News about the cat and mouse game between athletes using PEDs and the organizations trying to catch them isn’t hard to find. The recent banning of the Russian track and field athletes and the suspension of a drug testing laboratory in Brazil are recent examples.
Is it a futile effort that should be given up, or should things continue as they have been? Is there perhaps some third option?
Futile effort, and a counter-productive one also. Athletes will keep using whatever that can get away with. All the effort now goes into getting past the testing. So just let them use the drugs instead of finding new ways to get around the restrictions. Prohibitions don’t work.
I don’t see the problem. The recent news items are evidence that the standards of testing and enforcement are generally better and more rigorous than ever before.
I’m no expert, but my understanding is there’s a constant back and forth between athletes and testing agencies. The agencies devise tests for various banned substances, athletes find new substances or ways to beat the tests, the agencies respond, etc.
There’s also the legal aspect. At least in the US, steroids are illegal, so there may be pressure on agencies to test not to draw the ire of the government.
I agree with Tripolar, it’s an entirely futile effort. A huge proportion, very likely greater than 80% of elite athletes, have used PEDs at the highest level of sport, whether they be Olympic athletes or professional athletes in soccer, football, baseball, and what have you.
For AAS, if you’re doing them intelligently in your training off-season, there is basically zero chance of getting caught, and in most sports the testing is anything but random, with defined testing times or advance information the norm, at which point it turns into an IQ test instead of a PED test.
For cardiovascular capacity enhancers like EPO, rhEPO, self blood infusions, meldonium, and the like, the testing agencies are getting more accurate with their methodologies, and instead of just saying anything above a hematocrit of 50 is banned (thus giving you the exact target to shoot for with your PEDs), can now test for metabolites and genetic markers, and we have indeed seen a corresponding drop in average tour de france times as a result, but even this is misguided and only takes out one class of PEDs, with other PEDs still being basically undetectable with intelligent use and/or foreknowledge of protocols.
In addition to being largely pointless, the PEDs testing arms race is doubly harmful, because it drives athletes to lesser known, more experimental PEDs with higher risk profiles and greater unknowns.
Prohibition doesn’t work, and anywhere there is the chance to get that extra 5% or even 1% performance edge, people who have dedicated their entire lives and careers to top performance will risk their lives to get that edge. The riskier we make it, the more risk they’ll take.
We should collectively face reality and open up the standards, or at the least, create an “unlimited potential” class or league without testing.
Maybe they need to look at their policies. They are very good at catching some poor bugger who took the wrong flu medication or got some skin cream from Mum. They are positively lousy at catching institutional cheats like say Lance Armstrong or the Russians until far far too late.
I remember reading about the Armstrong case, the conspirators knew that as long as they could continue to get clean drug tests, they were fine. This is counter productive.
This is the worst part of it, catching the minor technical violations while the wider use goes undetected, or not until long after competitions. Violations found after the competition is over taint the entire competition.
There may or may not be health implications to the use of PEDs. But it seems only reasonable that if an athlete chooses to use PEDs, he or she chooses to take on all the associated risks. So, I really have no compunction with athletes choosing to use PEDs.
However, it does seem grossly unfair that natural athletes in a putatively drug free sport should have to compete against athletes using PEDs. Maybe if PED use is accepted, sports can bifurcate into natural and enhanced leagues.
If the PEDs were legal and allowed by the sports then I don’t find this argument to be very strong. No one complains mightily about the disadvantage of athletes who don’t have the same access to high tech training and the best training resources. The use of amphetamines in baseball (and no doubt other sports) has never shown the same level of concern as other PEDs but their use outside of the rules is just as unfair to players who stay clean. Arthroscopic surgery isn’t considered cheating, training at high altitude isn’t considered cheating, and no two athletes start with the same genetic potential either (except maybe twins I guess). It’s certainly distasteful to consider sports dominated by drug enhanced athletes, but in fact it’s happened already and the prohibition hasn’t improved the situation. So if’n I had my druthers then all sports would be PED free, but since I don’t I’d rather have the playing field leveled with allowable legal PEDs than the sham we have now.
Just because you can’t eliminate all advantages one athlete may have over another, it doesn’t follow that you should eliminate no advantage.
Especially considering there is a model for the bifurcation I speak of in powerlifting and body building. There are organizations that promote themselves as drug free, yet PED using athletes compete in these organizations.
That’s not the same as having better genetics or superior training facilities. It’s fraud by misrepresentation.
Sorry, I’m agreeing with you and I screwed up that post. It was supposed to focus on the idea that it’s unfair to non-PED users in sports where they are allowed, and your question was about the current situation. So I ended up responding to something you didn’t say.
No problem. Thanks for posting in the thread.
