Doping in Sport

[Stavros]

A provocative set of claims from a boxer I admit I had never heard of before. Clearly there is a problem where some drugs replicate those chemicals already in the body, there are performance enhancing drugs that are not banned, some that are, with sports-persons knowing how to get round the rules. I don't know if we will ever get to the heart of the matter, and I am not sure how many people care, though I think in some individual sports, like Athletics it does matter, not so sure about team sports. Anyway, he does not name names, other than Lance Armstrong.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2020/apr/20/larry-olubamiwo-athletes-dope-for-money-my-goal-was-to-make-a-living

[broncofan]

It's not always easy to test for these compounds but even taking excess doses of a hormone that the body makes is cheating and provides an unfair advantage to the athlete doing it. EPO taken in large amounts increases red blood cell count to dangerous levels but also increases the endurance of athletes. Testosterone supplements are probably less acutely dangerous but it's definitely performance enhancing and the rules against it should be enforced. I don't know what the answer to this is, but I just wanted to say I don't buy the distinction this person is making between hormones the body makes and synthetic substances.

If someone actually has a medical condition and a deficiency of some hormone they can get clearance to take it, as long as their abuse of the substance didn't cause it. A lot of former steroid users have hypogonadism, but they probably should not the ones getting an exemption to use.

It's definitely an interesting subject. There are those who think it is too hard to enforce and should just be a free for all, but that kind of makes it tough for those who want to compete but don't want to take hormones and chemicals in unsafe amounts.

[MrFanti]

Interesting...
I have a FTM transgender friend of mine that takes male hormones and is huge......He currently plays amateur football with genetic males.

[Stavros]

Interesting...
I have a FTM transgender friend of mine that takes male hormones and is huge......He currently plays amateur football with genetic males.


I think the moral point would ask if an athlete is taking 'banned substances' in order to gain an advantage over others, or if, in this case, a transendered athlete is gaining muscle mass and strength as a result of hormones taken for non-competitive reasons. I think the dilemmas in sport posed by Caster Semenya, a different case from those taking 'banned substances' or hormones, has no happy outcome, and I suspect the only practical solution is to ban transgered athletes from competition if they can be shown to have an unfair advantage over their fellow competitors which is the basis of the rules as they currently are.

[MrFanti]

I think the moral point would ask if an athlete is taking 'banned substances' in order to gain an advantage over others, or if, in this case, a transendered athlete is gaining muscle mass and strength as a result of hormones taken for non-competitive reasons. I think the dilemmas in sport posed by Caster Semenya, a different case from those taking 'banned substances' or hormones, has no happy outcome, and I suspect the only practical solution is to ban transgered athletes from competition if they can be shown to have an unfair advantage over their fellow competitors which is the basis of the rules as they currently are.

One thing that some genetic women have issues with MTF athletes is the general height advantage that the average male-born individual has over the genetic female when it comes to sports such as volleyball and basketball.
But to circle back on topic - doping with regards to FTM is an interesting one....

I would debate that most individuals within this forum, generally speaking, look at the transgender community with a heavy MTF bias.

[Stavros]

I agree with your last point, but with regard to the former, be it MtF or FtM, how common is this, in reality, in sport? It seems to me that it is not common at all, but that it appears to be a problem when the sport concerned is on TV being played at a senior competitive level. There is a lot of hysteria around at the moment as 'Conservatives' attack all forms of 'Liberal' ideas which include the claim that there is no longer any value to being Male.

The real issue is- why are so many athletes taking performance enhancing substances, including legal ones? It means that at the senior level, few competitors do not use them, whereas the concept of the athlete endowed with natural abilities and a will to win take second place to the athlete as a chemical marvel driven by an obsession.

[MrFanti]

The real issue is- why are so many athletes taking performance enhancing substances, including legal ones? It means that at the senior level, few competitors do not use them, whereas the concept of the athlete endowed with natural abilities and a will to win take second place to the athlete as a chemical marvel driven by an obsession.
It is the drive to win at all costs...regardless of the rules
We see this in all walks of life...the phenomena is not isolated to sports.

[Stavros]

What do we win, when we win, what do they win when they win? I was raised to believe, and when doing sport at school and in the local park, believed, that taking part was the most important thing. Because sport and exercise are good for the body and the mind, and indeed, the obsession with winning, and winning at all costs is not something I enjoy when watching sport, to which one adds the concept of 'fair play'. In football (Soccer) it means deploring so-called 'professional fouls', but is thus also part of the reason why when we find out more or less all of the Jamaican Athletics teams has tested positive for banned substances, one man is not, and the team is not suspended from competition, because he is such a major money earner.

