This is about the nature of competitive athletes and whether they will cheat if they have reason to believe they will get away with it. Until we repeat the experiment of applying a test that can catch the vast majority of cheaters who had reason to believe they couldnt be caught at the time of submitting the sample it has to stand as the best evidence available.
Removing all the former Soviet state athletes and the Turks from the 2011 survey and you’re left with about 22 per cent, which is dead in line with my experience.
Most athletes don’t want to cheat and don’t do so. You would also know this if you ever spent any time with any of them.
It isn't "dead in line" with your experience because that would mean you know for a fact who is doping and who isn't. You don't. No one does. But expert estimates put it as high as 90% of top athletes in some sports and some countries. One of them - Renee Ann Shirley, the Jamaican whistleblower - reported that "doping will be found amongst elites in all sports and in all countries, and with the collusion of sports governance bodies". It is in high schools and colleges, local gyms and senior sport. It isn't just Turks and Russians, as you like to think.
You spend enough time in any industry and you learn who’s to be trusted and who is not. Most of the ones at the top are doing this the right way and you had better believe they all talk amongst themselves when they have reason to suspect that they’re toeing the line next to someone who is not. It was that way with Katir: nearly every top middle distance runner, Spanish included, were all saying that he was a filthy cheat years ago. No one believed he was legitimate. This is not some act for my benefit or theirs.
I’ve been involved with top level athletics for a very long time. I don’t doubt for a moment that St. Pierre is legitimate. No one in that group is doing anything outside the rules.
With all due respect, your perspective means nothing on this, unless you spend 24 hours a day with her.
Elle's husband might not even know if she's doping or not. There are hours in a day where athletes are alone and unaccounted for.
My friend found out his grandpa had a 2nd family for 40 years. A wife, 3 kids. In the same state. His other family (he had two kids with his wife) had no idea until he died.
Secrets can be kept.
I want to hear more about your friends grandpa double life. How did he find out?
Most dopers aren't caught. 1% of tests are positive yet athlete surveys have shown many more than that percentage are doping.
Please post a link to literature that supports your claims.
As I said previously before it was deleted by the mods, I am not going to repeat what I have done on other doping-related threads. The claims I have made come from antidoping experts and athlete surveys. You should be aware of these if you have followed the subject.
It isn't "dead in line" with your experience because that would mean you know for a fact who is doping and who isn't. You don't. No one does. But expert estimates put it as high as 90% of top athletes in some sports and some countries. One of them - Renee Ann Shirley, the Jamaican whistleblower - reported that "doping will be found amongst elites in all sports and in all countries, and with the collusion of sports governance bodies". It is in high schools and colleges, local gyms and senior sport. It isn't just Turks and Russians, as you like to think.
You spend enough time in any industry and you learn who’s to be trusted and who is not. Most of the ones at the top are doing this the right way and you had better believe they all talk amongst themselves when they have reason to suspect that they’re toeing the line next to someone who is not. It was that way with Katir: nearly every top middle distance runner, Spanish included, were all saying that he was a filthy cheat years ago. No one believed he was legitimate. This is not some act for my benefit or theirs.
I'm sorry but you won't know who is doping and who isn't. If that were so you would have been able to identify all the Kenyan dopers before they were caught - like Ronex. You would also be able to tell us who else amongst them is doping that is yet to incur a violation. Did you know about those caught in their latest published violations (there was a thread about them)? In essence, you are claiming to be better informed than WADA testers - without your having conducted any tests. Did you know Houlihan was doping before she failed her test? If you know who you can trust you should have known about her. Or did you trust her to be clean?
There are all sorts of aids to run faster, throw farther, hit farther etc. Some legal and some illegal. Think about it. I don't want or suggest this but the only way of making the playing field equal is to make everything legal. But then the richest would have the advantage because they could afford the most and best resources. Where does it end? You would hope that morality would deter many which I am sure it does, but Bob Kennedy said this on a clean sport collective podcast a few years ago in reference to African cheats from the 90s. He said paraphrasing him " the change from growing up living in a mud hutt" changes many from such a poor nation. I knew what he meant. African runners winning $50K or 100K is life changing in such a poor economy so that kind of money changes their life and not so much in America
In the end you guys it doesn't matter what anyone thinks. Thinking is not knowing. Ever heard of "Innocent until proven guilty"?
It isn't a criminal trial, which is what that test applies to. Speculating about who is likely to be doping in a sport known to be affected by doping is legitimate, especially when most of those doping aren't caught.
In the end you guys it doesn't matter what anyone thinks. Thinking is not knowing. Ever heard of "Innocent until proven guilty"?
It isn't a criminal trial, which is what that test applies to. Speculating about who is likely to be doping in a sport known to be affected by doping is legitimate, especially when most of those doping aren't caught.
Actually, I think this speculation is pointless. There are two reasonable outlooks that I see:
1) based on the best available evidence, we can presume that basically everybody is using. There’s no point in speculation on one individual versus another. Just assume that everybody is using. From our experience with the Tour de France, it didn’t matter where a rider came from, their beliefs, career trajectory or habits. They were all using.
2) based on the principle of innocent until proven guilty, unless someone comes back with a positive test, they are presumed to not be using.
Speculating otherwise (this person with no negative test is clean but this other person with no negative test is dirty) is just an exercise in reinforcing one’s biases
This post was edited 1 minute after it was posted.
It isn't a criminal trial, which is what that test applies to. Speculating about who is likely to be doping in a sport known to be affected by doping is legitimate, especially when most of those doping aren't caught.
