Performance Enhancing Drugs in Cycling and Other Sports

[MrCarrot]

1 hour ago, Gabe said:

The BBC report said it was a drug used to treat anxiety? 

 

Angina, I think, not anxiety.

[Gabe]

1 hour ago, MrCarrot said:

 

Angina, I think, not anxiety.

Yeah, I clearly misread it. 

[Gringo]

5 hours ago, glb said:

Yeah, that’ll be why…

 

The idea that one of the most lucrative sports on the planet, led by one of the most corrupt organisations in sport, being clean is as laughable as Russia’s commitment to reducing their doping programme.

I agree 100%. Pep Guardiola was busted for doping. The same man who’s teams play a high intensity style of football for 90 minutes every game from season start to season end. Not to mention Barcelona along with Real were heavily implicated in Operation Puerto. A report which authorities have suppressed for years.

 

There is plenty of evidence of historic doping in football but people like to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it is just athletes in cycling and athletics who dope.

[Stoppy2000]

5 hours ago, Gringo said:

I agree 100%. Pep Guardiola was busted for doping. The same man who’s teams play a high intensity style of football for 90 minutes every game from season start to season end. Not to mention Barcelona along with Real were heavily implicated in Operation Puerto. A report which authorities have suppressed for years.

 

There is plenty of evidence of historic doping in football but people like to bury their heads in the sand and pretend it is just athletes in cycling and athletics who dope.

Where is this evidence? There have been hardly any cases of performance enhancing steroids used in world football. I'm not saying it's definitely not happening but I'd find it hard to believe it's a massive problem. 

I'd be more inclined to think that match fixing is more likely. 

[Gringo]

6 hours ago, Stoppy2000 said:

Where is this evidence? There have been hardly any cases of performance enhancing steroids used in world football. I'm not saying it's definitely not happening but I'd find it hard to believe it's a massive problem. 

I'd be more inclined to think that match fixing is more likely. 

Where was the evidence when people suspected Lance Armstrong was doping? Fans, journalists, cyclists, cycling employees, all suspected Armstrong. Some of them had their lives destroyed regardless of the evidence they had.
 

To catch cheats you need a governing body that actually wants to. FIFA anyone? A quick search shows Pep Guardiola, Edgar Davids and Jaap Stam all busted for steroids. I barely knew about those. How many times does Pep’s conviction for cheating get referenced considering he’s widely regarding as the best coach of the last decade?

 

Football will always be able to hide behind, ‘there’s no pill for skill’. You can dig around and find articles about historic doping in the 70s, 80s, 90s. Former cycling doping doctors now working in football. Journalists on the fringes today making claims they can’t verify because football does not having doping according to everyone involved in the multi billion pound business of football.
 

Ultimately Im just another internet random making claims about doping I can’t produce evidence for beyond some circumstantial stuff. I’ve followed cycling for about 10 years. Read and watched about its history. It has one of the most stringent anti doping procedures in all of world sport and even with its history I’m convinced a lot of the top riders are still doping today. Dopers will always have more money and resources than anti-doping regimes. Im aware it’s a depressingly cynical take but I believe doping is prevalent in all sport and the more money involved the better and harder to detect that doping will be.

[Stoppy2000]

I think that usually doping is only caught when a whistleblower is involved. Yet as far as I am aware we haven't seen any of that in football? It just seems unlikely that if wholesale doping was occurring we'd not have had a few disgruntled ex-players piping up - there's no shortage of rent-a-quote types for all of football's other issues.

If you've been a fan of cycling I can appreciate why that would make you cynical of course. I don't think I could ever take cycling seriously as a clean sport. 

[Plissken]

Football has a long and storied history of doping, from the West Germans in the 50’s to Juventus in the 90’s. And pretending it is the only sport where millions of pounds flooded in and the result was that doping simply went away is deluded.