There are other moral issues too, notably with regard to Boxing -these days, Don King would never have been released from prison for murder (was it one, or two?) let alone be given a licence to promote Boxing tournaments, yet there he is in the record books, unfit to represent anyone, and to what extent involved in fixing fights in the days when the Mafia ran the sport in the US? I just can't take Boxing seriously as a sport, so deep has its roots been in organized crime. Or, as we were reminded when Alan Minter died this past week or so, the links between Boxing in the UK and the 'far right' in political movements and the shocking scenes that attended the end of the fight between Minter and 'Marvellous' Martin Hagler. The irony being that a preserve of English Nationalists and Fascists exists because the first promoters of British Boxing in the early years of the 20th century were East End Jews.

The lack of purity is the problem, that people in sports might have a natural ability, but seem to need to enhance it. Hence the oddity of the transgendered athlete, who personally has no choice if he or she is to thrive, using the same system that others do, but is condemned for it in ways the others are not In effect, everyone is morally compromised, and we either accept that athletes are going to use substances to improve their performance, or remain passive hypocrites -or stop watching, and sponsorig sports we consider to be corrupt.

[MrFanti]

What do we win, when we win, what do they win when they win? I was raised to believe, and when doing sport at school and in the local park, believed, that taking part was the most important thing. Because sport and exercise are good for the body and the mind, and indeed, the obsession with winning, and winning at all costs is not something I enjoy when watching sport, to which one adds the concept of 'fair play'. In football (Soccer) it means deploring so-called 'professional fouls', but is thus also part of the reason why when we find out more or less all of the Jamaican Athletics teams has tested positive for banned substances, one man is not, and the team is not suspended from competition, because he is such a major money earner.

There are other moral issues too, notably with regard to Boxing -these days, Don King would never have been released from prison for murder (was it one, or two?) let alone be given a licence to promote Boxing tournaments, yet there he is in the record books, unfit to represent anyone, and to what extent involved in fixing fights in the days when the Mafia ran the sport in the US? I just can't take Boxing seriously as a sport, so deep has its roots been in organized crime. Or, as we were reminded when Alan Minter died this past week or so, the links between Boxing in the UK and the 'far right' in political movements and the shocking scenes that attended the end of the fight between Minter and 'Marvellous' Martin Hagler. The irony being that a preserve of English Nationalists and Fascists exists because the first promoters of British Boxing in the early years of the 20th century were East End Jews.

The lack of purity is the problem, that people in sports might have a natural ability, but seem to need to enhance it. Hence the oddity of the transgendered athlete, who personally has no choice if he or she is to thrive, using the same system that others do, but is condemned for it in ways the others are not In effect, everyone is morally compromised, and we either accept that athletes are going to use substances to improve their performance, or remain passive hypocrites -or stop watching, and sponsorig sports we consider to be corrupt.

While I understand exactly how you were raised, the PRO athlete does not think the same way. This is why doping has been around for DECADES....yes, DECADES....

[sidney111]

I used to watch the Tour de France in the 1980s and 90s before the drugs scandals were public knowledge, but I really lost any interest in cycling in the 2010s when it became really apparent that it’s not the best rider who wins, but the best team at hiding the doping.

[Stavros]

I used to watch the Tour de France in the 1980s and 90s before the drugs scandals were public knowledge, but I really lost any interest in cycling in the 2010s when it became really apparent that it’s not the best rider who wins, but the best team at hiding the doping.


I agree with you, as I used to watch Channel 4's coverage, but drugs and booze were problematic for the Tour in previous decades, as the death of Tommy Simpson showed. At some point one either accepts it, or rejects it. I just lost interest in it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Tom_Simpson

[sidney111]

I’d not heard of Tom Simpson, what a sad story.

[Stavros]

Hmmmm....Russians attack the British journalists who confirmed that skater Kamila Valieva has -allegedly?- used a banned substance. One Duma member, Dmitry Svishchev, said

“Unfortunately, some journalists can find the strength to talk to a child as if they were their comrades somewhere in a pub,” he told the Russian website.“Let them sit in London and ask such boorish and provocative questions to each other. Let our athletes not be touched. And even more so young athletes like Kamila. We won’t let her hurt! Children should not be asked such questions, she is still too young. We believe Valieva, we believe in her – she did not use anything forbidden.”
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/feb/11/kamila-valieva-british-journalists-receive-death-threats-from-russia

Maybe men (or women) so much older than Kamila Valieva should not have provided the "child" with the drug in question, or did she wake up one morning not so long ago and say to herself 'I really need some trimetazidine today'...??

My sympathies are with the teenage girl who clearly has a lot of talent, who has been let down by a regime that begs more questions than are answered, those answers obscured by the hysterical reaction of the Russians quoted in the link above.

