Steve Magness has the best response to this:
https://twitter.com/stevemagness/status/793847167307829248
Pledging to do something has a slight positive effect. This isn't going to change the entire landscape, but incremental progress is progress.
Steve Magness has the best response to this:
https://twitter.com/stevemagness/status/793847167307829248
Pledging to do something has a slight positive effect. This isn't going to change the entire landscape, but incremental progress is progress.
If athletes take the path of "getting certified", it involves submitting and monitoring of biological passports. That's not meaningless.
Also, a culture of non-acceptance of drug cheating is absolutely helpful. This initiative alone may not do everything, but it certainly is going in the right direction.
Steve Magnums wrote:
Steve Magness has the best response to this:
https://twitter.com/stevemagness/status/793847167307829248Pledging to do something has a slight positive effect. This isn't going to change the entire landscape, but incremental progress is progress.
And then when one of the athletes who pledges and takes a vocal anti-doping stance gets busted for every PED under the Sun, the entire program becomes a sham which disenchants the youngsters even more.
Can you say "operation Puerto?"
"Just say no to EPO"
For a second I thought Mac Fleet and Simpson were opening a restaurant called Twitter Beef.
One of the people in the twitter "beef" said that the culture (of clean sport) was already established in the USA. One could certainly argue that the culture in the USA is also one where people who fail drug tests are still rewarded with positions within the USATF. That's not really the clean sport culture we're looking for.
Pretty hilarious wrote:
Track fans and athletes are funny. We want to discourage doping, yet when an organization pops up with the single goal of discouraging doping it gets questioned by fans and athletes.
No, we do not want to discourage doping...
WE WANT TO CATCH DOPERS
Not so fleet wrote:
In that same twitter battle, Magness pointed him to research showing the efficacy of pledges impact on cheating.
Fleet made the same comments to a bunch of pros.
He's just trying to cause controversy
Anyone remember Tyson gay's pledges? He was part of a program in which he got extra testing and was particularly featured as being anti doping. Then he got busted.
Pledges are bs
Pretty hilarious wrote:
We want to discourage doping, yet when an organization pops up with the single goal of discouraging doping it gets questioned by fans and athletes. .
This is because it is just another marketing ploy by the sport and athletes to make us think that pro athletes are "clean". The sport has been trying to market itself as a "clean" sport for several decades now but the reality is far from that.
To give people confidence that they are competing cleanly I would say that athletes should not be professional and should be competing with full time jobs or high level studies so that sport is not a life or death situation for them. Amy Bersagel or Yuki Kawauchi are good examples and I have a lot of confidence in them being clean as they have a more balanced approach to the sport.
If Mac Fleet was/is in PED "grey area", he should get his money back. Too big of a contract out of college and can't run 3:37 for 1500. Nike still sponsoring him?
There has also been the recent "Iamdrugfree" hastag Italian Beach Volleyball player who was banned for an anabolic steroid:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/italy-beach-volley-player-banned-rio-155921611--oly.html
There is also Ms. Paula Radcliffe:
from Wikipedia:
Since the 1999 European Cup, Radcliffe wears a red ribbon when competing to show her support for blood testing as a method of catching drugs cheats.[108][111]
She has previously asked for the results of a blood test taken at the London Marathon to be made public, saying that she had "absolutely no objection to my test being released".[115]
In 2015, in the wake of revelations of widespread doping in athletics,[116] Radcliffe said that, unlike some other prominent British athletes, she would not be releasing her blood-test history, and discouraged other athletes from doing so.[117] She was later indirectly identified as a suspected doper by MP Jesse Norman during a parliamentary inquiry into blood doping.[118][119] In response, Radcliffe issued a statement in which she "categorically denied" cheating in any form and said she has "nothing to hide".[120] Shortly afterwards, her three suspect test results were leaked, though Radcliffe still refused to release her complete blood-test history.[121] In late November 2015, the IAAF declared that the accusation were "based on the gross misinterpretation of incomplete data". The UK Anti Doping Agency, having received Radcliffe's blood test history via the IAAF, stated that "Ukad has come to the same conclusion as the IAAF review that there is no case to answer".[122]
http://sportsscientists.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Capture-400x256.png
Whoops.
