Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

Sure there is. What he did went well beyond normal cat+mouse you expect between athletes and testers.

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

The trouble now is there isn't an athlete today who can say 'I haven't taken drugs' which the majority of people will believe. I simply don't trust anyone of them, if I could trust them I would suggest that they open up 2 division one purely for dopers and one for the clean athletes then it would show you how effective drugs are in real time.

With all the lying and the hiding you can't say that taking these drugs shaves 1 minute off of the time because you don't have a control to compare it to.

What a world we would live in if you could take peoples word and be able to trust it.

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

Wiggins.

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

Probably a doper!

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

Wiggins? I can't picture the guy without having an image of him pilled-up on purple hearts dancing his tits off to Booker T and the MGs.

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

There is Maradona style cheating then there is cheating

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

Slade, surely.

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

I agree that he did. The fact that he was able to get away with it for as long as he did shows the lack of authority the testers actually have.

No one has been able to convince me of a good argument against simply allowing people to take whatever they wish to and removing the "banned" nametag. High tech training regimes/equipment are no less a form of cheating than the use of banned substances.

A friend of mine was the national coach to the GB team in an Olympic sport. I asked him if his team members were clean. He told me that not one of them was. He didn't administer their cocktails but he knew they were not clean.

I accept that such substances may severely reduce one's lifespan, but if they wish to take it why should they not be allowed to?

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

I used to participate in weightlifting at the national level. Something similar to this occured. There were some that wished to train drug free and they set up their own association. What happened was that those in the "main" association that were never likely to make it to the top, joined the new association with the result that the new association had clean lifters and unclean lifters. So they had to set up drug testing and faced the same issues the main association faced.

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

One argument against it is that of exploitation and coercion. In a drugs free for all I don't believe for one minute that coaches won't pressure athletes into taking this stuff. The fact that this what armstrong did to some of the cyclists in his team is one of things that make his actions so objectionable.

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

Yes, it would stop being a free for all, as it would become an expectation, just like you are expected to train. It would end choice.

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

Where is the element of "cheating" in high tech training regimes / equipment?

The argument against banned substances is that the human performance is no longer natural. The whole point of sport is to compare kinetic ability and how that can be improved through discipline in and technique. Once you throw external chemicals into the equation, the point shifts from human endeavour to chemical endeavour. Especially if the chemicals are approved.

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

"Boosting" doesn't require any chemicals. It's all natural, but still banned for para-athletes (for sensible reasons).

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?
 

Boosting?

Re: Am I the only person sick of Lance Armstrong?