4 ms·

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

by diath 3y ago

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.

wavemode 3y ago
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.
- shermantanktop 3y ago
  Interesting performance enhancement approach. I’m pretty sure I have been testing that accidentally, and I’m no Messi…yet.
- saiya-jin 3y ago
  Yes, but society generally doesn't like liars and certainly doesn't seem appropriate for them to live in luxury. And what is doping if not lying about your actual skills, efforts put into training and your mostly genetical limits
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- TheCondor 3y ago
  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,
  - ip26 3y ago
    They slept with their heart monitors on. And they set an alarm to sound if their heart rates dropped below a certain level. On hearing the alarm, you then got up out of bed, got onto your bike [...] and pedalled for ten minutes to re-start your circulation. https://www.vice.com/en/article/xdpbnd/he-just-wanted-to-take-more-drugs-than-anyone-else https://www.vice.com/en/article/xdpbnd/he-just-wanted-to-tak... How is that not a negative physical effect?
throwup238 3y ago
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.
- Zigurd 3y ago
  If professional, or, for that matter supposedly amateur sports were not so subsidized and blown out of proportion, as well as having regulatory and antitrust exemptions, it is likely there would be a lot less money in it and therefore less incentive to trade one's health for fleeting money and fame. There is another article on the front page today about how the right amount of fraud is not zero. Align the incentives and doping will decline, and enforcement becomes less critical.
  - nradov 3y ago
    People enjoy watching exciting sports. They are willing to pay a lot for that entertainment, and also tend to patronize the sponsors. This incentive will last as long as capitalism.
    - Zigurd 3y ago
      That incentive won't go away. But we don't need to give subsidies or bend regulations as well.
- fransje26 3y ago
  > 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.
  - droopyEyelids 3y ago
Scoundreller 3y ago
WSM = World’s Strongest Man? (Google first suggested Weston Super Mare, a UK semi-pro football club but I don’t think that’s right).
- lovemenot 3y ago
  Steroids: putting the Super in Weston Super Mare.
- stefs 3y ago
  worlds strongest man is correct
jdietrich 3y ago
Cycling had a long and dreadful history of doping-related deaths. The rampant doping in other sports reflects an unwillingness to learn the lessons that cycling learned the hard way. Armstrong never failed a drugs test, because the tests were a joke. The biological passport isn't a magic bullet, but - when seriously enforced - it places hard limits on what dopers can get away with, no matter how devious they are. Most sports are in denial, because they don't want to endure the painful process of actually rooting out the drug cheats. They have weak, ineffectual anti-doping programmes that are trivial to circumvent, then imagine themselves to be clean because of the low rate of positive tests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlete_biological_passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlete_biological_passport
operatingthetan 3y ago
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).
- timeon 3y ago
  > Open up the drugs and then there are whole other aspects to the competition than being born with good blood (literally). Cycling is about endurance and power output. If you remove 'genes and training plan' you are left with dice roll. If anything I would remove team radios [0]. [0] Like when Anna Kiesenhofer won in Tokio.
  - operatingthetan 3y ago
    Leaving out strategy and tactics seems odd. It's not roulette.
- pessimizer 3y ago
  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.
  - operatingthetan 3y ago
    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.
aredox 3y ago
A French sci-fi author wrote a novel where they do what you proposed... It is called "La guerre olympique" - the Olympic war. Needless to say it is a pure dystopia.
- opportune 3y ago
  Damn. I guess there’s no point in trying it because that guy wrote a fiction novel portraying it as bad. OTOH bodybuilding (the part people care about) and some strength sports allow PEDs. Some people do die young from steroid abuse, but not a lot of top dogs.
  - msrenee 3y ago
    Body building is an interesting example to choose here. The top dogs often do die young. It seems like it's just kind of accepted as the cost of the sport.
mtts 3y ago
It used to be this way. Cycling was doped, everyone knew that and everyone was open about it. There’s an amusing story from those days where two top contenders in a multi stage race agree to skip the drugs for one day. They arrive at the finish line much later and much more exhausted than usual and publicly announce they will never do something like that ever again. The ban on doping dates from 1967, I believe, when British cyclist Tommy Simpson dropped dead from his bike during the Tour de France from having taken too many drugs (in combination with alcohol, too - truly these were different times).
light_hue_1 3y ago
It's easy to say, why don't we have an olympics where people can do whatever they want. Take any drug that they want. The problem is, are we ok with people burning out their bodies in their 20s? And ending up dead or with horrific side effects that torture them for the rest of their lives? And how much agency do some of these people have in their late teens early 20s when they start doing these drugs? Are we just allowing their parents and governments to put crazy things in their bodies, effectively ruining their futures, so that they can win? The drugs used in cycling are extremely dangerous. Dozens of cyclists have died from doping, and those are just the ones we know about. Look up a documentary about Marco Pantani if you want to see the horrific effects of doping. He wrecked his body to the point where he couldn't sleep for long periods without risking a heart attack. He had to cycle at night on a stationary bike to stay alive. Sadly he passed away at only 34. If we adopt this system where we just let people dope as they wish, we're signing their death warrant. No better than watching gladiators fight to the death.
pi-e-sigma 3y ago
I agree with you. There would be some positives, too. We would get proper scientific studies on how steroids and all the other performance drugs work, their benefits, risks etc. I'm sure it would push medicine forward, long term. Banning doesn't work, people do doping anyway, but it's all underground

by diath 3y ago

wavemode 3y ago

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.

