[ds968]

a friend sent me this link, thought I'd share..



http://jukeleft.com/14-important-questio...armstrong/

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[Chris Vais]

Seriously, having been a competitive cyclist back in the day, when the sport was unknown to most Americans, it was wonderful to see American cyclists compete and win. Historically, the sport was rampant with drug use long before the advent of steroids and blood doping that still seems to be pervasive in cycling. It is too bad that Lance Armstrong succumbed to the temptation and I truely hope that his downfall will not destroy The Livestrong Foundation. When my nephew was stricken with testicular cancer, the Livestrong Foundation reached out to him and were very supportive. He received a phone call from Armstrong that he said was very helpful in confronting his fears and concerns about treatment options. He is alive and well today.



Doping to achieve excellence in sports was perfected to a high art by both the Soviets and their client state the GDR. There was a PBS special some time ago now were the long term health effects of the doping programs of that era were discussed by a number of the Soviet and GDR athletes who participated.



I thought that the fact that the baseball writers elected no to vote anyone into the BaseHall of Fame was interesting if not outright hypocritical when you consider the character or lack thereof of some of the players in the HOF.

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[Rap]

Chris, I think that to be a writer of any sort you have to be hypocritical. No offense to any writers out there. These writers smelling the wind of opinion no doubt voted the way they did. The truth will show itself in the remaining years of eligibility. The overarching lust to win that reverberates throughout sports in our society and the potential riches to be earned must be to most an irresistible temptation.

Not a great analogy, but years ago when I was in the restaurant biz in DC and tried to convince inner city youth to work a low paying job and work their way up, as opposed to earning thousands a night selling crack, was a great example of cracker nonsense denying that the temptation of immediate riches was too much to pass up. Should Lance have doped? He would have been at a competitive disadvantage if he hadn't. These weren't amateur competitions. These guys knew the earning potential for the winner. With the scope of doping in cycling, did the cycling authorities do enough to stop doping? It sure didn't and doesn't seem like they did or do if only by the virtue of the continuation of it. No sport really makes an honest effort to prevent it. Unions negotiate policies that allow one to come back after suspensions. Would a player dope if they faced an immediate lifelong suspension from the sport and the need to return their earnings? Hmmm.

This is another one of those decide what we want issues. The half measures touted as workable solutions are mere hypocrisy. Fans aren't against doping. Oh some may bemoan doping but they still watch sports. Money fuels the bloodlust of sports. The bigger the faster the more we like it. I am a sports fan and count myself within this group that accepts doping because it makes sports better because no one really wants it to stop. If they did they would!

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[ds968]

I see no problem with professional athletes using steroids ( it's all about entertainment anyway so whatever adds value / maximizes that goal, go crazy I say - bulk up, shrink your testicles to the size of a pea if you want, LOL ) but somehow I still feel the purity of amateur competition, the Olympics for example should be preserved . Of course I also resent the idea of pros participating in the Olympics , so a bit old school in that respect...

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[tamathumper]

I've thought the same thing, let the pros do it, but then I suppose it would lead to thousands of youths doing it to try to make the pros.

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[ds968]

[quote name='tamathumper' timestamp='1358254234' post='137432']I've thought the same thing, let the pros do it, but then I suppose it would lead to thousands of youths doing it to try to make the pros.[/quote]



Hmm, good point, had not thought of that. Or maybe the solution to that is you don't get into the pros if you test positive ( not sure how long steroids stay in the system though ) or during the first year of your career, just to prove you really belong there.. but after that it's a free-for-all so we can all witness half court dunks, 99 yard passes, air juggling the puck from one end to the other before scoring with your helmet..deliberately, 50 home run games, etc, etc- entertainment baby !!

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[lbpesq]

The problem with a free for all at the pro level is that it is unfair to those who want to pursue a pro career without using PEDs. As for the baseball Hall of Fame vote, I'm curious to see how the "tainted" players do next year as many voters just don't believe in electing members in their first year of eligibility, regardless.



As for the Olympics, how about this: http:// http://www.hulu.com/watch/4090

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[Cloud9...68]

That's funny. A little off topic, but I think the funniest Olympics-based SNL sketch I ever saw was "Balkan Dirt Diving" - a spoof of extinct Olympic sports. The object of this one was for the competitors to climb up some scaffolding, and simply jump off, the winner being the one who could make the highest "dirt dive" and survive. Been looking for it on Google and youtube, but haven't been able to find it. OK, so I have a weird sense of humor...

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[Rap]

Think high school athletes don't dope? I wonder if legalizing doping in sports might have the perverse effect of spiking usage for a period of years before it leveled off and then declined? Legalization would allow for studies and tracking of health issues associated with doping and might indeed be able to through the sheer scope of the studies show the adverse affects of doping. In fact legalization might require athletes to participate in these studies as a part of the legalization process! Given the short life spans of careers in some sports, cost benefit analysis could be used to show the dangers. It still wouldn't work with the tranche that uses sports as a way out or as the only opportunity to get ahead but again it would allow for the dissemination of health findings. Think advertisers who have jumped on the healthy bandwagon would find a doped up sports system as attractive then.? Now it's the dirty little secret nod nod wink wink which makes it manageable in the publics eye!

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[Schnell-Gelb]

More or less all top- cyclist dope. Nothing new.



But the "System Armstrong" is a new dimension.

Seems that even Sarkosy is involved.

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[flash]

aside from the obvious stupidity of pumping your body up with chemicals, i don't see the problem.



the way i see it is that these athletes are little more than trained animals, put in the ring to do battle. they get into this with eyes open. they know that their lifespan will be shortened, and they know they will get hurt. that's why they make so much money.



if you want to get paid that much money for playing a sport, then you need to step up to the level of the competition, and maximize your performance. getting brain damage from multiple concussions, or destroying your body from chemicals is all a part of why you get that money.



otherwise, anybody could do it, and we shouldn't be paying that much to those people. i sure don't want to watch a sport where i can do what they do just as well as they do it.



i can say this because i went through it myself. when i was crossing over from amateur to professional, they wanted me on all sorts of things. i quit because the injuries and the chemicals, and the things that were resulting from both, were going to mean long term problems. to this day i still have problems as a direct result. i made the choice not to continue, so thus ended my chance to make the big money. i knew though that it meant that i could no longer compete.



heck - i'd like to see gladiator battles come back. now that's a sport i would pay to see. guys pumped up on steroids hacking each other to bits, only one left standing. no phony wrestling nonsense. real blood and death. maybe we could use prisoners and grant the winner a pardon. there's some reality tv for you.



doping in amateur sports should be dealt with severely. by definition (it's latin root being amor) those players are in it for the fun.



doping in professional sports should be mandatory. those players are in it for the money, and they should be giving us every penny's worth.

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[968Syncro]

Mass media caters to a "pop" audience, and this audience loves schadenfreude (happiness from harm) more than any other subject. The media is making some really big dollars, market rating, from an idiot like Lance Armstrong -- after all, how good is he really? Without doping he might have been just average, so why pay this much attention to an average competitor.



Mostly I wonder what he will say about all the people he damaged or destroyed along the way. Many of them were speaking the truth, and he destroyed them.



I think Lance belongs in the junk pile of disgraced celebrities right next to Pee-Wee Herman and OJ Simpson.

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