cjbruin wrote:
desert dude wrote:
Quote:
A 2-year ban is not enough to discourage athletes from rolling the dice.
In case you've not been paying attention the 1st year ban is going to 4 years.
Still not enough in my opinion.
I think 4 years is enough initially and I will explain why. Second round should be lifetime.
There are a many of reasons I can live with 4 years. First of all, kids are not that smart about the ways of the world and will do anything a coach tells them to do to make it "big time". I can see a young kid being shoved the dope by his coach saying this is the final step that gets him there and its safe, everyone is doing it and he should too. Parents are equally stupid and if coach tells a kid that this is the ticket to the NFL or superstar sprinting, then next thing you know the kid is on it. As a coach of teenagers, some of them fairly elite athletes, these kids will do whatever I say. For example in the junior races in the Coupe de France Nordic skiing, the kids are not allowed to use the high florocarbon waxes which make the racing like night and day, but can be $200 per application. Then it becomes "up the coach" if his kids are ski "doped" or not. The kids will use whatever the coach says. I am not sure how they exactly police that in France. Here in Canada and the US, we allow them to use the best wax they can get. Go to the high school races, and the kids have exactly the same stuff at they have in the Olympics.
If we recall, Olympic 100m sprint finalist Ray Stewart who later became a Jamaican coach was banned for from coaching for trafficking steroids, "Hey kids, I was the first Jamaican under 10 seconds, this is how it is still done....get on the program". There are a lot of vulnerable teens and young adults who end up doping this way. They are under the spell of their coach.
They deserve a ban, but I think 4 years is enough to learn the lesson.
For adult athletes, who dope, 4 years is an entire Olympic cycle, and far enough away from your last palmares, that you likely won't get a protour contract, you won't get a Barclay's Premier League contract (if FIFA was actually serious...let's see the first FIFA EPO/Steroid/HGH bust....remember the infamous championship Juventus squads winning all over Europe at the peak of the Bjarne Riis EPO era...) and you won't get to start a triathlon as a pro for at least a year without re earning your pro license. For older athletes, it can kill a career. Women's triathlon is "so much less competitive in depth and there are so many IM races, that you can win one when 46, but that won't happen on the men's side. Also women pro triathletes are generally 30-50 lbs lighter than the men, and run slower, which prolongs their careers. The larger men (you need to be bigger to compete as a pro man to be fast enough on the bike) break down a lot earlier than women. For a pro male caught doping at 34, he's only looking at coming back at 39. His career is going to be over and will need to find a way to at least generate revenue for 5 years.
I've met Nina personally several times, and been in the same races shortly after her ban was lifted. She returned much slower than her former "Nina the Machina" self. I am inclined to believe that she is truly sorry for her time doping, is racing clean, racing much slower and frankly not competitive on the global scale. If Mirinda Carfrae showed up at Louisville, and Nina did this exact same performance we would have zero discussion because she would be way off the back. Just because no one fast showed up, now we're having "the doper won" discussion. Last year, Nina was 7 minutes slower, was 4th, and essentially had the same performance on much less current. No one said anything. The hate is on right now because no one faster than her showed up.
I feel there is more overall hate for her here than Natasha Badmann probably has today.