UKH

Well, looks like a lot of mileage left in this one

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/50219337

I'm one of the hopefuls that wants to believe cycling has cleaned itself up and if there is any misuse of banned substances it only goes on in the lower ranks* ( I realise this doesn't make much sense ) 

will cycling it ever rid itself and be 'clean' ?!?! are we encouraging the use of these by asking to much of the athletes ?!?! 

* not that I hope it goes on in the lower ranks ….. I don't want it going on at all...….. ! it reads better in my own mind 

This one is going to leave a bitter taste whatever the outcome.

I just assume all sport is tainted and all/most achievements are drug fueled. Much easier.

It would seem your not alone, a few in the office here agree with you.

surely all the other sports people are tested as much as the pro cyclists ?! and therefor a similar amount ( percentage wise ) would get caught and as a result promote the same amount of scepticism over their sport as cycling has over its.

But I don't see that as the case...….. is it a trait among cyclists that they are just pre disposed to cheat ( drugs wise ) more than other athletes ?

TFL

That just isn't true. There are far more positive tests in Athletics than cycling.

Rugby also has a massive problem, incedibly big guys running as quick as they do is not natural.

Football will get caught out one day. The presssures on players and the money involved means there will be plenty of performance enhancing drugs being usedin footcball but the testing is farcical compared to other sports.

No, but the testing in endurance sports is more straightforward. Biathlon and CC skiing are similar to cycling, and have similar levels of doping convictions. Athletics just don't want to know and turn a blind eye. Oregon project, anyone? It took outside effort to convict Salazar, not standard testing of athletes.

Strength sports like weight lifting are different, because they are intrinsically cheap and highly popular also in countries where the funds for doping don't buy you the latest drugs and pre comp testing. Thus, sometimes entire national teams get caught and excluded.

As with other sports including cycling, getting caught simply means your doping scheme was below state of the art.

CB

He will probably admit to ordering the testosterone but say that it was for a non-cycling member of staff........................

''That just isn't true. There are far more positive tests in Athletics than cycling.''

That's my point …….. i recon if you ask a member of the public who are not in to cycling or athletics, and i bet their perception of cycling is that its a far dirtier sport than athletics.... even though there are more positive results in athletics percentage wise ( ive not checked but taking your word for it )

please clarify what ''isn't true''

Is there anything to suggest that what will come out now is worse than what was thought to have happened at the time of the last inquiry?

Only that there is an implication that names may be named, and Freeman and Sutton are already taking positions.

Yes, because now they can apply pressure by threatening to revoke his licence to practise.

CB

But unless they offer some sort of immunity, the more he reveals the more likely it is he has his licence revoked.

It may be cooperate or else with the threat that a doctor who cannot be trusted to cooperate with investigations will have their licence revoked.

Then why watch sport?

It's tough for sports to want to be clean.

In MUT (Mountain Ultra and Trail Running) the sport is as dirty as hell and they brag about it being clean and do so little it's embarrassing, but there is zero incentive to catch drug cheats because they don't want to be painted as a sport full of cheats, like athletics and cycling do who actually make an effort to catch cheats..

It is good these things are coming to light and we should celebrate these big figures coming down. Until we go after the coaches and Dr's associated the sport will not be clean. Chasing Athletes is just making an example of 1 when 3 others will be brought in, in their place.

In ultra running a top coach is associated with Lance Armstrongs camp yet he's come away clean.

We are finally starting to go after the right people but there has to be prison sentences for them. 

Because they are still entertaining, despite widespread doping?

Considering this, I'm surprised one this website that nobody is saying this: Is climbing clean? 

I'm fairly happy to believe that people on the rock are not touching the juice but there's certainly enough prestige to be had on the world circuit now. I'd be interested to know what the testing regularity is like. 

I'd be amazed if it was entirely clean.

As I posted above, I would bet that some climber will get caught in Tokio, but likely not one of the top athletes who could, should they decide to do so, afford a state of the art pre competition doping course.