[Gringo]

Yeah I’ve thought about that as well. There are so many more people involved in football than cycling surely someone would say something. Never underestimate the power of omertà. People spoke out in cycling and had their lives close to destroyed. Christophe Bassons is a good case to read about. He was basically forced out of cycling for attempting to speak out. He was riding the Tour de France and was writing an article in a French newspaper casting doubt on performances. His teammates ostracised him along with the rest of the peloton. Armstrong publicly humiliated him during one of the stages and that was pretty much the end of his career.

 

With the money in football, anyone who did speak out would need pretty compelling evidence. The lawsuits would be swift and devastating.

[Stoppy2000]

34 minutes ago, Plissken said:

Football has a long and storied history of doping, from the West Germans in the 50’s to Juventus in the 90’s. And pretending it is the only sport where millions of pounds flooded in and the result was that doping simply went away is deluded.

Does it really have a long and storied history of doping? There is a Wikipedia article and it's not exactly a long read.  I'm not ruling anything out of course. I do hear the odd comment of Liverpool cheating with asthma medication but I've never seen anything credible about it?

If there is some comprehensive book/article about doping in football please let me know (I'm not being sarcastic btw!) 

 

[ryodi]

The most famous doping offences I can remember in England have been for cocaine with Adrian Mutu and Mark Bosnich. RIo Ferdinand was banned for missing a drug test but I cannot remember the last time a high profile player failed a drugs test.

[Halo]

The lack of positive tests in football is a red flag in itself - it lacks credibility to think that there are so many footballers, and so much money at the top, that basically no-one is doping when the incentives to do so are so high.

[JohnC]

1 hour ago, Stoppy2000 said:

Does it really have a long and storied history of doping? There is a Wikipedia article and it's not exactly a long read.  I'm not ruling anything out of course. I do hear the odd comment of Liverpool cheating with asthma medication but I've never seen anything credible about it?

If there is some comprehensive book/article about doping in football please let me know (I'm not being sarcastic btw!) 

 

These are the kind of things people used to say about cycling.

 

Then the next phase, when it was blown wide open, well then it stopped being a thing. Lance wouldn't be doping. He'd be caught if he was. It's clean now. Then Lance was blown wide open and the sport was clean again because Lance was caught, so Team Sky couldn't possibly be doping. Etc.

[Gringo]

Liverpool fans look away now,

 

http://backpagefootball.com/why-liverpool-wont-win-the-premier-league-this-season/126313/

 

I can’t verify the credibility of the author. You can read the article and judge for yourselves.

 

It links to lots of other articles of his which in turn links to articles from other people. Must be over 20 or so. There is a lot of interesting information in them imo.

 

[Plissken]

1 hour ago, Stoppy2000 said:

Does it really have a long and storied history of doping? There is a Wikipedia article and it's not exactly a long read.  I'm not ruling anything out of course.

 

OK, it depends on your definition of doping - I probably should have said "football has a long and storied history of dubious medical practices". That Wiki article, including the subcategory doesn't include the conviction of the Juventus doctor in 2004 for doping carried out between 1995-1998, where they found 281 different types of prescription drug at the training ground.  32 players were treating with anti-inflammatories, 23 with anti-depressants and 14 with pills which protect the heart.

 

Mamhadou Sakou tested positive for a fat burner and received a provisional ban, but sued WADA as it wasn't actually on the prohibited list.

 

Football is very good at paying lip service to the idea of anti-doping.  The Operation Puerto that did for Spanish cycling in the 2000's also involved La Liga players but that part of it didn't get enough publicity.  Messi famously was given HGH as a kid.  Even now, the dope testing in football is incredibly lax, with "out of competition" testing being an absolute joke compared to other sports.  I don't think that it is a coincidence that football drug violations tend to be for social drugs such as cocaine and not PEDs.

[dizogg]

2 hours ago, Halo said:

The lack of positive tests in football is a red flag in itself - it lacks credibility to think that there are so many footballers, and so much money at the top, that basically no-one is doping when the incentives to do so are so high.

