Time to bring back lifetime bans for sports cheats

Tom says:

08:16am | 05/05/10

Yeah, I always wondered why there isn’t a drug olympics to see the absolute best of what people can do, chemically assisted or otherwise. Of course some of the substances are dangerous when abused, but people would be willing to take the risk.

facepalm says:

08:28am | 05/05/10

How about we get over the myth that professional athletes are people worthy of praise (and millions of dollars)? As far as I’m concerned, they’re among the dregs of society.

H of SA says:

12:59pm | 05/05/10

I asked this question once to a friend of mine who is an MD. I basically suggested why don’t we all - not just athletes - take performancing enhancing jobs. There are drugs which can help with a lot of human function - problem solving, memory retention ect as well as strength and stammina. Why don’t we all just pop the stuff which is good for us and become superhuman?

The answer was simple because - drugs actually are bad M’kay?- he told me there are side effects and it would be bad for our health. This guy enjoyed many a fine whisky with me, ocassionaly had a cigar as well as sharing our socially acceptable addiction to caffeine so its not like he is some anti-drug zealot.

But it comes down to your body isn’t actually designed to process this stuff very well and besides, it works very well without the chemical help. I mean dude, even mildy processed food can mess with our systems - so things of the intesity of perfomance enhancing drugs are going to have some undesirable effect. Caffiene is a simple example - I freaking love the stuff - ans it makes me perfom better at work and study - but its also making my heart beat faster (not good long term) and raising my anxiety levels.

His answer was pretty

James says:

06:56pm | 05/05/10

“So what makes sport so special that it has to be some holier than thou industry?”

Well, Dave, the thing is that one of the fundamentals of sport, one of the basic rules of any sport, is to not cheat. Presuming you have kids, and they play sport for school or club? One of the reasons sport is encouraged amound young children to introduce them to team activities, leadership and work togethor to acheive a common goal. You don’t want kids to be idolising to someone labelled as a drug taker, a doper or a cheater do you. What effect do you think it will have on them? They will start to believe that to be a good sportsperson, you must take drugs. And that is certainly not the case.

Myself, I’m an elite level cyclist as well. Whenever there is a new postive test, many friends always seem to say “oh that’s schocking, how horrible” or something like that.  I say, its brilliant. It’s cleaning up the sport and bringing it back to what it was originally intended to be.

Mark says:

07:50pm | 05/05/10

Dave Sag, you’re right.

You know why? Because there are no consequences to taking drugs. There are no harmful side effects that only come into play years after a youthful athlete is useless to the nations sporting program. Because young athletes are never exploited, they are never forced or coerced into drug programs that aren’t in their best interests. Because it doesn’t increase the chances of cancer later in life. Because it is entirely in unison with notion of a healthy mind in a healthy body.

You’ve obviously informed yourself with the facts,  thought it all out and come to the correct conclusion…mmm’kay?

Jack Thomas says:

11:19am | 05/05/10

TB that’s complete bollocks about cycling being developed for a test lab, and shows how cycling as a sport is unfairly treated, especially when drug use is rife across all sports. Drug use was rife in the ‘glory days’ of Coppi, Mercx, etc., but then again it was also rife amongst other parts of soceity, soldiers, truck drivers, etc.

Amber, I can understand your frustration with racing against drug cheats in cycling, but don’t you think you rowed in the Olympics against many others who were also on the gear, especially the Europeans? I was told direct by a couple of Australian rowers who came back from a Commonwealth Games about gear they had bought while away.

Australian sports are a joke when it comes to testing, when they do test (and it’s only roughly 10% the frequency as cycling) they test for less than half the WADA list.

If AFL or ARL players had the same extent and frequency of tests, it would decimate the sport. Now that is a story.

The AFL Players Association has made sure its players are ‘protected’ by a 3 strikes policy. There are around 20 players each year testing positive. This year alone there are at least 17 players running around in the AFL right now who have tested positive for drugs, but none sanctioned (even the clubs are not advised until the second time they are caught). Imagine a player submitting his every movement for 3 months at a time, and being available for tests 24/7 as they are in cycling?

Remember the steroidal West Coast Eagles of the ‘80’s, or Micky Conlan of Fitzroy, or Rene Kink at Collingwood. Hate to blow your childhood fantasies but performance enhancing drugs have been prevalent in AFL for a long time too. Players now cut their hair short specifically after a big weekend so the hair does not carry evidence of e’s and blow for the tests.

