Let 'em Dope

jeremy said:

Interesting opinions in Wednesday's Mailbag at VeloNews:

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/10149.0.html

Why not let 'em dope? What is the philosophy behind testing all the
riders? Are we trying to protect their health? Are we trying to
maintain a level playing field?

What do we care about their health? American football players beat
their bodies to death and often have major health problems after they
retire. We don't have any rules to regulate the amount of damage
American football players do to themselves during each game. Boxers
suffer from getting hit so often (see Muhammad Ali) and we still allow
them to fight. How is doping any different?

If we did allow everyone to dope, how would the playing field NOT be
level? Pros have access to just about anything, especially ProTour
teams with multi-million dollar budgets. Access wouldn't be a problem.
If everyone does it, then how would the playing field not be level?

I say EPO and blood reinfusions for everyone.

jeremy

I agree!
Besides from a practical point of view it won't stop any way. We ended
prohibition because it couldn't be enforced- not because of a sudden
change in morals.

And much of the argument really isn't about the health of the athletes
but rather about the example it sets for youth. We do have to protect
our youth.

So, building on the experience of cultures where alcohol is consumed
but with low rates of alcoholism I suggest we can best protect our
youth by introducing doping as an approved family activity.

As a family we can sit around and ingest, inject or otherwise partake
in a number of great concoctions that will aid us in our pursuit of
athletic performance. And because this activity will not involve
"forbidden fruit" it will result in less overuse and drive proper use
into the living room and out of wherever it is. And by legalizing, even
encouraging such activity we will probably also drive down the unit
costs by taking the illegal black market out of it and also encourage
R&D by big pharma so that soon there will loads of newer, better, and
safer products on the market. And in just 17 years we will have
generics which will further reduce the cost to the consumer.

I'm sure that with a little lobbing we can get all this covered by
medicare and which point you will see masters 65+ destroying the times
of young turks racing in 35, 45 and 55.

jeremy said:

I say EPO and blood reinfusions for everyone.

What I think is interesting is that no matter what the
regulations...they will find a way to dope. Look at Hamilton's
calendar from Fuentes. EPO is detectable, and autotransfusions might
only be good for a short season. To win races April-September you need
to do EPO and autotransfusions.

Who thought it would get THAT crazy?

I think if they could take all the EPO they wanted there would be no
reason to do the transfusions, and no additional risk.

If a cyclist ranked 50th in the world took EPO, would he become a top
10 rider? how about one ranked 100th? (assuming no one else did)

It seems to me that the same guys kicking butt now would be kicking
butt if everyone took EPO or no one took it...

I'm convinced that even if they were racing without cars, the hierarchy
between Formula One drivers would be exactly the same. ;-)

"jeremy" <[email hidden]> a écrit dans le message de news:
[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Interesting opinions in Wednesday's Mailbag at VeloNews:

It is why we believe that "the sport spoil the drugs" !

jeremy said:

Interesting opinions in Wednesday's Mailbag at VeloNews:

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/10149.0.html

Why not let 'em dope? What is the philosophy behind testing all the
riders? Are we trying to protect their health? Are we trying to
maintain a level playing field?

What do we care about their health? American football players beat
their bodies to death and often have major health problems after they
retire. We don't have any rules to regulate the amount of damage
American football players do to themselves during each game. Boxers
suffer from getting hit so often (see Muhammad Ali) and we still allow
them to fight. How is doping any different?

We do have rules to regulate the damage American football
players do to each other. There are various things that are
prohibited: spearing, flying wedges, clipping, chop blocks, hits to
the head, so on. You could argue that the rules aren't strong enough,
or that they haven't kept pace with the increase in size and speed
of the players, or that the pads and helmets allow play to happen
with such force that players inevitably retire with wear, tear, and
blown out knees. Those may all be true, but there are rules - it's
not a free for all gladiatorial combat.

We make boxers wear gloves too, and try to stop fights before
somebody dies. Even so there are people who think boxing
should be stopped.

Quoted message said:

If we did allow everyone to dope, how would the playing field NOT be
level? Pros have access to just about anything, especially ProTour
teams with multi-million dollar budgets. Access wouldn't be a problem.
If everyone does it, then how would the playing field not be level?

I say EPO and blood reinfusions for everyone.

