Doug Logan (ex-CEO of USATF) publicly endorses PEDs

Makes me glad they canned him, the old fool.

Yeah, sayonara Doug

But he is absolutely right. The tests have been easy to beat. The granting of TUEs probably somewhat an insiders game, and on the international circuit, local federations are a joke.

Read Tyler Hamilton's book The Secret Race. By bringing it into the open, the athlete can at least get real medical advice and at a minimum decide on their health. It can't be worse than the present situation.

I think making athletics into a PED free-for-all would be a death-knell for the sport - maybe most sports. If you dreamed of being an elite runner, even trying to succeed without taking PEDs would be pointless when you knew the competition had such a large advantage. There would no longer really be the issue of having to resist the temptation to cheat. It would just be standard procedure.

All NCAA athletes would be taking PEDs to try to achieve good performances that would get them noticed by potential sponsors. Even lesser college athletes would need to take PEDs just so they didn't get utterly demolished by the PED-using competition. High school athletes would be taking PEDs to try to get college scholarships, or even just to help them beat the cross-town rivals, who would also be using. It wouldn't be long before insane little-league parents all had their kids jacked up on a cocktail of drugs so they could make the traveling all-star team.

Maybe a couple of decades later, lots of people would start dropping dead from unusual cancers, or other illnesses caused by rampant PED use.

If you think your description doesn't apply to the present state of athletics, I think you are naive.

high time wrote:

If you think your description doesn't apply to the present state of athletics, I think you are naive.

+1

Believe me, I'm as cynical and jaded about running (and sports in general) as just about anyone, but no, I don't believe every top NCAA athlete, or HS athlete, is using PEDs. If Jim Ryun could run a 1:44 in college almost 50 years ago (before powerful PEDs existed), I don't see why modern NCAA athletes with better equipment, facilities, and coaching can't at least approach that. And I'm sure PED use takes place at the HS level, but I tend to believe it is not a huge factor in HS running.

However, I believe this environment would cease to exist with the legalization of PEDs. PEDs would become a crutch even for those who were physically and mentally capable of great performances naturally.

Gamera wrote:

I think making athletics into a PED free-for-all would be a death-knell for the sport - maybe most sports.

It is a free-for-all in most sports - baseball, football, basketball, hockey, boxing, MMA, etc. All doped to the gills. Even golf has PED users.

What kills a sport is when you talk about it. Then it becomes clear that there could be an inherent unfairness in the sport.

Some argue that if you make doping legal then the unfairness goes away - it "levels the playing field". This is not true for several reasons. Not everyone can afford the same drugs, not everyone responds the same way to the drugs. Most importantly, not everyone has the same risk threshold. The result is that the best performances all come from natural freaks who respond well to PEDs and who are also wealthy and willing to push themselves to unhealthy extremes. Not saying that doesn't happen already, but do we want to be endorsing that behavior?

I don't buy the "they're all adults" argument either, because kids look up to sports athletes. They emulate their behaviors.

The article quotes a conversation with James Andrews about Tommy John surgery. I don't know if anyone here has read his book, "Any Given Monday", but he is absolutely adamant that there is no surgery on the planet that will make your body stronger or better than it was before the surgery (and injury). I think he also warns about steroids too.

I just love the idea of secret Caribbean (or indeed Kenyan) drug labs that are ahead of WADA.

Gamera wrote:

I think making athletics into a PED free-for-all would be a death-knell for the sport - maybe most sports.

I agree. You've got a son who is a good athlete and wants to go to the next level? You start having to worry about which doctor to go see.

People want sports to be about who is the best athlete, not who has the best doctor. Maybe now the doctors are more involved than we'd like to admit, but generally people view sports as something that uplifts us.

Think what it would do to women's power sports.

Gamera wrote: However, I believe this environment would cease to exist with the legalization of PEDs. PEDs would become a crutch even for those who were physically and mentally capable of great performances naturally.

Add TUEs to PEDs. There will be other enhancers invented in the future.

Athletes will always look for an edge. It's because of money and prestige. For anyone who claims it is not about the money, being a top runner is a huge ego boost.

eurodonkey wrote:

The article quotes a conversation with James Andrews about Tommy John surgery. I don't know if anyone here has read his book, "Any Given Monday", but he is absolutely adamant that there is no surgery on the planet that will make your body stronger or better than it was before the surgery (and injury). I think he also warns about steroids too.

I just love the idea of secret Caribbean (or indeed Kenyan) drug labs that are ahead of WADA.

That was the most interesting thing about his whole blog post, the secret labs. Does he have some knowledge/rumor knowledge?

Gamera wrote:

I think making athletics into a PED free-for-all would be a death-knell for the sport

It's the other way around.

Getting rid of the emphasis on peds will be good for athletics.