Ben Cousins was arrested for possession and had to leave the game for rehab in the USA as he was an ICE addict, and yet the AFL never manage to find him positive in a test. Andrew Johns admitted after he stopped playing that he was on recreational drugs for his latter part of his career.

The AFL and NRL are small, very regulated sporting organisations and yet they fail to test their players. Akermanis said just before the finals in 2008 that only 4 players had been tested at the Bulldogs that year.

In cycling, the UCI and Grand Tour organisations running the sport are at fault for demanding harder and harder races. They also fail to unite to ban riders, so that Valverde can race in France happily while banned in Italy. 

You forgot to mention the fact that cycling has a penalty on dopers who get caught - they are made to repay any prize money as well as bans and fines. Tour of Italy winner Danilo De Luca was caught and fined 280,000 Euros in March 09. Beltran was fined 100,000 Euros and sued by his team in 2008.

Vino won after being banned for two years, probably the minimum he should sit out but it is a start. His name is mud amongst the fans which is good. The Valverde non-ban is a joke, and mainly the fault of the Italians not being able to prosecute the ban outside of their country.

The protection of their ‘brand’ (money) in AFL and ARL is the bigger scam going on here Amber.

TB says:

12:30pm | 05/05/10

Jack, I didn’t explicitly state that research was the sole motive behind the development of cycling as a sport, but it was undoubtedly a contributing factor. I’d like to see some actual evidence behind your (presently) blind declaration of “bollocks.”

The following is an excerpt from “A Pharmacy on Wheels - The Tour De France Doping Scandal” by John Hoberman:

“The Tour debacle has finally made it acceptable to say in public and without provocation what many have known for a long time, namely, that long-distance cycling has been the most consistently drug-soaked sport of the twentieth century.  Even prior to the establishment of the Tour in 1903, the six-day bicycle races of the 1890s were de facto experiments investigating the physiology of stress as well as the substances that might alleviate exhaustion. The advent of cycling as a mass recreational and competitive sport during the 1890s came at the end of a century that had seen many experiments designed to measure the effects of (sometimes fatal) stress on animals, and in this sense the six-day riders were continuing the work of experimental physiologists who were interested in finding out just how much abuse the animal or human organism could take. Stress, trauma, and death—the extreme outcomes of sportive exertion—had been studied by many physiologists before doctors began to wonder about the medical consequences of extreme athletic effort. Today the emotional distance that separates the sporting public from the physiological ordeals of its heroes confirms that the high-performance athlete is widely understood to be an experimental subject whose sufferings are a natural part of the drama of sport.”

H of SA says:

01:08pm | 05/05/10

It must be said that cycling has the worst reputation in sport. Its there with sprinting for the race (pun intended) for the sport with the biggest drug cloud over it.

I mean, I just assume that whoever wins the tour and whoever wins the 100m must be doped up. I reckon most feel the same way. Thats a real shame for those two sports which would still be amazing without the drugs.

Truthful. says:

11:48am | 06/05/10

Jack Thomas stop lying. Rowers do not compete in the Commonwealth Games so how they they have come back from them and told you what ‘gear’ they bought?

dw says:

12:18pm | 05/05/10

This is true and brings up several other points.

Should any speed or time record count because of advances in technology and science. Bikes are lighter and more aerodynamic. Running, swimming, cycling, rowing etc are defined as much by advances in equipment as human endeavour. Equipment is designed and built with materials and technology unheard of even 30 years ago.

Better technology = better performance. I don’t see how this is any different to taking a performance enhancing drug.

If I drink water and you drink gatorade, have you cheated?

H of SA says:

01:04pm | 05/05/10

Fairly valid point but as easy as it is to point out the problem here - what is the solution?

Vicki PS says:

06:50pm | 05/05/10

Centurion48, you are so right.

“Sportertainment” operates on the same paradigms as any other big business.  The goal is $$, not a warm glow of achievement.  Any corners that can be cut will be, and Rule #1 is Don’t Get Caught.

Competing in professional sport is like competing in the business area.  Hit the ground running, lions and antelopes, blah blah blah.  It’s all about pleasing the connections and stakeholders.  Playing by the rules leaves you at the bottom of the ladder feeling pure.  Suck it up, Amber.  This is the job you’ve chosen, get used to it. 

(Of course, fewer and fewer people are interested in watching sportertainment anyway.  How many competion-based so-called ‘reality’ shows can one take before being bored witless?  I for one lost my taste for those kinds of circuses back in high school days, when I grew out of watching World Championship Wrestling).