Not all the ProTour teams have equal budgets. Not everyone is on
a ProTour team. (And hey, some people are afraid of needles - what
about _their_ rights?) How do you get to be on a ProTour team? By
coming up through the ranks. What should the average Cat 1 or
promising junior do? I think if you legalize doping at the top level,
you have to accept that it will be rampant at the lower levels even
if you ban it.

Our society makes certain decisions about what it will accept, what
it will pretend not to notice, and what it really won't tolerate.
Like it or not, guys in the NFL battering each other for our
entertainment is "accept," guys in the NFL loading up on steroids
is in the "pretend not to notice and don't get caught, or if you do
get caught, be Bill Romanowski and get off anyway." This is one
reason why high school football players loading up on steroids has
moved (I think) from the "won't tolerate" to the "don't get caught"
category.

Doping and anti-doping is an arms race. That makes the race
somewhat futile, but it also makes the legalized "level playing field"
idea unrealistic. And when gene doping eventually gets here, it will
be expensive to start with. If you find some shady doc to do it on the
cheap, it will probably make EPO early adoption look safe.

Ben
"I don't want young dopes to think they have to
do mathematics to succeed." - Paul Erdos

Quoted message said:

Doping and anti-doping is an arms race. That makes the race
somewhat futile, but it also makes the legalized "level playing field"
idea unrealistic. And when gene doping eventually gets here, it will
be expensive to start with.

<snip>

Dumbass -

Gene doping will be cheap. The actual procedure for making a gene
alteration is relatively simple. It's graduate student level lab work.

The hard part is identifying which genes to change, ie. what the
effects of the change will be, and what side effects will accompany the
gene alteration.

They don't have the identification part down yet. It's coming though.
Wait until they start applying massive parallel processing (ie. the
Googleplex) to this problem effectively. We might see stuff like guys
looking like the Incredible Hulk walking around the streets in our
lifetime. Or, better yet, all the chicks on the street looking vaguely
like Angelina Jolie or Cameron Diaz.

Even better yet: a genetic vaccine to get usenet posters to act like
Sierraman and Tom Kunich. That would be the best, a Sierraman/Kunich
helmet thread, the culimination of which would be a fistfight, one guy
wearing a helmet, the other not.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Quoted message said:

Doping and anti-doping is an arms race. That makes the race
somewhat futile, but it also makes the legalized "level playing field"
idea unrealistic.

I agree that doping and anti-doping is an arms race - but how does that
make the legalized "level playing field" idea unrealistic? I don't
understand how the two are related.

jeremy

I've already encountered enough masters fattie riders (who were
suddenly able to simply ride away from incredibly fit (and fast)
fields) to satisfy my fill. Are there masters riders willing to dope
to win a friggin folding tire? You'd better believe it.

If we let everyone dope, then the chance of doing well (while riding
"clean"😉 simply vanishes. Why should clean riders be forced into
doping. Bad enough that I had to go out and buy those gay handlebar
extensions so as not to stray too far behind the $5,000 TT bikes at
districts.

jeremy said:

Interesting opinions in Wednesday's Mailbag at VeloNews:

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/10149.0.html

Why not let 'em dope? What is the philosophy behind testing all the
riders? Are we trying to protect their health? Are we trying to
maintain a level playing field?

What do we care about their health? American football players beat
their bodies to death and often have major health problems after they
retire. We don't have any rules to regulate the amount of damage
American football players do to themselves during each game. Boxers
suffer from getting hit so often (see Muhammad Ali) and we still allow
them to fight. How is doping any different?

If we did allow everyone to dope, how would the playing field NOT be
level? Pros have access to just about anything, especially ProTour
teams with multi-million dollar budgets. Access wouldn't be a problem.
If everyone does it, then how would the playing field not be level?

I say EPO and blood reinfusions for everyone.

jeremy

jeremy said:

Quoted message said:

Doping and anti-doping is an arms race. That makes the race
somewhat futile, but it also makes the legalized "level playing field"
idea unrealistic.

I agree that doping and anti-doping is an arms race - but how does that
make the legalized "level playing field" idea unrealistic? I don't
understand how the two are related.

Because improvements in technology, medicine, biology
help people come up with better dope. Right now part of
"better" is detectability. Remove that, and some dope
will still be better than other dope, and people will pay more
for it. Not to mention that dope isn't just an upgrade that
you buy off the rack like a new wheel. It works better if you
take it under somebody's advice - doctor, trainer, coach -
and you gotta pay them too. Barry Bonds had quite a few
people on the payroll, though the [censored] That Will Kill Them
that he was taking was not even banned by his sport
most (nearly all?) of the time he was using it.

