Drugs

I say we assume that everyone is on drugs and look at the performances.

Ben Johnson and Brahim Boulami are great athletes that outperformed all of the other athletes that were totally juicing but were not caught (as well as those that were caught).

Innocent until proven guilty? Well this is american right? It is quite hard to swallow that any of the top athletes are clean. As a competitor it comes down to morals perhaps but then again how much pride can you have in being even what you think maybe the fastest person not on the juice? You don't get rewarded for placing 15th. There comes a point when it seems like we are being nieve to compete with these people....on the contrary, are we somewhat dumb in that we are not willing to head down to GNC and pick up some andro for $34.99? It's called the legal steroid and I wonder if the real question of morals comes down to racing on illegal drugs. What if you just take something to help you get through those tough months of training, get off a month before the big race and then pop a big one. I personally see a problem with that but I wonder if even half the eletes out there don't try such schemes. Once again, maybe the rest of us are stupid not to.

With random drug testing the presumption of guilt prevades; we test people for cheating when we have absolutely no evidence to do so. Athletes are currently guilty until they can prove their innocence through testing and if they refuse to try to prove their innocence they get banned.

It is de facto a strict liability offense.

Scooter, are you really going so far as suggest that any athlete that outperforms all others are on performance enhancing drugs?

Were Edwin Moses and Jesse Owens on the juice?

No. I am not suggesting that anyone is on drugs. I am just saying that if you assume everyone is on drugs then there can be no finger pointing. I AM suggesting that some doped athletes that didn\'t get caught may have benefitted by the DQ of athletes that placed above them.

When Ben Johnson was DQ\'ed in \'88 the 2-8 guys all moved up a space. Christie moved from Bronze to Silver and Mitchell moved from 4th to Bronze. They both tested positive later in their careers but were reinstated after appeals. Carl was bumped up to Gold and was never reported with a positive test in his whole career. Passing all the tests still doesn\'t prove your clean as Ben passed all the tests in \'87.

So, if you throw out the whole \"drug thing\" you can see that all of these guys train and compete hard. (By the way, I do not condone the use of drugs nor do I support legalization as I fear that naive athletes will get hurt because they feel that they have to take drugs.)

Keep drugs banned but appreciate a great performance whether they are on drugs or not.

Appreciate a great performance whether they are on drugs or not? Sorry, but when the drugs are the deciding factor that makes a good performance great, I see nothing worth appreciating about the performance at all.

I know more than a few athletes who were knocked off of Olympic teams by drug users who could never beat them without the illegal boost. You want me to "appreciate" those performances. Once again, sorry.

last time I checked Andro is illegal in the NCAA -- I'm guessing the IAAF too. I don't how Mark McGuire lives with himself -- goes from Gumby to Paul Bunyan and gets praise for it.

In defense of McGwire.....He did have the rookie HR record.....and he hit over 50 HR when you said he was in his "gumby" state. Granted he took steriods but that just made all his HR go 550ft not just 400ft.

His rookie HR record is 49 back in 1987.....the major league record was going down at sometime during his career after that performance.

I don't agree with the fact that it only made the HR's go further. I know you were kind of joking but still, it is well known that drugs are a huge factor when it comes to recovery. And when you think about the crazy schedules that baseball players have, practice during the day, play games at night, back to back games night after night, recovery is a factor. And to talk to "Scooter's" post, you don't just pop a pill and run 9.8 for 100m. Recovery, via drugs, opens the door for more work, if you don't do the work, or the right kind of work, you will never run fast.

All of this drug talk makes me appreciate Hank Aaron's home run record even more. The "Hammer" was legit.

I don't think Bonds' body can endure the test of time. He'll end up playing first base sooner or later. When all is said and done, he'll barely eclipse Ruth's #2 spot.