RT says:

11:18am | 05/05/10

That’s actually a pretty good idea there… I would assume most would have an early retirement though, but that would be their choice

Justin says:

10:32am | 05/05/10

Steve, you’re forgetting beta blockers.

Justin says:

10:39am | 05/05/10

“Fortunately we know Cadel Evans doesn’t cheat because he can’t win a kick in a riot.”

You are aware that he’s the current road race world champion & that he won the   Fleche Wallonne spring classic a few weeks back?

I think you’re confusing him with Mark Webber.

Markus says:

10:40am | 05/05/10

If the drugs are allowed then it will no longer be cheating, so there goes that moral issue.
And do you really think that taking PEDs is some sort of free ride to success? These are elite athletes, who train to the limit of the human body. A drug doesn’t just replace all that work.
If anything the drug takers are training even harder than the non-takers, as they are willing to affect their longterm health to achieve their goal.

“But what do we teach our juniors/amateurs/rookies if we allow drugs and cheating into sport?”
Nothing. No ‘scandal’ affecting professional athletes has ever influenced how I play my sport at an amateur level, and this will continue to be the case.

bolster says:

02:24pm | 05/05/10

Keenly aware of Cadel Evans’ racing history Justin. Ever since he had that smashing debut stage win in the Giro d’Italia in ‘02 to take the Maglia Rossa, only to loose it when he tanked tragically not long after. Proof in itself that he wasn’t one for literally ‘superhuman’ fightbacks like we saw with Floyd Landis in ‘06, or performances like the ‘unbelievable’ Alberto Contador who managed to ride Mont Ventoux at the TDF against the best riders in the world last year with his mouth closed - does that man he even breathe!!?...
Hopefully Evans can take out the Giro in 2010, but with his chronic terrible team selection, I’m not banking on it.

Give Webber a break. He’s from Queanbeyan.

Markus, for most western world (rich) nations you have a reasonable argument, but I still think that:
1) a junior level athlete wanting to make it through to the big time, is competing/training/performing in a far different context than your everyday amateur athlete who doesn’t want to compete at that next level.
Hence, my big concern with the pro-drugs argument is that youngsters are taught drugs rather then years of patience and hard work. Take the positive example of the ‘mature age rookie’ status in the AFL draft. No shortcuts there.

2) Personally I see a big distinction between the term elite athlete, and the concept of pushing the human body to the limit. Drugs certainly don’t replace work, but in the current context those that use them are well aware they are ‘cheating’ under the established rules/code of competition as elite athletes in their sport, and thereby they’re seeking to gain an added advantage above and beyond regular training techniques. Hence, they are conciously taking a short cut/buying performance.

3) Plus, you can’t ignore the rich-versus-poor factor in the cheating/drugs debate. At the Olympics, for example, it would cripple the atheltic performance of many poorer nations.

Markus says:

03:58pm | 05/05/10

1) These drugs only provide performance increases of a few percent on top of the intense training involved, even at junior level. Without the training these kids will go nowhere fast.
2) It is not a shortcut if it is taking them “above and beyond” any current available training techniques they are already doing. If made legal, everyone would be able to take them and it would no longer be an uneven field in this regard.
3) As mentioned above, technological achievements have crippled the athletic performance of many poorer nations more than drugs have. New records have been set not through increases in skill/power, but through lighter bikes, and more aerodynamic suits (both running and swimming).

I honestly don’t see the issue. These elite athletes are already affecting their longterm health through their intensive training regimes to win at all costs.
I just don’t see what makes performance enhancing drugs incur such a moral outrage compared to performance enhancing equipment which gives the same ‘unfair’ advantage.

H of SA says:

05:06pm | 05/05/10

Marcus,

I would suggest the reason we are more upset about drug advantage rather than technological advantage is the public profile of the athletes.

As you point out, being an elite athelete has negative long term helth consequences as do drugs (I would be very surprised however if drug consequences aren’t far more serious). However the use of superior technology that other nations can’t hope to match - does not have bad health consequences.

You won’t have any long term health problems from wearing elite equiptment. So given the high profile of sports, I can see why drug use is more concerning as the likelihood of atheletes modelling drug taking is more concerning than the likelihood of atheletes modelling domination by the wealthy - though obviously neither are great.

Sarah says:

01:09pm | 06/05/10

To Jack Thomas - I doubt you heard from any Australian Rowers about buying “gear” at the Commonwealth Games since rowing is not a Commonwealth Games sport… Of course rowing has its fair share of drug cheats, hence why Russia as a nation was banned from competing in Beijing after having 3 doping violations in 18 months. Everyone has heard the stories, no sport is exempt.