In article <[email hidden]>,
(Michael Baldwin) said:Ryan writes
Quoted message said:I don't think of doping as fundamentally a "homework" violation,
though. I think of doping as most fundamentally a safety
violation, and one that can have pernicious consequences. It's bad
if your doping gives you health problems; it's worse if
your doping induces formerly clean racers to either dope or
drop out of racing.
I agree with your safety aspect and the erosion factor as well.
Not like blood doping but...back in the early 80's a local guy was
tearing up the dirt sprint car tracks with a phenomenal flat foot style.
Seems he was snorting a line or two just before the start of each 30
lap feature. As word circulated regarding this practice, more and more
competitors were refusing to race with him. Through the course of the
season as fellow racer entries dropped off, so did spectator attendance.
Track owners and promotors finally confronted the guy about his habit,
now turned addiction.
Today, now in his 50's this guy is a huge anti-drug advocate for local
youth groups.
It's been said here before. Pro cyclists own the doping problem.
Even the clean racers who turned a blind eye regarding dopers. It's
about leadership or in this case the lack of.
That's what I find so mysterious about pro athletes and performance
enhancing drugs. You'd think they be the last group in society to
tolerate and condone the practice.
Pro athletes almost never make it to The Show based on their wisdom.
Indeed, the process of becoming a pro athlete (and I say this as
someone, who, if I could have a do-over, would totally start bike racing
in my teens and try to make it as far as I could) may select against
wisdom and proportionality. After all, you have to think that getting
the ball/puck/bike into the net/goal/finish is THE MOST IMPORTANT THING
IN THE WORLD in order to become great.
I also think that there's a certain sense of invincibility and cockiness
that is fairly natural to a kind of personality that is common in elite
athletes.
A good description of this is in Michael "Moneyball" Lewis' latest book,
"The Blind Side." He spends a fair bit of that book describing the
career of supremely talented and confident linebacker Lawrence Taylor,
who was a coke-head. For LT, according to the book, cocaine was
essentially something he liked and was confident he could control.
"For me, crazy as it seems, there is a real relationship between wild,
reckless, and abandoned off the field and being that way on the field."
Here's an excerpt from "The Blind Side" which describes the most famous
play of LT's career, when he hits all-star quarterback Joe Theismann so
hard he breaks his leg and ends his career:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6241687
And if that description isn't enough for you, heeere's YouTube!
That weird click you hear at the moment of the tackle is two of
Theismann's leg bones breaking. The reverse angle shows the break
clearly.
I strongly recommend the book.
--
Ryan Cousineau [email hidden] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"In other newsgroups, they killfile trolls."
"In rec.bicycles.racing, we coach them."