drug taking in sport

[daz h]

So do you reckon boardmans absolute hour record was drugs assisted?

one thing i forgot to mention AG was that in 1999 "one year after the festina scandal" boardman publically stated that the peloton had slowed on certain stages to a manageble level.

now the story was boardman was given clearance after bone scans revealing signs of osteoporosis by the UCI to have hormone replacement therapy ( ie testosterone boosting by another way ) , however his application was then turned down the UCI backtracking saying he would have to quit cycling.
in 2000boardman revealed he would have had been healthier if he had taken drugs , he always maintained every time he rode the tour he was damaging his body.
the choice was his , he quit cycling the hour eventually gave him financial security.
i think at the time of around 1998 he did an interview saying that i he had chosen the drugs path he could have easily made £225,000 per season just doing the big tours but his conscience told him not to .
the festina riders and others now have to live with that but i suppose they made there money.
boardman once said after a stage in the tour

IF IT LOOKS TO GOOD TO BE TRUE IT PROBABLY IS

[TheHeathens]

I think you're probably along the right lines,

Women.
100 Florence Griffith-Joyner
200 Florence Griffith-Joyner
400 Marita Koch
800 Jarmila Kratochvílová

Although I'd throw in....
1500 Yunxia Qu
3000 Junxia Wang

How about:

10,000 Junxia Wang (29:31)

[daz h]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=0yCt1BSPGoA

some good clean names in this lot
i thought David you would have a view on this subject like me pantani was one of your fav cyclists despite the drugs.


oh david mate notice the bike make

[Mud]

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ0dlVhd2Hk

oh david mate notice the bike make

Incredible, I can't believe they got up those mountains on those.

[dominion]

Incredible, I can't believe they got up those mountains on just those drugs.

That was my thoughts as well.

[CL]

Drugs such as salbutamol that dilate the airways work in exactly the same way as the body's natural systems; they bind to their receptors whch effect the dilation. By working in this way the lmiting factor is not the quantity of drug that you take, but the number of receptors you have for the drug. Once the receptors are saturated, any more drug taken will have no effect on dilation of the airways.

I don't have asthma, so when I run I saturate my own receptors, if I had asthma and I took salbutamol I would only be restoring myself to the same level as athletes without asthma. I dont' have a problem with this, though I can see there is an arguament that sport is about pitting one body against another, so maybe disadvantages shouldn't be negated this way.

I don't know anything about salbutamols effect on the metabolism, but it is a misnomer to suggest that asthma medication increases dilation of the airways when compared with non-astmatics.

Gravymuncher you wouldn't be restoring yourself to the same levels, because Salbutamol doesn't occur naturally in the body!

In other words no one has Asthma because of a deficiency of Salbutamol.

[CL]

I personally think the only track WRs that are drugs assisted are the women's ones for 800 and under and 10,000m. The men's distance records have risen fairly evenly through the decades. I think their increase is just due to natural progressions in training and nutrition etc. Regardless of what country an athlete is from, if they are competing at the top level they will be subjected to a lot of tests.

Ag Marion Jones was subjected to lots of tests as well!

Do you honestly believe that gabrisallasse and other Africans, can run a minute faster than the great Said Aouita over 10km, without chemical assistance.

There was no Epo when he was competing.Aouita was faster in terms of basic speed(46.9 for 400m), was as light and possessed great stamina.Additionally he was almost unbeatable.

If you don't believe what I'm saying(in regard to drugs), re-watch the 1500m final at the 2000 olympics.Before the games it was announced, that a test had been developed for EPO.This test could detect EPO use upto 5 days( approx) before, but beyond permitted levels(EPO occurs naturally in the body).

Athletes using this drug had to be very careful now.So much so that a runner who'd been running 3.26-3.27, and making it look easy, struggled to run 3.32 and finished 2nd.Some other runners struggled as well.

Try to get the tape, watch and then tell me what you think.

[dominion]

Gravymuncher you wouldn't be restoring yourself to the same levels, because Salbutamol doesn't occur naturally in the body!

Nor do vitamins occur naturally in your body, but argubly they keep you heathly and able to train for longer without colds, flu, etc.

Paradoxically your body does produce anabolic steroids such as testosterone naturally.....

[Chris]

Do you honestly believe that gabrisallasse and other Africans, can run a minute faster than the great Said Aouita over 10km, without chemical assistance.

Why choose Said Aouita as an example? He wasn't a 10k runner.

[Chris]

Okay, I admit to becoming a bit interested in this. I thought the Asthma issue was a bit periferal.

I don't know about the 2000 Olympic 1,500. Was that El Gorouge's tactical abomination against Ngeny or am I thinking of something else?

I don't think you can conclude from super fast running that drugs are involved. For example, in the days before computer games I knew kids of 17 who cound run 800 metres in two minutes on no training. Coe ran 1.42 something 29 years ago. Considering the motivation of the Africans and the number of them why should we be sceptical that they are one or two minutes quicker than say Ron Clarke or David Bedford 30 or 40 years ago?

Tom Buckner, an 8 and a little bit minute steeplchaser once told me that he had stayed in Kenya and had run their national cross country championship and had finished about 50th behind kids in barefeet and cut off jeans.

Some people are just fast. I am willing to be convinced but your asthma soapbox seems to miss the point.