Idk who Doug Logan is but he's right.

It would be very dangerous if more people felt compelled to use drugs to run faster.

Remove the rule and you know more people would use.

Letting cheaters win is the lessor of the evils.

* wrote:

It would be very dangerous if more people felt compelled to use drugs to run faster.

Remove the rule and you know more people would use.

Letting cheaters win is the lessor of the evils.

I don't think that is even debatable. It would be silly for any serious competitor not to use if PEDs were legal. In fact, serious college programs would probably require that their runners use EPO as part of their training, in the same way they presumably have to lift weights, do morning runs, and whatever else the coaching staff suggests. If it was known that all the Arkansas team were using EPO legally, and they were kicking the crap out of Wisconsin, then of course Wisconsin would start using EPO too. Not doing so would be basically the same as giving up. Refusing to use PEDs would start to make as much sense as refusing to wear spikes in a race even though every other team was wearing them.

As soon as doping was legalized, imagine what your typical D1 NCAA college football weightroom would be like. Muscle-bound behemoths pumping themselves full of anything and everything they could get their hands on, just to keep pace with what they knew their rivals were surely doing. Things would get ugly fast. I'm sure there is an aspect of that going on already, but there is still some semblance of an attempt to cover it up and deny it, and presumably some athletes who are clean, or relatively clean. If roids became legal, and athletes were not only permitted to use them, but given access to as much as they could handle administered by competent medical staff (which would surely happen right away on just about any team that cares about winning), there is no telling what sort of human monstrosities would start appearing on the field.

And as Wejo alluded to in an earlier post, I wouldn't even want to imagine the Olympic Women's 100m final.

* wrote:

It would be very dangerous if more people felt compelled to use drugs to run faster.

Remove the rule and you know more people would use.

Letting cheaters win is the lessor of the evils.

99 percent of people in the U.S. use drugs, and therefore cheat according to you haha; you probably use them yourself.

Personally I don't care what you do, as what you do is your choice.

But if you think taking drugs, or draining all the blood out of your body or whatever, is going to make you any faster, you're a fool.

Doug Logan decided to start writing on speedendurance website to get people talking. Doug is welcome to his opinion. However, my belief is we need to fight PEDs at all costs. Honestly, one of my biggest problems in this whole discussion is how PEDs take away from truely gifted and hardworking athletes. I want to echo the concern others have raised about the message it sends to young people. In my gym the kids know if they are caught doing PEDs they are out of my program. I want the results that happen in my program come from a good diet, smart lifting, and running fast.

I do find it very odd the weird divergent path we are in this country. On one hand we have NFL football players worrying about head injuries and the long term effects of repeated blows to the head. But, no one will truely address the elephant in the room of rampant PED abuse. Junior Seau took his life and many people pointed to concussions. Sean Meriman who was busted for PEDs almost killed himself on Drug overdose. The message sent is extremely powerful. I know a number of people who visit this site might have even watched a movie called bigger, faster, and stronger. The director of the movie almost makes it seem as if PEDs are ok. Even though a short time later his brother died after the movie was released. We live in a world were people say smoking is terrible (removing it from almost every public venue) but smoking dope is ok(everyday that goes by it is decriminalized more). Think about how odd that is!? Anything that makes a week old cheese sandwich look delicious and Jonas Brothers sounds good in the long run can’t be good for you.

Truth is no one wants to step up and strart hammering these fools. The sport leagues dont want to really do anything about it because its about money and having athletes act almost like gladiators. In some respects creating a veil of testing to keep the do gooders at bay while the remaining injectible freaks can still take their rocket fuel and make that money.

I long time ago when I was a freshman in college I was at a party and talked to a guy who once was a strength coach for the Scottish Claymores in NFL Europe. That night he broke my heart telling me that almost everyone in the league was on PEDs except for a few freaks like Randy Moss were on something. I have to tell you I have more respect for Randy Moss ever since that night.

The thing that makes me the most angry is I believe you can break most world records without PEDs. Are they going to be harder to achieve? Yes. Do you need some genetic gifts? Yes. Do you need a good coach? Yes. Do you have to obey the 10,000 hour rule? Probobly. Do you have to be lucky? Yes.

But these are all the reasons why world records are supposed to be special.

While we're at it, let's get rid of blood letting too, and doctors, and chemical companies.

J.R. wrote:

Gamera wrote:

I think making athletics into a PED free-for-all would be a death-knell for the sport

It's the other way around.

Getting rid of the emphasis on peds will be good for athletics.

Idk who Doug Logan is but he's right.

No, No, No, No, No.

Logan is being idiotic.

Making the penalties STRONGER is what the sport needs. The penalties need to be So Prohibitive that to even think of cheating would be pointless.