Also, most doping products are prescription drugs, so even
if you unban them from the IOC/WADA/UCI's point of view,
you can't just walk into CVS for them. You need to either
legalize them for licensed gladiators, I mean athletes;
or have the athletes get bogus prescriptions from crooked
docs, or buy them on the black market, both of which will
drive the price up.

Plus there's the issue of whether you legalize them for
the pros only or everybody that I already mentioned.

Bread and circuses all 'round,
Ben

Kurgan Gringioni said:

Quoted message said:

And when gene doping eventually gets here, it will
be expensive to start with.

Quoted message said:

Dumbass -

Gene doping will be cheap. The actual procedure for making a gene
alteration is relatively simple. It's graduate student level lab work.

The hard part is identifying which genes to change, ie. what the
effects of the change will be, and what side effects will accompany the
gene alteration.

They don't have the identification part down yet. It's coming though.
Wait until they start applying massive parallel processing (ie. the
Googleplex) to this problem effectively. We might see stuff like guys
looking like the Incredible Hulk walking around the streets in our
lifetime. Or, better yet, all the chicks on the street looking vaguely
like Angelina Jolie or Cameron Diaz.

Even better yet: a genetic vaccine to get usenet posters to act like
Sierraman and Tom Kunich. That would be the best, a Sierraman/Kunich
helmet thread, the culimination of which would be a fistfight, one guy
wearing a helmet, the other not.

Dumbass,

That's what physicists and computer scientists usually
think when faced with a problem in biology - "Wait until
we apply a method from our field. Then it will be simple!"
As you said, you still have to do biology to link the gene
alteration with its effect. Oh, and the side effects. That's
an expensive part to test - clinical trials and all that.
This is one reason I said early black market gene doping
could make EPO look as safe as orange juice - doctors
without ethics (let alone soigneurs that got some stuff from
some lab technician buddy, etc) will cut corners on the
testing and side effects.

It'll come out first through the black market, and that'll
make it expensive. Grad students may be cheap, but
Legate will know the pros can pay (not to mention the
Masters Fatties) and could develop a previously unknown
taste for Porsches.

When you envision a world where the chicks all look
vaguely like Jolie or Diaz, do you just mean they'll all
be hotties, or that when you look at them, you'll think
"Damn, that person looks really familiar - who the heck
is she?" Because I think that would be kind of annoying
after a while. Or worse yet, like the scene in "Being John
Malkovich" where everyone is John Malkovich. Imagine
the side effects of cosmetic gene doping gone wrong -
hello, Tammy Thomas.

Ben
sticking to Botox for now

"Kurgan Gringioni" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Gene doping will be cheap. The actual procedure for making a gene
alteration is relatively simple. It's graduate student level lab work.

Nothing else has to be said to show the dumbass of dumbasses himself!

Riders have been complaining for decades that the races are getting too
long, too fast, and too mountainous. Sponsors and fans want tougher and
faster races. Many of the available products are safer than the
concoctions used in the 20's and 30's. Low doses of the less toxic
steroids have been extending the lives of burn victims and AIDS
patients for years. When movie stars needed to get tuned up for roles,
they often used Andriol, probably one of the safest steroids available.

The danger comes in when soigneurs, coaches, and friends of friends are
selling and administering these drugs instead of real doctors. Like any
medical product is taken for the wrong reason, or in the wrong
combination, the results can be deadly.

If drug programs were legal, regulated, and in use, would Tom Simpson
have sneaked a dose of speed if his team doctor denied his request? No
one can really know.

We can either settle for lesser races, or safely regulated and
carefully monitored medical uses of fortifying drugs. Stage racing is,
by any measure, extremely strenuous. Consider the fragile health of so
many of these "finely tuned" athletes. They have minimal upper body
mass, so their collarbones are snapping like twigs. From February
through October, these hardest working people in sport are always on
the edge of respiratory illness, mono or glandular fever, and subject
to food-related gastric illness. Should they continue to live in fear
of every door handle? Should sponsors and fans have to lower their
expectations? Should riders be forced to really get to know their
pushers? Is the Olympic movement(which controls most major
international sport anyway) so thoroughly corrupt that perhaps it's
time to put the control of sport into the hands of athlete's unions to
counter-balance the sporting organisations and sponsors?
Tom Purcell

jeremy said:

Interesting opinions in Wednesday's Mailbag at VeloNews:

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/10149.0.html

Why not let 'em dope? What is the philosophy behind testing all the
riders? Are we trying to protect their health? Are we trying to
maintain a level playing field?

