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Cycling Doping Fallacies

thenewleafjournal.com

91–100 of 113 posts

Re: Cycling Doping Fallacies

#91

1) Armstrong was (is) an asshole who destroyed careers and lives, which is part of why they threw the book at him as opposed to others 2) That said, 7 in a row is still incredible. While he had a few incidents, he was always able to recover and never had an injury or illness that knocked him out. If Roglic could say the same, he'd probably have won at least 2 Tours if not three 3) Of course they're still all doping.…

In my view the problem with doping is not that pros take it. The problem is that when pros take PED and do basically impossible stuff this trickles down into amateur and youth sport. So you end up with teenagers and amateurs taking everything they can get without any doctors supervising how much they take. So you have teen athletes ruining their health while trying to make it to the top because it’s the only way to perform at the levels necessary.

Re: Cycling Doping Fallacies

#92
post #4

> I do think that history has treated Mr. Armstrong unfairly for the essential act of his cheating. > To be sure, Mr. Armstrong brought much of his disparate treatment on himself. Perhaps history, but I think modernity has been far too kind to Mr. Armstrong. I'm floored that Lance Armstrong is still given a degree of celebrity and room as a public figure, and still more that he can make money off of that. That his ce…

Far too kind to his team coaches, doctors and nutritionists, too. People like Allen Lim who made millions off books and supplements. Lim almost certainly knew what was going on. If you buy Skratch products you're directly benefiting people who stood right next to Armstrong.

[deleted]

Re: Cycling Doping Fallacies

#93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not only tested but samples archived to test later as drugs and assays become known to the testers. The amount of money our governments waste on stadiums and financial incentives for sportsball teams is already ridiculous, it should at least not be completely fraudulent.

> The amount of money our governments waste on stadiums and financial incentives for sportsball teams is already ridiculous, it should at least not be completely fraudulent. What makes you think that "Bread and Games" is no longer relevant today? It was an effective way to keep the masses under control 2000 years ago, and it's possibly still very cost-effective today.

The big pro teams aren't publicly owned. The government handles public college teams. Let the owners of private teams pay their own expenses

Re: Cycling Doping Fallacies

#94
And yet, all the major sports get a pass on doping.

There is still no real testing in US sports, nor any soccer/football league. They all have their programs, but they are all urine tests. Remember that cycling in the 90's couldn't catch people using a blood test and had to eventually rely on a series of blood tests and variances in levels. These urine tests (which are practically announced to the players) are laughable.

These leagues should be paying cycling for the cover it has given them over the years.

Re: Cycling Doping Fallacies

#95

1) Armstrong was (is) an asshole who destroyed careers and lives, which is part of why they threw the book at him as opposed to others 2) That said, 7 in a row is still incredible. While he had a few incidents, he was always able to recover and never had an injury or illness that knocked him out. If Roglic could say the same, he'd probably have won at least 2 Tours if not three 3) Of course they're still all doping.…

> I'd rather see van der Poel do inhuman things. Cadel Evans era was boring How does doping make cycling a more interesting sport? I'm a mediocre fan, but Armstrong winning every year was boring. I would think that most fans like to see battles on climbs, attacks, etc... Doping makes you fastre, but whether it takes 45 or 42 minutes to do a certain climbs doesn't matter.

I think the answer there doesn't have much to do with doping, but rather super-teams. Especially teams focused on a single event like US Postal was. Reduce the size of each team to 7 or 5 and chaos would ensue (for good or bad). Do you want F1 or NASCAR?

Re: Cycling Doping Fallacies

#96
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you describe in a sentence or two what he has been doing? That 2-hour podcast is quite the commitment.

It sounds like he mostly just rides mountain bikes around his hometown somewhere in Colorado and occasionally does a chat with cancer patients who are interested in that.

Aspen. He splits his time between Austin and Aspen. Not a bad existence if you can get it. His hometown is Plano.

Re: Cycling Doping Fallacies

#97

If you are competitive with a naturally low hematocrit level you have more “headroom” for doping to unnaturally boost your performance, and vice-versa. Lance had a naturally low hematocrit for a road cyclist, which made him respond disproportionately strongly to EPO. He’d have been mediocre off the sauce in a clean field. The end.

>> He’d have been mediocre off the sauce in a clean field

In a multi-stage race like the Tour, yes. He was phenomenal for a single day race.

Re: Cycling Doping Fallacies

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It also makes cycling a competition of who has the best genes and training plan. Which is kinda gross honestly. Open up the drugs and then there are whole other aspects to the competition than being born with good blood (literally).

Better that than a competition of who is most willing to destroy their health. Open doping would become extreme quickly. edit: and it seems pointless to "solve" the problem of different genetics, because genetics would also influence how you reacted to PEDs. It's just adding a thing.

It would be a more authentic competition than what we have now. Which is pretending it’s clean and finding out a few years later it wasn’t.

Re: Cycling Doping Fallacies

#99
post #71
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Hamilton's two failed drug tests destroyed his career far more than Armstrong.

That's disingenuous at best. Lance was simultaneously dodging tests while siccing the authorities on any cyclist who dare challenge him on the road.

[dead]

Re: Cycling Doping Fallacies

#100
post #6

Unpopular opinion but I really think that all competitions should be untested like WSM. As it currently stands, the competition in most sports is about who has the resources to best hide their PED use.

It's about safety, really - most performance-enhancing drugs are detrimental to the body of the enhanced. If someone eats lots of potatoes and that gives them the energy to perform well at soccer, their performance was certainly "enhanced" by a "substance", but nobody would care.

They can be dangerous, properly administered they tend not to be. In the early part of the epo era, a number of lesser pros and amateurs killed themselves by thickening their blood with epo. Most of the serious dopers are still incredible specimens without much in the way of negative physical effects, they all had doctors monitoring them though.

The psychological aspects have possibly been more dangerous than the chemicals,

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