Actually, I think this speculation is pointless. There are two reasonable outlooks that I see:
1) based on the best available evidence, we can presume that basically everybody is using. There’s no point in speculation on one individual versus another. Just assume that everybody is using. From our experience with the Tour de France, it didn’t matter where a rider came from, their beliefs, career trajectory or habits. They were all using.
2) based on the principle of innocent until proven guilty, unless someone comes back with a positive test, they are presumed to not be using.
Speculating otherwise (this person with no negative test is clean but this other person with no negative test is dirty) is just an exercise in reinforcing one’s biases
Then, according to point one, you are disagreeing with the OP. You are basically saying the opposite.
I am definitely disagreeing with the OP. I think you can only arrive at their conclusion if you apply different (good) logic to different athletes or apply bad logic universally.
This post was edited 11 minutes after it was posted.
You spend enough time in any industry and you learn who’s to be trusted and who is not. Most of the ones at the top are doing this the right way and you had better believe they all talk amongst themselves when they have reason to suspect that they’re toeing the line next to someone who is not. It was that way with Katir: nearly every top middle distance runner, Spanish included, were all saying that he was a filthy cheat years ago. No one believed he was legitimate. This is not some act for my benefit or theirs.
I'm sorry but you won't know who is doping and who isn't. If that were so you would have been able to identify all the Kenyan dopers before they were caught - like Ronex. You would also be able to tell us who else amongst them is doping that is yet to incur a violation. Did you know about those caught in their latest published violations (there was a thread about them)? In essence, you are claiming to be better informed than WADA testers - without your having conducted any tests. Did you know Houlihan was doping before she failed her test? If you know who you can trust you should have known about her. Or did you trust her to be clean?
As I wrote, you spend enough time at the top and you know who is trustworthy and who to keep arm’s length. Who is honest and who’s a charlatan and a fraud.
On Rhonex, I have yet to see the specific case that the AIU is claiming against him, beyond irregularities in the ABP. At this moment, I’m not considering his group as a whole to be one of the suspect ones.
I did not expect Houlihan to test positive, but the rumours were flying that spring about a positive test coming from someone in Schumacher’s group. For Houlihan, her crucial issue was that she could not show any documentation that she purchased what she said she purchased. Testing positive for steroids after consumption of meat in certain parts of the world is a well known issue, such that Usada issued a warning to the Americans a number of years ago against eating food from Central America, against eating food outside an established restaurant versus a street vendor and to also maintain receipts of all food consumed:
Houlihan failed to follow any of those precautions. I find it very hard to believe that she was taking nandrolone as a performance enhancer. It is such an ancient, easily detectable steroid, it would be such a stupid choice of a performance enhancer. If someone in her position were making a concerted effort to go outside the rules, nandrolone would never enter her system. The isotope test on her sample demonstrated that the carbon-12 to carbon-13 ratio was in line with nandrolone that is found in pork products and samples of her hair showed no evidence of nandrolone consumption. But let this show the very high standard to which athletes are kept to today: Houlihan was a medal contender for the Americans and in a different time, it would have been nearly automatic for the American anti doping forces to just accept her explanation, as they had Dennis Mitchell’s absurd explanation for his positive test decades earlier. And yet they did not and instead ended her career.
To those who would claim that there would be numerous athletes testing positive from meat were that possible, it actually does happen, given the source of the meat. If an athlete chooses to holiday in Mexico, they had better keep their receipts because there’s a very real chance that they can test positive for a steroid used in meat production there.
I'm sorry but you won't know who is doping and who isn't. If that were so you would have been able to identify all the Kenyan dopers before they were caught - like Ronex. You would also be able to tell us who else amongst them is doping that is yet to incur a violation. Did you know about those caught in their latest published violations (there was a thread about them)? In essence, you are claiming to be better informed than WADA testers - without your having conducted any tests. Did you know Houlihan was doping before she failed her test? If you know who you can trust you should have known about her. Or did you trust her to be clean?
As I wrote, you spend enough time at the top and you know who is trustworthy and who to keep arm’s length. Who is honest and who’s a charlatan and a fraud.
On Rhonex, I have yet to see the specific case that the AIU is claiming against him, beyond irregularities in the ABP. At this moment, I’m not considering his group as a whole to be one of the suspect ones.
I did not expect Houlihan to test positive, but the rumours were flying that spring about a positive test coming from someone in Schumacher’s group. For Houlihan, her crucial issue was that she could not show any documentation that she purchased what she said she purchased. Testing positive for steroids after consumption of meat in certain parts of the world is a well known issue, such that Usada issued a warning to the Americans a number of years ago against eating food from Central America, against eating food outside an established restaurant versus a street vendor and to also maintain receipts of all food consumed:
Houlihan failed to follow any of those precautions. I find it very hard to believe that she was taking nandrolone as a performance enhancer. It is such an ancient, easily detectable steroid, it would be such a stupid choice of a performance enhancer. If someone in her position were making a concerted effort to go outside the rules, nandrolone would never enter her system. The isotope test on her sample demonstrated that the carbon-12 to carbon-13 ratio was in line with nandrolone that is found in pork products and samples of her hair showed no evidence of nandrolone consumption. But let this show the very high standard to which athletes are kept to today: Houlihan was a medal contender for the Americans and in a different time, it would have been nearly automatic for the American anti doping forces to just accept her explanation, as they had Dennis Mitchell’s absurd explanation for his positive test decades earlier. And yet they did not and instead ended her career.
To those who would claim that there would be numerous athletes testing positive from meat were that possible, it actually does happen, given the source of the meat. If an athlete chooses to holiday in Mexico, they had better keep their receipts because there’s a very real chance that they can test positive for a steroid used in meat production there.
Your arguments about Houlihan undercut everything you have said about knowing who is clean in the sport.