadal is clean, and everyone on the planet doped, he would beat all but a handful. Nadal could even beat that handful, if they are not 100% of their level, say in a crazy year that may have impacted their training, or at the end of a long tournament, where they might be tired, or suffered a strain.
You said above that doping in tennis is "rife" (whatever that means), and they are ranked #4. I said I didn't want to before, but now I'd like to explore that a bit more. According to WADA's latest published ADRV statistics, tennis is not even in the top-10, ranked below aquatics. How are you ranking doping in tennis at #4? Can you provide a link with the data, compared to other sports, that establish this ranking?
You cherrypick my arguments rather than taking them as part of a picture. No one element by itself establishes his doping.
1. Physiques will vary according to the sport. A runner's physique will not be a boxer's or weightlifter's physique. The point to make about Nadal's physique is:
- it changed overnight, in a matter of months in 2004/5. In 2003/4 he was a totally different build.
- his physique has varied significantly at times during his career, such as 2009, when he lost such muscle mass as to make him look just like any other player. He then put that muscle back on within a little over a month.
- his physical type hadn't been seen before in tennis and still hasn't been matched. The most conspicuous feature is that his racket arm development - deltoids and bicep - is extreme for a tennis player. It hasn't come from gym work, as that has never been part of his routine.
- his physique is part of his playing style, which includes strength and power of shot - as shown in his extreme topspin deliveries - that exceeds any other player. He is faster than any other player and yet is tireless, unlike his opponents.
2. Doping in tennis is believed by antidoping to generally include human growth hormone and a variety of steroids to increase strength, as well as testosterone, and EPO as well as drugs like meldonium to increase stamina. The hgh variant is IGF-1, which reduces body fat as well as building muscle. There is no test for it. You are right that tennis players tend not to dope for bulk, as that would slow them down, but the drugs that increase muscle strength without over-sizing are more favored, and especially those that enhance endurance, as well as recovery. It is well established that there are drugs that can enhance every aspect of physical performance, and so a cocktail is what works best for a tennis player - depending on their playing style and where they would be relatively deficient. Greater speed enables a player to get to more balls and on balance, greater strength enables more power delivered more easily, and greater endurance allows the same level of play over an entire match, which also reduces the effect of fatigue on concentration. Players will be less likely to miss.
3. The differential in tennis at the top level is very small. Sets can often be decided by a single point. Any increase in playing capacity will be reflected in better results. If a player like Nadal was to be a step faster, even more powerful and more tireless - hard to imagine, as I have never seen him tire - he would never lose on any surface, barring breaking a leg. Yet to take away a small percentage of his level would drastically reduce the number of his wins. We saw in 2009 that he lost 12% of his groundstroke power; he went from being a grand slam champion who could beat the best player of all time to being unable to win a set off another top-10 player. If he lost only 3-5% he would not have won another slam - that is how close tennis is.
4. Tennis has been identified as having serious doping issues - by Dick Pound/WADA - by antidoping experts (such as the German I linked to earlier, who put it in the big 4 for doping), and by an Al Jazeera special investigation that was published a couple of years ago, that said it was amongst that group that included cycling, track and field, boxing and wrestling and rugby - inside the top 10 at least. It is significant that testing in tennis has long been regarded as weak, with less than 10% of testing being OOC and a total antidoping budget less than what the winner of a slam would receive. Tennis does not want to catch its dopers.
5. The WADA official I spoke with was very highly ranked. You would know his name. However the conversation was private so I can't reveal who it was. At the time spoke to him I referred to a Nadal comeback after yet another prolonged "injury" break and I said to the official that what Nadal was doing was "impossible." He replied, "Yes, it is, he is on EPO - all the Spaniards are, they've been doing it for years - they've gotten really good at it". The official had himself been a tennis player.
I quite accept that some will say none of this definitively proves Nadal dopes. That is true - but we live in a world in which many things are probable without being provable beyond any doubt. I would bet the house, the car, and the dog that he is a tennis doper. (I also have a number of other reasons for concluding that. As I have said - I have followed his career and observed him play since 2004.)
Finally, in considering what I have said, I reiterate that no one point I make establishes the case. There are many dots that may have to be joined to arrive at a conclusion one way or the other. But ultimately the picture more suggests doping than otherwise.
“Doping can make a difference even in technical sports. It’s true that no drug can make a poor tennis player into a good one. But between two excellent tennis players the one who is less tired is more likely to win a tense final set,” explains Gilles Goetghebuer, editor-in-chief of the French magazine Sport and Vie.