What do we care about their health? American football players beat
their bodies to death and often have major health problems after they
retire. We don't have any rules to regulate the amount of damage
American football players do to themselves during each game. Boxers
suffer from getting hit so often (see Muhammad Ali) and we still allow
them to fight. How is doping any different?

If we did allow everyone to dope, how would the playing field NOT be
level? Pros have access to just about anything, especially ProTour
teams with multi-million dollar budgets. Access wouldn't be a problem.
If everyone does it, then how would the playing field not be level?

I say EPO and blood reinfusions for everyone.

jeremy

In article
<[email hidden]>,

gds said:

jeremy said:

Interesting opinions in Wednesday's Mailbag at VeloNews:

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/10149.0.html

Why not let 'em dope? What is the philosophy behind testing all the
riders? Are we trying to protect their health? Are we trying to
maintain a level playing field?

What do we care about their health? American football players beat
their bodies to death and often have major health problems after they
retire. We don't have any rules to regulate the amount of damage
American football players do to themselves during each game. Boxers
suffer from getting hit so often (see Muhammad Ali) and we still allow
them to fight. How is doping any different?

If we did allow everyone to dope, how would the playing field NOT be
level? Pros have access to just about anything, especially ProTour
teams with multi-million dollar budgets. Access wouldn't be a problem.
If everyone does it, then how would the playing field not be level?

I say EPO and blood reinfusions for everyone.

jeremy

I agree!
Besides from a practical point of view it won't stop any way. We ended
prohibition because it couldn't be enforced- not because of a sudden
change in morals.

And much of the argument really isn't about the health of the athletes
but rather about the example it sets for youth. We do have to protect
our youth.

So, building on the experience of cultures where alcohol is consumed
but with low rates of alcoholism I suggest we can best protect our
youth by introducing doping as an approved family activity.

As a family we can sit around and ingest, inject or otherwise partake
in a number of great concoctions that will aid us in our pursuit of
athletic performance. And because this activity will not involve
"forbidden fruit" it will result in less overuse and drive proper use
into the living room and out of wherever it is. And by legalizing, even
encouraging such activity we will probably also drive down the unit
costs by taking the illegal black market out of it and also encourage
R&D by big pharma so that soon there will loads of newer, better, and
safer products on the market. And in just 17 years we will have
generics which will further reduce the cost to the consumer.

I'm sure that with a little lobbing we can get all this covered by
medicare and which point you will see masters 65+ destroying the times
of young turks racing in 35, 45 and 55.

This has already come to pass. You've walked up and down
aisles in the pharmacy. Every bit of those drugs are
ingested. Then there are the prescription medications that
do not appear on the open shelves.

--
Michael Press

Quoted message said:

Kurgan Gringioni said:

Quoted message said:

And when gene doping eventually gets here, it will
be expensive to start with.

Quoted message said:

Dumbass -

Gene doping will be cheap. The actual procedure for making a gene
alteration is relatively simple. It's graduate student level lab work.

The hard part is identifying which genes to change, ie. what the
effects of the change will be, and what side effects will accompany the
gene alteration.

They don't have the identification part down yet. It's coming though.
Wait until they start applying massive parallel processing (ie. the
Googleplex) to this problem effectively. We might see stuff like guys
looking like the Incredible Hulk walking around the streets in our
lifetime. Or, better yet, all the chicks on the street looking vaguely
like Angelina Jolie or Cameron Diaz.

Even better yet: a genetic vaccine to get usenet posters to act like
Sierraman and Tom Kunich. That would be the best, a Sierraman/Kunich
helmet thread, the culimination of which would be a fistfight, one guy
wearing a helmet, the other not.

Dumbass,

That's what physicists and computer scientists usually
think when faced with a problem in biology - "Wait until
we apply a method from our field. Then it will be simple!"
As you said, you still have to do biology to link the gene
alteration with its effect. Oh, and the side effects. That's
an expensive part to test - clinical trials and all that.
This is one reason I said early black market gene doping
could make EPO look as safe as orange juice - doctors
without ethics (let alone soigneurs that got some stuff from
some lab technician buddy, etc) will cut corners on the
testing and side effects.

