What’s your opinion/guess?
I would like to believe that none of them do, but with the constant stream of positive tests you would have to live in a dream world to believe any sport is completely clean.
(Hell they even doped show horses in the olympics. My question: Why are there are horses in the olympics to begin with?)
My answers:
Call me naive, but I think your numbers are really high. I know a total of zero pro riders, and one pro triathlete, so I’m really just going on hunches. I hear that the European bike scene used to be riddled with drugs, and while I expect it is cleaner now, recent history tells us that it’s certainly not 0%. As far as I know, triathlon does not have this checkered past, and I suspect the numbers in the pro ranks are still very low.
cycling up to 35%
Pro triathletes up to 15% - I know more than 15 and only one who was interested in doing/or did PED.
I gotta agree 100% with desert dude. Dean on baby.
Top level European based road pros - I have heard too many horror stories to believe that it could be less than 75%.
Long distance triathletes - maybe even 15% is too high. My guess is that it is quite possibly cleaner now than it was 10 years ago.
Olympic distance tris- don’t have much in the way of anecdotal stories from people whos opinion I would value but suspect that it would be higher than the long distance version of the sport.
Dude, 1/15 does not equal 15% 
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What are you people? On dope?
Hmmm. Nope. I can;t touch this. Sorry.
According to that Outside Mag article, EPO costs $200 for a two week supply. A lot cheaper than I would have thought. When you consider the huge amounts of money we spend on bikes, wetsuits, clothing, entry fees, plane tickets to Hawaii, hotels, travel cases, etc. $5000/year isn’t that expensive.
top level domestic; over half of the names you read about on cyclingnews.
top level euro; might as well call it superstock
triathlon, i don’t know, but apparently more than i thought.
Perhaps the scariest percentage is the number of people who are “doping” at your local cat3 crit.
According to MD Consult:
Procrit 28day supply: $480.84
3000 u/ml; 1 ml Procrit Injection 3 injections/week
One year = $6257
That is if you go through your doctor. I don’t know if black market would be cheaper or more expensive.
“That is if you go through your doctor. I don’t know if black market would be cheaper or more expensive.”
That’s awesome. Who has the higher markup on drugs? Pharmaceutical companies or drug dealers. Sad, sad state of affairs.
That depends -
Is the athlete European or other?
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Guys, you’re getting these annual cost figures for use of rhEPO all wrong. You don’t use it throughout the entire year. Only in cycles of a certain length of time, building towards races, but stopping several days before the event, and possible doping controls. So the cost of use is nowhere near 6k annually for the drug itself. You run the risk of being caught in an out of competition test or that the newer tests are applied which can find evidence of usage over a larger period of time. Sorry for the evasiveness of my comments here, pro cycing vs. tri competitions are controlled so much differently with many scenarios.
Dude, 1/15 does not equal 15%
I may not be a math major but I can do fractions, thanks for the tip though. I said up to 15% based upon my small sample of pro’s that I have known, pro’s that I have trained with, raced against, travelled with, my discussions with athletes & other coaches, my college XC days, from my days working in the industry and what little I know about manufacturing supplements.
How many Kelley Guest’s, or for that matter AGers are out there that have bought, unknown to them, tainted samples and have a great 6-12 week period of time? I’m willing to bet an aero TT bike and disc wheel that it’s happened to someone reading this post, even though they did not know they were cheating. How many tried something just to see what would happen or supplement their income in some low key races where there were no controls. How many want to be Mark Allen or Simon Whitfield and think they just need that extra boost to make it through a hard winter of training?
Would a smart person with resources actually take EPO? Aren’t the dopers always one step ahead of the drug police, creating drugs before any test can exist? I won’t ask about masking agents.
I read an article in Sports Illustrated following the '96 olympics which quoted an athlete as saying that 90% of all track athletes were doped, and that this 90% of athletes covered all the podium spots. Kind of takes the fun out of it.
Would a smart person with resources actually take EPO? Aren’t the dopers always one step ahead of the drug police, creating drugs before any test can exist? I won’t ask about masking agents.
…
It’s obvious that the “drug police” has catched up. And… retroactive testing (see Balco) makes it very dicey for the cheaters, it’s no longer good enough to be one step ahead of the tests.
Simon
According to MD Consult:
Procrit 28day supply: $480.84
3000 u/ml; 1 ml Procrit Injection 3 injections/week
One year = $6257
That is if you go through your doctor. I don’t know if black market would be cheaper or more expensive.
Does that price include student’s discount?
Are figures like >70% for cyclist really that absurd? Or how about >90% for Olypians? These people have devoted their entire lives to the sport, wanting nothing more than to rise to the top, making all the time, effort, and sacrifice worth it. When these athletes see their competitors doping, they see that they have no other choice than to dope as well if they want to remain competitive. It’s a nasty cycle. I say they break sports into two categories. Having a “doping” category and a “natural” category (not unlike bodybuilding) will allow those who just want to be the fastest in the world to do and take whatever they want reach that goal. The rest of us will just stick to what our genes gave us.
As far as EPO use, I would think fairly low for Tripros, but the Nina Kraft affair sort of put me on my ear. As far as doping defined as would fail a dope control test at any point in a 365 day period, probably 95% pro and age groupers are in violation.
Considering cold medications, some nutritional supplements, all asthma products (Unless you have a waiver on file with ITU, which I do not). Many herb teas may have problems. If you look at the banned substances of the IOC it is about a mile long.
I do not think it is a lot of peoples intent to cheat, but then again is getting jazzed on Redbull or prerace coffee not a mild stimulant? Is taking an IV before or after a race cheating? Sometimes grey areas make for interesting conversation. G