No doubt. This is why it would be very hard to pass such a law in the US. Big money sports which have defacto doping have too much money to lobby against it.

If you could let me know where I said it was OK to dope in those sports, that would be great.

I simply pointed out that they are not signatories to the WADA code and therefore not subject to their testing regimens. You therefore can't really compare them to WADA signatories.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Hard...but more honest.

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

That's where I disagree. I think it's a huge leap. Like I said, the nature of being a dude is to buy ridiculously expensive and unnecessary gear, regardless of the activity. That's the norm: excess. I have a neighbor who spends much more than what your are describing above on freaking model trains for his basement. Tools, golf equipment, music equipment, camera equipment, guns, hunting stuff, camping gear, climbing gear, cars, boating, skiing, fishing, etc. Triathlon spending, even at the highest levels, is no big deal compared to many if not most of those hobbies on the list.

Taking in potentially dangerous drugs for such a small reward is a big leap and not the norm, at least the way I see it.

What I really want to know is HOW did Lance manage to make TD do it, again?

It's not really, one positive, and we walk away/team ends- (it's obvious lots of jobs are at stake) but this is a statement that JV has said in dozens and dozens of (marketing) interviews over the years. So the next question- if this statement doesn't actually have teeth behind it, what else about the team is marketing or a facade? Is TD a team outlier, or is Garmin just been a solid marketing machine to get sponsors and not a lot of results? He's been the team captain at previous TdF- such as 2011.

Nov 27, 2014

When you’ve got a situation like Astana has experienced, with two of its WorldTour guys [Maxim and Valentin Iglinskiy] testing positive for EPO, in a normal team that would spell the end of the team, right?

Take a team like ours, if we had two people doping, and it comes out or not, you know, it is the end of the organization because there really is no way around it. The sponsors contractually don’t have to stand by that. I don’t think they would stand by that. The way our organization is set up, we’ve always said this is the way we’re doing things, and we’ve stuck by that from the beginning. We’ve never had a positive test in the organization, in a decade, nor a hint of anyone doping inside the team, ever. And that’s what our sponsors have been promised. They haven’t been promised 50 race wins a year. They’ve been promised, this is the way we’re gonna do it. We might win some races, who knows? And if we don’t live up to our promise the organization is done

and that's the problem with people like Gaimon who fails to see any grey in life. Not that i would condone TD, but having such a strict standards (on Gaimon's part) requires strict actions, and Gaimon fails to apply the same standards of excoriating the doper when said doper was a friend.

He thinks that he can thread the needle by saying "If he did it, I believe it was tragic desperation or perhaps some kind of addiction. All I feel is sad." Where in reality he just comes off as a big hypocrite. Not as big as the politicians who indulge in the exact thing they publicly advocate against, but not too far from that either as Gaimon built his brand on being inexorable on the issue of being clean

you asked why riders train in Spain. That others train in other locations doesn't negate the attraction to Spain. I'm pretty sure there are many locations besides Spain for riders to dope.

I don't begrudge a person riding a very expensive bike in a local race, but it shows the resources that a person commits to the sport. I compare that to how easy and cheap performance enhancing drugs are that have a bigger effect on performance than the expensive triathlon bike.

I also have seen fist fights at races, people aggressively swimming over other swimmers, and other behaviors that make me believe that performance enhancing drugs like testosterone are being used. I used to arrest people on the border who were illegally importing and using that and other illegal steroids and I recognize that kind of aggressiveness in the sport today.

Yet people in many of the sports you just listed cheat on a regular basis. It's not hard to find cases where golfers cheat, competitive bass fishermen cheat, and its on the news right now how "unethical" hunters can be. As I said in my other reply, it is not the cost of the bicycle that I am criticizing, I am comparing the return on investment for a $10K bike with a $25 copay for a prescription for testosterone that anyone can get. Which purchase do you think would have the greater benefit? Do you think that the triathlon community is different than any other community today in terms of ethics and fairness? There are a number of threads currently running in the Triathlon forum right now that deal with cheating, so a belief that triathletes are always ethical would be the big leap in my opinion.