Dumbass -

History has proven that many of the athletes are more than willing to
risk the unknown side effects. It's more a matter of identifying which
gene alterations will provide a performance enhancement.

thanks,

K. Gringioni.

Quoted message said:

I've already encountered enough masters fattie riders (who were
suddenly able to simply ride away from incredibly fit (and fast)
fields) to satisfy my fill.

You can identify dopers by their speed alone?. You should alert [censored]
Pound. He could use your services.

Quoted message said:

Are there masters riders willing to dope
to win a friggin folding tire? You'd better believe it.

There may well be some doping in masters racing. I've heard some rumors
but have no personal knowedge of doping ever. If there is, it has
little to do with prizes. What region are you talking about?

Bret

"jeremy" <[email hidden]> wrote in news:1151524880.073025.242610
@d56g2000cwd.googlegroups.com:

Quoted message said:

Interesting opinions in Wednesday's Mailbag at VeloNews:

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/10149.0.html

Why not let 'em dope? What is the philosophy behind testing all the
riders? Are we trying to protect their health? Are we trying to
maintain a level playing field?

Oh no you don't. People went on about Pantani being 'that little cancer'
until he was dead in a hotel room. And now that it's shown that the rest
of the field was doped too, including those once considered to be the
heroes against his villainy, I hope the oh-so-morally upright from then
continue to express their admirable armchair viewpoints and pursue the
same agenda until all riders gone. Smash 'em, trash 'em, leave none
alive. There's a group of 'fans' that has jumped on the anti-doping
bandwagon when it was convenient for them, but now wants to get out
because their own class acts are the victims this time. Sit it out,
pansies.

Quoted message said:

What do we care about their health? American football players beat
their bodies to death and often have major health problems after they
retire. We don't have any rules to regulate the amount of damage
American football players do to themselves during each game. Boxers
suffer from getting hit so often (see Muhammad Ali) and we still allow
them to fight. How is doping any different?

If we did allow everyone to dope, how would the playing field NOT be
level? Pros have access to just about anything, especially ProTour
teams with multi-million dollar budgets. Access wouldn't be a problem.
If everyone does it, then how would the playing field not be level?

I say EPO and blood reinfusions for everyone.

jeremy

Quoted message said:

I've already encountered enough masters fattie riders (who were
suddenly able to simply ride away from incredibly fit (and fast)
fields) to satisfy my fill. Are there masters riders willing to dope
to win a friggin folding tire? You'd better believe it.

It's worse than that. As a fifty year old guy I'm aware of a wide variety of
performance enhancers that are marketted to me by the pharmaceutical houses,
over the counter, at the health food store, by mail order and over the internet
that are perfectly legal and moral and medically sound that are banned for
racing. IOW, a racing license is a greater restriction on my drug use than any
other aspect of life.

Master fatties don't dope to win a tire, they dope for the same reasons as all
their buddies whose bikes hang in the garage. 'Cause they're old and their ass
is dragging and there's pills and creams that make that better.

Quoted message said:

If we let everyone dope, then the chance of doing well (while riding
"clean"😉 simply vanishes. Why should clean riders be forced into
doping. Bad enough that I had to go out and buy those gay handlebar
extensions so as not to stray too far behind the $5,000 TT bikes at
districts.

Sorry, nothing to be done about that except change the rules. Assume the
position.

Ron

Quoted message said:

jeremy said:

Interesting opinions in Wednesday's Mailbag at VeloNews:

http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/10149.0.html

Why not let 'em dope? What is the philosophy behind testing all the
riders? Are we trying to protect their health? Are we trying to
maintain a level playing field?

What do we care about their health? American football players beat
their bodies to death and often have major health problems after they
retire. We don't have any rules to regulate the amount of damage
American football players do to themselves during each game. Boxers
suffer from getting hit so often (see Muhammad Ali) and we still allow
them to fight. How is doping any different?

If we did allow everyone to dope, how would the playing field NOT be
level? Pros have access to just about anything, especially ProTour
teams with multi-million dollar budgets. Access wouldn't be a problem.
If everyone does it, then how would the playing field not be level?

I say EPO and blood reinfusions for everyone.

jeremy

RonSonic said:

Master fatties don't dope to win a tire, they dope for the same reasons as all
their buddies whose bikes hang in the garage. 'Cause they're old and their ass
is dragging and there's pills and creams that make that better.

Oh what a drag it is getting old.
http://www.lyricsfreak.com/r/rolling+stones/mothers+little+helper_20117873.html

And now the author of the above is taking more stay young pills than most
master fatties.