unclebuck

What's the point? The 'athletes' are all drugged up to the eyeballs, and all the officials are all corrupt. The amount of money lavished on this spectacle whilst millions starve around the world is disgusting.

Time to call it a day after this one methinks. Athens, where it all started would be a suitable place to finish it IMO.

UB

yoza

Dont ban performance enhancing drugs........

There you go, problem solved.

Tiggs

"The amount of money lavished on this spectacle whilst millions starve around the world is disgusting. "

sell you PC and send them some cash then.....no? thought not!

T

ps- agree with Yoza....lets have some 7sec 100m's!

OllyK

The only problem is that it will be down to who is prepared to swallow the most pills and suffer the side affects rather than who actually has the most skill and dedication.

yoza

True.

But at least it wont be the same people winning all the time.

Because they wont last that long.

Senior_AP

Tour De France......

Football......

Alot of money does go to positive things. The whole world is corrupt, but it gives people something to look forward to.

OllyK

And a lot of them will never get there at all due to kidney failure etc during training.

paulr

A rather sad view of human nature.

OllyK

Are you suggesting that if performance enhancing drugs were legal in sport that nobody would use them???

paulr

But theyre not?

milo

most are running injectables rather than pills.

incidently, taking drugs does NOT suddenly make you skillful at something. it allows you to train harder and longer, but that's it.

if you could pop a bunch of pills and suddenly run a sub-10 second 100 meter, we would be living in a world where the majority of people are world-class athletes. reality is, it doesnt work like this.

you still need the natural talent, skill and dedication. the drugs just allow you to train harder.

paulr

They also allow you to recover from injury faster.

OllyK

Read the second post of the thread by Yoza and his solution to the problem, I was following on from that

OllyK

I am well aware of all of that. While the glib nature of my post seems to have slipped past most people, the core of the post still holds true. I still don't see legalisation of drugs in sport as a way forward, unless you segrate and have drug free and drug induced versions of each sport.

OllyK

Hmmm - think that is a slight mis-conception. They may well allow you to start training again sooner than without, not sure that they actually speed up the healing process. As such you may well then be suseptible to worse injury later in life due to starting training again too soon

milo

we do exactly that (well effectively) in powerlifting and bodybuilding (altho even the drug-free does NOT necessarily mean life-time drug-free).

the result of this is that we have freaks lifting crazy weights, bench pressing close to 1000lbs, 300lbs shredded masses of muscle in the drug induced federations. many of these people are millionaires and have huge sponsorship deals.

then there's the drug-free versions which almost nobody watches.

so whether we like it or not - people favor watching a drugged up monster lifting 1000lbs than a "natural" athlete lifting 700lbs.

but just remember - it's still a person lifting the weight (or running the race). a bunch of test does NOT lift the weight for you.

deano

Darts is a new event for 2004.

I think it should be rebranded to chav javelins.

Leslie

But if they did that UB all those nice chaps on the IOC would have to find another job, probably as Eu Commissioners. They would be well suited to that going by their previous performances.

Les

Jolly Green Monster

iTrader: (4)

Anyone watch the program on drug taking last night on Ch4?

interesting.. they took some 23 near athiletes and gave half roids and the other half legal suppliments etc.. did a before and after 6weeks set of events.

Made no difference to the overall results.. and in the 100m the legal suppliments had made similar improvements.

They did however notice in the lab tests (10second cycle and bench press) that the roids gave a 8% improvement from as little as 3weeks after taking them (previously thought to not occur until 6weeks).

I thought they should have tried some on roids and the legal suppliments to see whether that helped..

Scumbag

Only saw the first b30 mins...taped the second. Considering the amount of money they put together for this I really cannot believe they used a 100m run as a test. None of the subjects had done much running before, had no clue how to start, and were running in flats (not spikes).. The coach who saw them for the first time commented on how unco-ordinated some of them were. With the size of the sample, they were never going to get any differences in improvement in the sprint other than random improvements (and the "matched for height, weight, experience" is absolute bollox) Anyone who knows the slightest thing about athletics could spot that a mile off. You dont mention what happened in their 5k, but I assume something very similar

The power results are much more interesting...as I say I havent seen it yet, but even on the reduced levels they were given, from what you say, show an improvement over placebo and legal.

SB (trained with quite a few Olympic medallists over the years!)

Jolly Green Monster

iTrader: (4)

Sorry to spoil the results then!

no different in the 5000m race.. which is as expected as the roid are more for acceleration and sprint in the muscles etc.. not stamina.

Agree they were not 100m runners lol

Franx

Very true.
Whilst having the ability to train harder, can be beneficial in some ways, it's not always.
From the international rowing perspective, it seems from my experience, that it isn't just fitness that wins races. It is, I think, a combination of talent, skill, technique and dedication, combined with an ability to relax during competition, that makes winners, not just fitness. If it were, why are we not all olympic athletes?