[Stavros]

Powerful argument on the skating crisis here eg

"A confirmed drug scandal of this scale would put a fist right through China’s Games, and do so at a time when the spectacle has basically become the Xi-Putin show, a summit on the sidelines to a soundtrack of shifting tectonic plates and pistols drawn at the border posts.
What stands out for now is the basic cruelty here. This process automatically casts the athlete as the villain. Valieva will be banned, Valieva asterisked in the annals. But Valieva is also a child. If she was given a performance-enhancing drug then what we’re talking about here is abuse, an offence committed against Valieva not by her.
The more urgent questions should be addressed to her coach Eteri Tutberidze of the high-functioning Sambo-70 school in Sochi, where very young children are taught to push their bodies to the limits, to live off “powdered nutrients”, to burn briefly as child‑puppet athletes in pursuit of that sweet, sweet, physically ruinous power-to-weight ratio."
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/feb/11/kamila-valieva-zhu-yi-victims-winter-olympics-puppet-theatre-pain-beijing-2022

[MrFanti]

To re-iterate in a previous post of mine, been around for decades (and centuries). The only solution is to legalize through 3rd party physicians and arbitration with a "set" amount of what's legal to take. Athletes then can only take them through the prescribed 3rd party physicians and legislation group.

Given how long it's been happening, it's curious to see why folks are "shocked" when it's discovered.
Drug-taking in Ancient Times
https://physicalculturestudy.com/2014/11/13/drug-taking-in-ancient-times/

[Stavros]

I hope you are not suggestig a 15 year old should, even if legally, be given drugs to enhance their performance, or for some other reason? Surely the tragedy of Kamila Valieva is that she is a talented skater and she ought not to be manipulated by people whose interests, I suspect, have little to do with the person, and more to do with their jobs, their income and some need to be 'winners' all the time. Perhaps one way out of ths is to ban the participation in Olympic Games of anyone under the age of 18

[MrFanti]

Perhaps one way out of ths is to ban the participation in Olympic Games of anyone under the age of 18
That's a decent compromise since there's no way to stop countries from doping their athletes - regardless of age.

So are the Olympics an Adult and Youth sport since she's 15?

[Stavros]

So are the Olympics an Adult and Youth sport since she's 15?

Good question. If someone can leave school and start work at 16, and legally get married, should 16 be the minimum age? Voting for 16 year olds is also on the agenda in some countries. I think somewhere between 16-18 even though at that age some are more mature than others, and the pressures of 'the team' can affect people's behaviour who are much older. I don't know what the answer is, but I do wonder if the Olympics cares as much about the welfare of athletes as it claims to. At the very least, I think a debate needs to be had.

I think Tennis is the other sport which allows teenagers as young as 16 to compete against adults, and there have been 17-year old footballers in the Premier League in the UK (Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney come to mind).

[MrFanti]

Good question. If someone can leave school and start work at 16, and legally get married, should 16 be the minimum age? Voting for 16 year olds is also on the agenda in some countries. I think somewhere between 16-18 even though at that age some are more mature than others, and the pressures of 'the team' can affect people's behaviour who are much older. I don't know what the answer is, but I do wonder if the Olympics cares as much about the welfare of athletes as it claims to. At the very least, I think a debate needs to be had.

I think Tennis is the other sport which allows teenagers as young as 16 to compete against adults, and there have been 17-year old footballers in the Premier League in the UK (Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney come to mind).
And furthermore, what's the delineation between, child, youth, teen, adult?

If you say Olympics are a Teen and Adult sport, the doping will still be problem unless a controlled legalization happens.....

Think of the ones that weren't caught - she stands out because she was caught.

[Stavros]

Think of it in terms of the dangers of children being put into public life, whether as children in films or tv programmes, child prodigies or in sports. I am sure there are children who emerged from being in flms and tv without being damaged, but some have been. There is the celebrated case of Ruth Lawrence, who entered Oxford at the age of 12 accompaned by what some people thought was a 'creepy dad', completed her first degree in Maths in two years, and by the age of 17 had another degree, in Physics, and a DPhil in Maths -she is happily married and lives in Israel. Mozart was put on stage by his aggressive dad when he was six years old; Daniel Barenboim first performed as a soloist in London when he was 13, two examples of men who excelled in their chosen careers. But in both cases, was it a 'freak show'? Had they not appeared in public at that age, would their careers have been so different?

Damage may be hard to assess, but I think in the case of the use of drugs in sport, the rules are too elastic. The cases of the female East German athletes who were given so much steroids and other drugs that they effectively changed their gender is notorious, and of course when it comes to drug abuse, Florence Griffith-Joyner is a sad but in her case probably inevitable conclusion to a list of what must now be considered bogus performances.

People will do things they ought not to do wth their bodies to win, often led or encouraged by their trainers, and I suspect that with enthusiastic teenagers the opportunity for mischief is there, and that includes the sexual abuse that has been part of the US Gymnastics teams over the years.

If there are so many warnings, would it not be more sensible to stop children of a certain age group from appearing in major sports events? Just today, reading about Valieva's flop yesterday -and her coach's less than sympathetic response- I read that in female skating, 17 years old is pretty much 'over the hill' -! Jayne Torvill was 27 when she and Christopher Dean won the Olympic Gold in 1984.

Just change the rules. And stop exploiting teenagers at that age. But I don't know, 16 or 18?

[Stavros]

Thomas Bach's widely reported comments.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/feb/18/tremendous-coldness-ioc-president-slams-kamila-valievas-entourage-over-skaters-treatment