If you're really honest with yourself--and I'm talking about absolutely everyone here, not just you--there's no doubt that things are said that aren't realistic, that cannot really be followed up on when the time might come to take action. We're creatures whose words are often significantly colored by ideals and emotions, impacting the logic behind our words.

JV has absolutely said that one doping case would mean the end of the team, but it's not realistic. No organization can control every action of its employees and associates, especially those done off the watch of the organization. Is it really fair to the entire organization and its people to lay down and fold if TommyD acted on his own, especially considering the dire consequences to all of those innocent? The situation should be different if it's found that there was something systematic within the team as a whole, but that doesn't appear to be the case with the evidence we have. It appears doping is endemic at Astana with five cases between the WT and development teams, but, at least as of now, Garmin-Cannondale's situation appears to be one known idiot acting on his own. If it's found to be more than that, the team ought to fold. If it's found to be only that, JV will obviously terminate Danielson's employment and should be the first to tear him apart publicly, as should TD's teammates; they can't really do anything more than they've already done without confirmed results from the investigation on the off-chance that it's found to be a false positive.

Until then, it's a rhetoric of false superiority to claim that JV is being a hypocrite. His language has been pretty much what it would have been if anyone else were in his position.

What, exactly, qualifies him as a "loser", based on TD's positive test?

You can make a case that he is not living up to his previous statements (obviously) or that he is even a hypoctire to some degree....but a "loser"? Don't see it....

I'm not exactly a Vaughters fan, but using terms like "loser" just shows a lack of objectivity, IMO.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

Not sure if this has been posted up in this thread.

Steve Tilford says just about all that needs to be said in his most recent Blog about the Tom Danielson revelations:

http://stevetilford.com/...terone-big-surprise/

Be sure to click on the link early in the above blog to read Tilford's more thorough description of the arc of Tom Danielson and how he's been suspicious all along. You don't need rocket science or elaborate testing to figure this out sometimes.

It was the same with Ben Johnson. I trained at the same track as Ben did a couple of times each week back when I was running pretty seriously myself. There was always lot's of talk. Gee Ben, how did you go from just normal looking to this comic-book looking sprinter with muscles rippling all over your body, in just a few months? What's with the constantly yellowy and bloodshot eyes? How did you go from a good national level sprinter to crushing the likes of Carl Lewis in just a year or so? . . . and so on.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

I don't think it is a small reward - thats the point.

Psychologically it could be an enormous reward, perhaps not monetarily, but the number of d**kheads you meet in every area of life whose big thing is being one up on someone else, the house, the car, the local 5k, benching 10kg more - its just not a leap to think that when presented with a absolutely cast iron means of moving up the rankings that they'd somehow turn round and go "no, that might impact my health in 10 years"

and if i'm at the pointy end - close to qualifying for worlds, or Kona or X, or breaking 9 or 9.30 or 2.40 for the marathon or pick another sports benchmark, there's plenty of people that will do it.

In fact look at how many mediocre crap professionals do it? how many runners, cyclists and MOP professionals in sports have doped to move from being 12th in the world to 6th?

I look at people my age, I'm 41, and I'm getting faster (though thats what happens when you start from a low base :)) and I look at what some of them are doing and yes, per earlier posts, there are some who were amazing athletes in their youth and never gave it up and have moved through the AG's. There are others who were great in their youth, gave it up and returned and 15 years of swimming as a kid gives them a headstart, or busting out a sub 30 10k in college and not running for 10 years, they'll come back quite strongly BUT there's a whole other group who arrive on the scene with little to no form and proceed to progress through the ranks at a rate that certainly makes you step back and question how, all things being equal, its possible for you to have been overlooked as an athlete all those years ago given the performances they're knocking out now

I wasn't commenting on the "loser" appellation...in fact I agree with you that what was said is a fair criticism.

What I was commenting on is that you don't lay out or tout consequences like that for unwanted behavior if you don't intend, or won't, follow through...any parent can tell you that :-/

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

Ah, gotcha. Thanks for clarifying.