More likely their federation may organize one for them. It is certainly not only the Russians who have form for running coordinated doping programs across multiple sports.

CB

That's a depressing thought. I've got absolutely zero respect for the results of people on PED's. It's just another form of aid - and as we all know, aid climbing is shit.  

If you look at mountaineering rather than sports climbing, most of the heroic ascents in the Himalayas back in the early to mid 20th century were done by climbers fuelled up to their eyelids with Pervitin.

Just read Hermann Buhl's account of his climb on Nanga Parbat, he was eating the stuff like chocolate. No wonder, really, it was handed out to soldiers as "tank chocolate" just a few years earlier.

Actually, this is how "speed climbing" should be done properly.

CB

Isn't the issue really that this just needs to be declared, rather than that 'drugs are bad, m'kay'? To an extent, deciding what is performance-enhancing is arbitrary, it just needs to be fair so people, if they're so inclined, can participate on an equal footing

That truly is depressing if it is true, is any sport clean?

Have you got any links, genuinely interested?

Thanks.

Absolutely, and you have to see it in the context of the times as well: Pervitin was handed out to Wehrmacht soldiers throughout WWII, similar to the amphetamine pills US pilots took in Vietnam and presumably still take to stay alert during long sorties.

No doubt Hermann Buhl felt that taking a drug to overcome his extrem physical exertions on NP was completely normal, which is how it comes across in his book. 

CB

Highly unlikely, particularly at the top level. I don't think it's any particular sport that's the issue, it's the people. Some people will do anything to win and gain advantage and the common denominator across all sports is people. If there is any advantage to be gained by taking PEDs then someone will be taking them. In my opinion, the likelihood of olympic level climbing being clean is minuscule, if not non-existant, as PEDs will clearly bring an advantage. Unfortunately that's the way it is and no amount of wishing it wasn't that way will make a difference (and I, for one, stand accused of wishing it wasn't that way, but all of the evidence suggests otherwise). Also, if it looks to good to be clean then it probably isn't, like a sub-2 hour marathon, for example (just throwing that last comment in to be deliberately provocative...).

https://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=9253875

if you google Armstrong, Koop, you get lots of links. Koop made his name on the back of Carmichael Training Systems. We like to say no tolerance to doping.. yet when a top coach is so involved. Lets Run has had plenty of threads on this.

https://trailrunnermag.com/people/profiles/jason-koop-ultrarunning-coach.ht...

This is the wife of one of the best mountain runners in the world.. failed an EPO test. YOu don't take EPO once by mistake. She's a professional Italian International.. I'm not having it that her husband, also a professional, didn't know. Italian football is well known to be dirty as hell.

https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a20857936/ultrarunners-want-convicted-dop...

Runners know there is money and little testing

https://inews.co.uk/sport/sierre-zinal-doping-trail-running-credibility-496...

They announce when they will test and brag about a clean sport. The current testing is also a joke.

Martin Cox, former top British mountain runner, has been very vocal about the current state of the sport.

One of the sports top journalists, Ian Coreless, has frequently defended Eliza yet says he's 'no tolerance to doping'. I think he blocked me on Facebook after using me for various interviews because I called out his bullshit on supporting and defending a doper.

The level of testing is a joke. Here is an article by the US body on this.

https://trailrunner.com/trail-news/clean-sport-and-mountain-ultra-trail-mut...

I entered a world championship having barely made the UK team and finished 4th, just missing bronze. I beat the world champion, beat plenty of other 2:20-2:25 marathon runners. I was clean but I should have been flagged and tested. There's no incentive to catch cheats and get your sport labeled as dirty, so I credit those sports who do hound cheats out. They pulled other runners for testing, way down the field when I was 4th. I've ran in 6 or 7 world championships in Mountain and Ultra runners and can count on one hand the number of drug tests I've seen actually happen. And we get told when. 

Comprehensive, thanks. I'd forgotten about Carmichael.