Is there an element of the amount of money in the sport meaning there is less likely to be doping? The risk/reward doesn’t balance. You can be a fairly mediocre (relatively) player and be paid handsomely. If you don’t make it at Man City, you might drop to be well paid at Southampton, or  Nottingham Forest and so on. You’re still making a great living. If you’re an Olympic sprinter you’re either in the top 10 or 20 in the world or you’re nothing. You won’t be getting enough sponsorship to be rich, or even continue doing the sport professionally. 

[Plissken]

Player doping doesn't occur in a vacuum.  Like their Olympic counterparts, there is a team of doctors and club officials involved.

[HarryBizzle]

“Mediocrity” in the top leagues is still beyond the grasp of many. The incentive to be even one of them is enough to get people to use whatever they can to get an advantage. 

[dizogg]

Interestingly those two replies contradict each other. 
 

Basically we don’t know do we.

[kensei]

2 hours ago, Plissken said:

 

The Operation Puerto that did for Spanish cycling in the 2000's also involved La Liga players but that part of it didn't get enough publicity.  Messi famously was given HGH as a kid.  

 

Wasn't Nadal implicated in this too and it just seem d to go away?

[Plissken]

Never directly, just the same doctor who was doping the cyclists said he was "working with tennis players and footballers" and the implication was clear.

[MrPogo]

8 hours ago, Plissken said:

Player doping doesn't occur in a vacuum.  Like their Olympic counterparts, there is a team of doctors and club officials involved.

I’m inclined to think it’s more likely to be done by individuals trying to further their career as, like was said above, football teams tend to have such a revolving door of players and staff that surely some disgruntled chap dropped by his team would have gone whistleblower if it was happening at club level.

[merman]

There was the whole creatine thing in the late 1990s, wasn’t there?

French football team on it during FIFA World Cup 98, then prevalent in the rugby union teams over the next couple of years.

 

It wasn’t banned but was given as a supplement by coaches/doctors.

It is an example of how something could be given systemically.

[Orion]

Am I missing something with the Russian Olympics girl as it seems the craziest PED story ever ? So she has obviously failed a drug test but they are giving her a free pass to compete anyway, days away from her singles Gold attempt? Representing a country supposedly banned from this tournament for mass organised drug cheating???

 

But if she wins a medal we might not give her a medal ceremony. So I'm sure that will teach them...

[Plissken]

The problem appears to be this.

 

The fail occurred before the Games and Russia were slow to report it so she competed.
 

She’s tested positive for a substance which normally triggers an automatic suspension.

 

However, as she’s under 16 she is a “protected person” so the automatic part of it doesn’t apply.

 

The case whether the automatic suspension should apply goes to CAS who as a sort of court require proper evidence gathering and a full prosecution/defence which takes time.

 

Therefore until a decision is made, everything is in limbo.

[Orion]

Thanks. It still seems bonkers that she is allowed to compete. I feel sorry for her biggest rivals. Who...goes to check, are all Russian as well 🤣

[merman]

The CAS argument is that preventing her from competing will be harmful to her in the long run - they only ruled on the suspension, not the failed test.

 

Because she is old enough to compete the IOC rules say she is not protected/given special treatment.

[Mike S]

9 hours ago, Plissken said:

The problem appears to be this.

 

The fail occurred before the Games and Russia were slow to report it so she competed.
 

She’s tested positive for a substance which normally triggers an automatic suspension.

 

However, as she’s under 16 she is a “protected person” so the automatic part of it doesn’t apply.

 

The case whether the automatic suspension should apply goes to CAS who as a sort of court require proper evidence gathering and a full prosecution/defence which takes time.

 

Therefore until a decision is made, everything is in limbo.

 

Yeah, and given that she is a kid it is those surrounding her and pushing the drugs on her that need banning if notnjailing as this stinks of child abuse.

 

She should not be competing but it is the adults that need the serious punishment.

[footle]

Three different heart drugs, two declared and legal. That’s one hell of a weird coincidence if she just “drank from the same glass as her grandparents”.

[HarryBizzle]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/60437373

 

UK sprinter retrospectively tests positive for ostarine and S23, which he “unknowingly consumed.”

 

Let he who has not unknowingly consumed very specific SARMS which improve sporting performance cast the first stone.