3 ms·
Personally, I don't see any reason to be bothered by doping; it's just another form of performance technology. To me, it isn't any different from eating a high-
by Retra 11y ago
Personally, I don't see any reason to be bothered by doping; it's just another form of performance technology. To me, it isn't any different from eating a high-protein diet. Or having a genetic anomaly that makes your muscles slightly more efficient.
They chase money and evidence around precisely because people like you will stop caring if they can't prevent doping. You draw a (very arbitrary) line between 'natural' and 'unnatural' athletes, and you create a market for goon squads to hunt down the unnaturals to preserve the purity of the culture.
It never was a pure contest of man, willpower, carbon-fiber, and asphalt. It's also a contest of means, luck, money, food, biology, and genetics. Even without the doping.
- grogen 11y agoI have tended to feel the same way but arguments can be made that allowing unrestricted doping would force those who want to compete to take something potentially/increasingly dangerous to their long term health in order to do so at the top tiers (as if you didn't, there would certainly be someone who would be willing to burn the candle at both ends for the fame and money). Even in the case where you were to break things out into a doping/vs. non-doping leagues, I have a feeling that in the ultra-competitive world of top athletes, there would be a temptation to get an edge in the non-doping league by similar means as are used today thus buying nothing (except, perhaps, an additional league of super-human athletes who I suspect would get more recognition, fame, and money than their counterparts and therefore push more athletes into a doping arms-race).
- amyjess 11y agoYes, advances in nutrition are why you see world records continue to be broken. It's especially visible in running, where sprinting world records never last long thanks to new knowledge of nutrition.
- meatysnapper 11y agoWhich explains why, in the early 90s, all endurance sports records dropped like a rock, because of a major nutritional breakthrough.... wait, it was just the introduction of EPO.
- roymurdock 11y agoI'm not arguing that people shouldn't be allowed to dope if they want to. Nor am I arguing that unnatural or transhumanist athletes should be "hunted down" by goon squads. I'm arguing that athletes who perform in games and competitions must follow the rules of these games and competitions, or else what is the point of having the structured organization of a sport? No one would care about the Tour de France if it wasn't assumed that the athletes were all following the same set of rules. Athletes who dope should play in their own league, with their own set of rules. I agree: the line between different performance enhancing technologies is blurred. I'm not trying to pass judgment on whether taking steroids is more or less "wrong" than following a high-protein diet. All I can comment on is my decline in interest given the shaky boundaries and clearly unethical actions of the top layer of these sports.
- Retra 11y agoThat's a good point. The ethical behavior of top athletes is disappointing. On the other hand, if you're going to pay them so much to win, it will naturally be worth the risk to lie and cheat to do it.
- roymurdock 11y agoYup, I think professional athletes are overpaid. Unfortunately I am but one individual in the greater market of people who determine athlete salary by attending games, sitting in front of the TV, and buying endorsed products. I do love to watch a good old Federer v Djokovic match every once in a while though ;)
- Lio 11y agoI used to think that but what sticks in my throat is the bullying of other athletes into potentially dangerous practices for other people's short term gain. David Millar's autobiography goes into some detail about it. Someone saying "take this blood transfusion or inject this 'recover' syringe or you're out of a job" to a young athlete, far from home, is a scary thought.
- roymurdock 11y agoThis is why I'm hesitant to say that sports should just legalize doping. It will trickle down from the pro level and have extreme consequences on the young athletes whose bodies are still developing. "Natural" forms of athletic enhancement (pre puberty rigorous training) lead to stunted growth from the stress and impact placed on growth plates. What happens when the only way to get ahead is to gamble with Human Growth Hormone and steroids pre puberty?