shermantanktop 3y ago
Interesting performance enhancement approach. I’m pretty sure I have been testing that accidentally, and I’m no Messi…yet.
saiya-jin 3y ago
Yes, but society generally doesn't like liars and certainly doesn't seem appropriate for them to live in luxury. And what is doping if not lying about your actual skills, efforts put into training and your mostly genetical limits
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
TheCondor 3y ago
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,
- ip26 3y ago
  They slept with their heart monitors on. And they set an alarm to sound if their heart rates dropped below a certain level. On hearing the alarm, you then got up out of bed, got onto your bike [...] and pedalled for ten minutes to re-start your circulation. https://www.vice.com/en/article/xdpbnd/he-just-wanted-to-take-more-drugs-than-anyone-else https://www.vice.com/en/article/xdpbnd/he-just-wanted-to-tak... How is that not a negative physical effect?

throwup238 3y ago

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.

Zigurd 3y ago
If professional, or, for that matter supposedly amateur sports were not so subsidized and blown out of proportion, as well as having regulatory and antitrust exemptions, it is likely there would be a lot less money in it and therefore less incentive to trade one's health for fleeting money and fame. There is another article on the front page today about how the right amount of fraud is not zero. Align the incentives and doping will decline, and enforcement becomes less critical.
- nradov 3y ago
  People enjoy watching exciting sports. They are willing to pay a lot for that entertainment, and also tend to patronize the sponsors. This incentive will last as long as capitalism.
  - Zigurd 3y ago
    That incentive won't go away. But we don't need to give subsidies or bend regulations as well.
fransje26 3y ago
> 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.
- droopyEyelids 3y ago

Scoundreller 3y ago

WSM = World’s Strongest Man? (Google first suggested Weston Super Mare, a UK semi-pro football club but I don’t think that’s right).

lovemenot 3y ago
Steroids: putting the Super in Weston Super Mare.
stefs 3y ago
worlds strongest man is correct

jdietrich 3y ago

Cycling had a long and dreadful history of doping-related deaths. The rampant doping in other sports reflects an unwillingness to learn the lessons that cycling learned the hard way. Armstrong never failed a drugs test, because the tests were a joke. The biological passport isn't a magic bullet, but - when seriously enforced - it places hard limits on what dopers can get away with, no matter how devious they are. Most sports are in denial, because they don't want to endure the painful process of actually rooting out the drug cheats. They have weak, ineffectual anti-doping programmes that are trivial to circumvent, then imagine themselves to be clean because of the low rate of positive tests. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlete_biological_passport https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlete_biological_passport

operatingthetan 3y ago

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).

timeon 3y ago
> Open up the drugs and then there are whole other aspects to the competition than being born with good blood (literally). Cycling is about endurance and power output. If you remove 'genes and training plan' you are left with dice roll. If anything I would remove team radios [0]. [0] Like when Anna Kiesenhofer won in Tokio.
- operatingthetan 3y ago
  Leaving out strategy and tactics seems odd. It's not roulette.
pessimizer 3y ago
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.
- operatingthetan 3y ago
  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.

aredox 3y ago

A French sci-fi author wrote a novel where they do what you proposed... It is called "La guerre olympique" - the Olympic war. Needless to say it is a pure dystopia.

opportune 3y ago
Damn. I guess there’s no point in trying it because that guy wrote a fiction novel portraying it as bad. OTOH bodybuilding (the part people care about) and some strength sports allow PEDs. Some people do die young from steroid abuse, but not a lot of top dogs.
- msrenee 3y ago
  Body building is an interesting example to choose here. The top dogs often do die young. It seems like it's just kind of accepted as the cost of the sport.

mtts 3y ago

It used to be this way. Cycling was doped, everyone knew that and everyone was open about it. There’s an amusing story from those days where two top contenders in a multi stage race agree to skip the drugs for one day. They arrive at the finish line much later and much more exhausted than usual and publicly announce they will never do something like that ever again. The ban on doping dates from 1967, I believe, when British cyclist Tommy Simpson dropped dead from his bike during the Tour de France from having taken too many drugs (in combination with alcohol, too - truly these were different times).

light_hue_1 3y ago

It's easy to say, why don't we have an olympics where people can do whatever they want. Take any drug that they want. The problem is, are we ok with people burning out their bodies in their 20s? And ending up dead or with horrific side effects that torture them for the rest of their lives? And how much agency do some of these people have in their late teens early 20s when they start doing these drugs? Are we just allowing their parents and governments to put crazy things in their bodies, effectively ruining their futures, so that they can win? The drugs used in cycling are extremely dangerous. Dozens of cyclists have died from doping, and those are just the ones we know about. Look up a documentary about Marco Pantani if you want to see the horrific effects of doping. He wrecked his body to the point where he couldn't sleep for long periods without risking a heart attack. He had to cycle at night on a stationary bike to stay alive. Sadly he passed away at only 34. If we adopt this system where we just let people dope as they wish, we're signing their death warrant. No better than watching gladiators fight to the death.

pi-e-sigma 3y ago

I agree with you. There would be some positives, too. We would get proper scientific studies on how steroids and all the other performance drugs work, their benefits, risks etc. I'm sure it would push medicine forward, long term. Banning doesn't work, people do doping anyway, but it's all underground