Go Paula!!!
Pretty hilarious wrote:
Track fans and athletes are funny. We want to discourage doping, yet when an organization pops up with the single goal of discouraging doping it gets questioned by fans and athletes.
They're not discouraging doping.
They're promoting themselves like they're saviours of the sport, which they're not. They're being parochial and destructive.
Are Fleet and Moussa even participating in the sport anymore as athletes? I haven't come across results from either of them in quite some time.
I like the pledge from Sage Canaday's girlfriend, who has never finished top 10 in a competitive race. Nobody is suggesting that you need to dope to be a 3:12 marathoner. Come on...
Mr. Clean wrote:
I've enjoyed the clean sport social posts from the ultra runners... Aren't they just walking?
Pretty hilarious wrote:
Track fans and athletes are funny. We want to discourage doping, yet when an organization pops up with the single goal of discouraging doping it gets questioned by fans and athletes.
It certainly isn't perfect, but it's also day one. Right now it may be just awareness but maybe down the road the organization can gain serious clout. Maybe they can create a certification program that can actually hold brands and athletes accountable. Who knows, but getting a conversation going isn't a bad thing...is it? For the people that don't like it....voice what you'd like to change, I'm sure the cleansport people will listen.
Again, though, this conversation has been going on forever. There must have been 10,000 doping threads on Letsrun over the last 10 years. The issue repeatedly garners national/international media attention. So starting a campaign against doping to generate awareness and tweeting out a pledge to compete clean is fine, and perhaps there will be a subtle positive impact (though I agree with the poster who said that this could just provide some dopers with PR cover), but I can't help but feel like there's a certain unappealing MEEEEEEEEE aspect to the whole enterprise if there's no larger, definitive goal.
In the words of one of our two fabulous presidential candidates (this is not an invitation to engage in a political debate, I just agree with the quote): "I don’t believe you change hearts. I believe you change laws, you change allocation of resources, you change the way systems operate.â€
Wristbands on sale for $10. 100% of the proceeds go to the invisible children or my bank account.
All Pledges Are Empty like Jonas Bros and Miley Cyrus pledging to remain virgins til marriage.
Chicken and Steak wrote:
For a second I thought Mac Fleet and Simpson were opening a restaurant called Twitter Beef.
I they were co-starring in a new buddy movie.
I agree with Fleet and Moussa here, but the problem in my mind isn't just athletes annoyingly grandstanding for attention while doing little to solve the problem. With the weirdly incestuous ties between the CleanSport NFP and for profit companies like Modcraft and Nuun that Fleet points out, you have to wonder what people's real motivations here are. It makes sense for an athlete who is gainfully sponsored by one of these companies to indirectly advertise for them with a pledge like this, but why should any other athlete feel pressured to advertise for a company who does not sponsor (read: pay) them?
In a way, this campaign distracts from actual potential ways to ameliorate the doping problems in the sport, while also being self-serving to a few, and peer pressuring to other athletes who, as we know, largely struggle to make a living from this sport.
My feeling is that the only way to get drugs out of sports in general is to take away the money, and even then people still might do it. So everyone is out there on their own to find what the sport means to them with the reality that your competitors are likely on drugs. If you are a pro...you have to figure out a way to make that situation a livelihood.
If you are going to be a pro, you have to understand the business and the state of the game that you're getting into. I can understand Jennie's approach and maybe she has an impact. Maybe her awareness campaign put a few of her competitors on her level that otherwise wouldn't be and maybe she won a world championship because of that. I understand the skepticism of Mac but is he doing anything? Jennies doing better for herself and that's important when this is what your doing for a living.
Not so fleet wrote:
In that same twitter battle, Magness pointed him to research showing the efficacy of pledges impact on cheating.
Fleet made the same comments to a bunch of pros.
He's just trying to cause controversy
Fleet also pointed out people trying to monetize/profit from these "pledges".
And I had no idea these pledges were so efficacious! We should just have everyone in the world take a pledge to not kill/steal/break the law and all our problems will be fixed!