Kawauchi continues to be our hero -he isn't opposed to athletes being mandates to wear GPS devices to prevent doping

For guys like Yuki a GPS shackle is not big deal. Now for top athletes that like to train and play around the world .... the uproar will be major. Could image wives of some of the top guys knowing where their husbands were at all time? Marital disaster is in their future.

rojo wrote:

"I think things like whereabouts are going to become even stricter now, and that could become a real burden for a lot of athletes," he said. "It would be better if they made us all wear GPS tracking devices."

That's a dumb idea wrote:

So will cry out the guilty.

I see how a GPS would make is easier to locate athletes for testing.

How is that going to prevent doping? Will there be more testing because it is easier?

It isn't the solution this person wants it to be.

I'll call someone to deliver my EPO. NOPers can still go see their favorite endocrinologist in Texas.

They should take it a step farther and have device that jabs for a sample and monitors it for known anomalies. If something is detected a cattle prod like shock is delivered.

What is a pain for the elites is having to declare where exactly you're going to be to doping controls months in advance and having to update any change in plans. It is a pain. I can see where GPS could help for surprise out of competition tests could help if something comes up and you have to make a sudden trip a couple hours away, but for any big changes known in advance athletes should still have to update on their whereabouts.

Also as far as a GPS we all already carry one on us. It's called our cell phones. I'm sure doping control could figure out how to use those for tracking purposes.

Primo Numero Uno wrote:

What is a pain for the elites is having to declare where exactly you're going to be to doping controls months in advance and having to update any change in plans.

It's a website. If your plans change, just login and change it. Not a big deal.

pop_pop!_v2.1.1 wrote:

It's a website. If your plans change, just login and change it. Not a big deal.

You obviously never had a need to log in.

rojo wrote:

Speaking of Kawauchi, I was on youtube today and shocked to see that my 11-second video of him from New York City has over 10,000 views. The next most popular has just 3,000.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FutpnnPU4tk

All NYC videos are here:

https://www.youtube.com/user/letsrundotcom/videos?sort=dd&shelf_id=1&view=0

A guy like Kawauchi is what the sport should be about. He holds down a fulltime job and trains hard in his spare time using his brain to get the most out of his running with the time he has available. He doesn't indulge himself in special training camps in foreign countries nor does he visit special doctors to be given hormones.

People can relate to someone like that and that is why your video got so many views.

If the governing bodies effectively made track and field amateur again, a large part of the doping problem would be eliminated and the sport would actually grow in popularity again.

All they really need to do is perfect hair-follicle testing. Then it doesn't matter where the athlete goes, just don't let them cut their hair until they turn it in to the lab.

There is no test window, what ends up in your hair stays there forever. In 100 years they can dig you up and find out what drugs you took. You can't cheat the test with masking agents. I guess you can still pay a bribe though.

Hold on a minute! International athletes are still human beings with certain basic rights. Their sport is their job; it's how they earn their living. anyone who works has to accept certain rules and restrictions during hours of work. but I'm not aware of any job where your employer can demand to know where you are 24 hours a day. We have to keep a sense of proportion here. and how would knowing the exact whereabouts of the Russian athletes (and Kenyan?) have prevented the doping in that country?

Sometime soon someone should suggest, that in order to lift the ban on Russia, they need to kick in some BIG TIME CASH. I like the idea of $1 billion dollars, but without going through the trouble of currency conversion, I probably could get my head around $100 billion rubles. This should be enough to fund a MAJOR upgrade in testing and enforcement at the world level.

mark b wrote:

Hold on a minute! International athletes are still human beings with certain basic rights. Their sport is their job; it's how they earn their living. anyone who works has to accept certain rules and restrictions during hours of work. but I'm not aware of any job where your employer can demand to know where you are 24 hours a day. We have to keep a sense of proportion here. and how would knowing the exact whereabouts of the Russian athletes (and Kenyan?) have prevented the doping in that country?

Don't be reasonable, this is letsrun!

Preposterous....athletes are now criminals under house arrest? Does this tracking idea apply to the NFL, NBA, ITA, etc, or just track & field? Ironic that the lowest paying of the pro sports has the strictest standards.

Snowpocalypse wrote:

mark b wrote:

Hold on a minute! International athletes are still human beings with certain basic rights. Their sport is their job; it's how they earn their living. anyone who works has to accept certain rules and restrictions during hours of work. but I'm not aware of any job where your employer can demand to know where you are 24 hours a day. We have to keep a sense of proportion here. and how would knowing the exact whereabouts of the Russian athletes (and Kenyan?) have prevented the doping in that country?

Don't be reasonable, this is letsrun!

He isn't being reasonable. He claims that because he has never heard of a job that requires such tracking, that it does not exist or that it shouldn't exist. Both ideas are false.

I don't think whereabouts is the problem. GPS won't predict the movements of an athlete for a start, if an athlete is in say Oregon, they may not be there tomorrow. Testers don't want to be chasing athletes around, they need to be able to decide dates and places to test a particular athlete well in advance. Also, too many whereabouts failures leads to a ban anyway. Dodging the testers isn't a great method of cheating.

The way to improve the number of athletes that are caught is to invest more in an independent anti-doping agency that performs far more tests in every country. Perhaps how it should work is the athletes have to go to the testers, this could save on costs. If you want to compete internationally then you should be registered with this world anti-doping agency, be told when you have to check in and wherever you are you have to go to the closest centre to you at that time. This would stop unknowns from appearing from nowhere and suddenly winning diamond leagues and running elite times.

Bad Wigins wrote:

All they really need to do is perfect hair-follicle testing. Then it doesn't matter where the athlete goes, just don't let them cut their hair until they turn it in to the lab.

There is no test window, what ends up in your hair stays there forever. In 100 years they can dig you up and find out what drugs you took. You can't cheat the test with masking agents. I guess you can still pay a bribe though.

"All they need to do is perfect some magic science test that doesn't exist yet and everything will be great"

That Rojo even promoted this on the boards makes me sick. I'm not going to enjoy it, but starting today I am not going to visit this site anymore. I refused to click on any doping related articles on the front page, but even insinuating that such a draconian task should be considered....sigh.