I know people who will be competing at Athens in Rowing events, and if I suggested that they'd been using drugs, I'd probably receive a kicking. My former maths teacher also, umpired at the last games (rowing again), and similarly, to suggest that he's corrupt, would shorten my life by quite some degree....
We shouldn't generalise about athletes or officials. I'd like the games to stay, as realistically, nobody watches world championships in most sports, and I believe that athletes do deserve recognition for the time and dedication which they put in the sports.

In some sports - not all - the Olympics is the pinnacle achievement, as it's only every 4 years, and not every year, like the World champs etc, although in many sports, the standards vary a lot between the two, due to various political debates, which imo, should not be a part of sport at all.

There we go

Scumbag

Franx...
Is there a drug issue in rowing? From its very nature I would have thought it was quite a strong candidate for substance abuse.
Does it not go on, or is it not detected, or is it detected, but due to lower profile than track & field not publicised?
genuinely interested...
SB

Jolly Green Monster

iTrader: (4)

from my limited knowledge of roids you would only gain acceleration in the first part of the rowing race.. that is more a stamina based sport whcih roids do nothing for, other than the mentioned training aid but whether that outways the side effects and risks of getting caught when they really only help for quick spirts of power I dunno.

I think there are legal drugs which might aid but the roids not so..

milo

yes i saw this. it was interesting but flawed in many ways - and they didn't give half the information needed.

we have always known test enan kicks in after about 3 weeks - i am not sure why they said 6. test enan is a long lasting compound, and we usually supplement this was a faster acting one in addition so we start getting results in less than 3 weeks. there is also a synergy effect of mixing compounds.

the issue with the show were that the quantity of test injected was small. small enough to result in shutdown of natural test production, but not large enough to make a major difference to your total test level. that's why the differences aren't as pronounced as they should have been. also i have to question whether they had the diet correct (this is the major factor in whether the roids are going to have the desired effect), but alas the show didn't spec the exact diets.

they also mentioned nothing about post-cycle therapy which is very worrying.

Tiggs

odd one.....its perfect for abuse but you never hear of it. i could row sub 6 for 2k a lot easier on the stuff than off it. the main advantage i found was the increased agression! a row is quite hard on the head and attacking it like a physco is one way to do it.

(to add a concept rower has little need for skill.....maybe a nutter in a real boat doesnt work as well )

Scumbag

Not so sure...they do an enormous amount of power work, as well as stamina, all of them are immensely powerful...far more so than the runners of the same distance (rowing distance is approx same time as for a 3k steeplechase IIRC). As it is not a weight bearing sport, then they do not have to be light (unless rowing in the low weight category, of course).

Remember Dieter Bauman (5k runner) was done for steroid abuse. Certainly the stuff like EPO (obviously not a steroid) is still illegal, and would be highly useful as well. They would, as an absolute minimum, get recovery advantages, allowing more intense training. Again the nature of the sport (no impact) may make this easier to do than somethng like a long distance runner, as well as the fact that it is relatively short compared to something purely aerobic (cycling) where EPO, or similar, seems mandatory.

I must admit to having a lot of time for the rowers...not much is more painful than a flat-out ergo session...both aerobically, and muscle-wise...especially when you are too tired to take your feet out of the straps after you've collapsed off the seat in a heaving, sweating mess

Scumbag

Impressed with 1-45s per 500 for 2k...but I do always do a flat out 5k run before I jump on the ergo, I tend to do 500m reps with a minute rest, trying to keep around 1-50 for 5 of them. Kept meaning to enter some of the indoor competitions, but havent got round to it yet...I go into a 40 year old agegroup category in a couple of years, so might try then

I'm sure psycho nutter wouldnt be appreciated in real boat with 7 others

yoza

OK, honesty time....

Who has used banned " Performance Enhancing Drugs ? "

And not the ones you buy from the local Morrisons.(Creatine, herbal mixes, vit/min tabs, protien powders etc.)

There seems to be alot of experts here, I understand that you CAN be an expert without taking these drugs, but can we have some first hand experiences please.

And no, Im not starting....someone else can start the ball rolling.

Then I may enlighten you with my " Warning For Vetenary Use Only " encounter.

Iwan

I tried using ECA stack a few years back when i was into gym training. It was just a combination of Ephedrine, Caffiene and Aspirin which had the effect of increasing your metabolism and core body temperature by a degree or so.

Helps burn calories faster, but apparently has some dodgy side affects - heart attacks being one. Ephedrine isn't illegal but you can only get it on prescription - or from you friendly neighbourhood dealer.

A mate of mine used clenbuterol (in tablet form)for a while but it didn't help him much so he stopped, i didn't fancy trying it myself.