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Chicago Cubs - 2016 WORLD SERIES Champions!!!!

"If ever the time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." - Samuel Adams

"Legally" as in, not against the law, at least in the US.

Of course it's "illegal" for competition. And highly unethical.

My original point was simple, don't assume that all athletes who dope are going to end up with "ruined" bodies.

Some do, some don't, despite our wish for karmic fulfillment.

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"Whether you believe you can or you can't, you are right."

No problem...and if I may add, IMHO if he TRULY wants to have the largest effect on doping/cheating in pro cycling, as hard as it would be, he should live up to that stated consequence.

It would be devastating to quite a few people on MANY levels...but it would have the most long-term effect for the good.

Imagine if he would do that, and then in a year or 2 start another team...do you think he'd have any problems getting people to sign up to the "vision" then? How do you think the people effected by the shutdown would perceive the prospect of cheating, or enabling cheating, going forward. Yeah, things would be rough in the short term, but the long term benefits would be greater than just "pushing forward".

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http://bikeblather.blogspot.com/

I think it would be more accurate to say we don't know whether they do or they don't as we've not studied it - difficult to get a trial going in terms of "active" volunteers

Anecdotally, we do know that there are long term issues with those that have historically doped - its a little early to say whether TD is likely to get Prostate CA, though my own colleagues would put money on it, and they're the experts

I repeat - I'm not the morale police and didn't say I was perfect. I'm simply saying just having the money to dope doesn't mean you are going to dope. I further said if you guaranteed I wouldn't get caught or have health consequences I still wouldn't do it. For me, that is my moral compass as it relates to this issue.

FYI - I also happen to be in a profession that absolutely requires high integrity and values and there are a lot of things I could to do advance my personal financial situation and nobody would ever know. I guess I'm used to the living in a way that holds to the old adage - "integrity is measured by how you behave when no one else is looking".

I'll agree with that.

I grew up doing powerlifting and swimming. I also had a workout buddy who later became a WWE star (used to work out at his brother's gym here in GA). I trained with some of the biggest names in powerlifting in the 80's, and got to see steroid usage up close and personal. Many of the guys who were gobbling fistfuls of anabolics are experiencing serious health issues today, but I know just as many that are 50+ years old and apparently healthy, quite a few years later.

I have trained in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and been a Masters swim coach for a number of years now. Unfortunately both of those sports have their share of dopers too, even in local competitions, with very little testing to stem the rising tide of usage. One of my good friends was a 45-49 world record holder and won't compete now because of alleged drug use among some of his competition.

I'm pretty anti-drug, and always have been. And I know there are folks out there that wish guys like Mr. Moats would get a big tumor on his butt and achieve his karmic comeuppance. But it seems that not everyone ends up that way, at least in my minor slice of the world. It certainly isn't fair.

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"Whether you believe you can or you can't, you are right."

It sure would be nice if the new generation doesn't dope. But, it sure does suck to see the new generation cozy up to the old generation like so. Sure hope Alex Howes doesn't idolize these guys too much; he's on the podium of Tour of Utah yesterday.

Err, lifestyle? Lots of people have the genetic potential but never bother discovering it. If I had known at age 13 that my VO2max would be above 70 (and if I'd known what that meant) I would've started earlier...

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ZONE3 - We Last Longer

I think its simply not understood for the same reason that until relatively recently breast CA was viewed as a single disease - as they understood more and more about the types they understood why the same protocol in two different people resulted in massively different outcomes

we don't know about PED's, what we know though is its a gamble and one statistically thats not favourable to the doper, its not a question of an good quality of life versus some issues, its ok versus poor QOL or dead

 

I'm not exactly a Vaughters fan, but using terms like "loser" just shows a lack of objectivity, IMO.[/quote]

I wasn't commenting on the "loser" appellation...in fact I agree with you that what was said is a fair criticism.

What I was commenting on is that you don't lay out or tout consequences like that for unwanted behavior if you don't intend, or won't, follow through...any parent can tell you that :-/[/quote]
George H.W. Bush

"Read my lips, No New Taxes" 1998