But society has rightfully (IMO) decided to protect people from themselves, particularly when there is implicit coercion involved. Just as we often prohibit smoking in restaurant for worker’s safety, or require proper suits for mold/asbestos remediation, we should protect athletes from feeling forced into taking drugs. The fact is if PEDs were allowed, almost everyone would have to use them to compete regardless of whether they wanted to. They’d constantly have to pay disreputable doctors and chemists to keep upping the ante so that they can keep getting an edge.
Why would a athlete willing to cheat not continue cheating while in the natural league?
How would the field be more level if everyone could use drugs? Wouldn’t the same imbalances exist more or less?
What makes you think it’s anywhere hear that high?
But legal PEDs would just push athletes to use greater and greater doses and/or newer drugs (as well), so there are downsides in either case. Those new drugs wouldn’t have to be specifically designed to avoid detection if they wee allowed, but the impetus would be just as strong to get a greater edge by using stuff the other guy doesn’t have. That’s putting aside the fact that many if not most PEDs are controlled substances which would be illegal even if the sports leagues looked the other way.
I agree that there is no way to completely ban PEDs when the stakes are so high, but there is a lot of room between banning everything and allowing everything.
How can an individual coerce themselves?
All that is already happening.
Athletes competing at the highest level are forced by the logic of the situation to use PEDs. Their competition is using them, so it’s a handicap to be natural.
That logic shouldn’t apply in a league expressly for natural athletes. However, experience shows that even in organizations for natural athletes, PED use still occurs.
Players now who don’t use PEDs because they are not allowed could use them without being cheaters. It’s more fair in that sense, but it’s still unfair compared to an ideal where no one uses PEDs, but that’s not what we have now.
Practically speaking, it is going to be all or nothing. If PEDs are allowed, they will be a de facto requirement at the highest level of competition. They will become an integral part of the sport, just as critical as talent or training.
Personally, I don’t see any real advantage to having our top athletes on PEDs. It subjects their young bodies to needless health risks. It shrinks the pool of talent and makes sports less accessible, as those that don’t want to take PEDs can’t hope to compete at the top. And you will still have an arms race as athletes compete to take higher and higher doses of more and more exotic drugs at younger and younger ages.
Personally, I’m interested in seeing who has the most talent and skill. I’m less interested in watching who is the best at taking drugs. Indeed, I’d find it a little sad to know that my entertainment was coming at the expense of the athlete’s health.
Assuming this is a serious question, the coercion would come from other players, teams, agents, etc. Again, if PEDs were allowed, everyone would be strongly encouraged to use them regardless of whether they were safe, effective, or necessary. That’s where the coercion comes in.
No, it’s not. Demonstrably so. Yes, there will always be pressure to cheat given the money involved, but that will always be the case. Even in the dirtiest of sports wrt to PEDs (eg cycling, sprinting), not EVERYONE is using. Cycling in recent years has cleaned up the sport a lot with better testing Most sports don’t seem to have significant percentages of players using PEDs because they require a more complicated balance between acquired skills and natural talent. Cycling and sprinting are about energy output to a greater extent than other sports, so it’s less of an issue. Even when baseball had huge steroids issues, it wasn’t the majority of players using.
Depends on how pervasive the problem is. I think that did apply to some extent in sports like cycling where there was a time when literally all the top guys seem to have cheated, but less so in other sports where you are only talking about a handful of guys. In most sports, PEDs are not as effective as they are in cycling and sprinting, so the cost-benefit is not the same.
Regardless, even if you find the above to be too firmly based on conjecture, the reality is that allowing PEDs doesn’t change any of the incentives; it makes the prolems worse.
It’s not being thought of as a cheater than prevents many from using PEDs. It’s not wanting to risk their health and safety using drugs. For example, I am sure you could probably be more productive at work by using stimulants, but I doubt you do that. There is no stigma attached to cheating in most careers, so why aren’t most workers using stimulants stronger than coffee in most cases? It’s because chronic drug use is not advisable in most cases.
Virtually any form of regulation will involved crooks/sleazes trying to get around it. If (for example) Wall St. sharpies find ways around financial regulation, does that mean we should cease trying to formulate tougher rules (after all, you could argue that there isn’t all that much harm to society caused by these people absconding with a few billion dollars here and there)?
Allow PEDs in sports, and it’ll trickle down even more to kids whose health will be more at risk compared to adults who pump themselves up with drugs.
Another option (for international sports competitions): expand what’s planned for the upcoming Olympics for the few supposedly clean Russian athletes who will be competing as individuals and not as their country’s representatives. Get rid of the nationalist angle altogether. Everyone who makes the Olympics does so as an individual and gets rewarded for individual achievements - no anthems at the awards ceremonies, no medal tallies by nation.
This might bring an end to the Olympics as we know it, but that doesn’t seem like a bad thing.
The rules can’t be any tougher than banning all PEDs. The problem is that those rules can’t be enforced.
That has already happened.
There seems to be an assumption that if some PEDs were legal that other more ‘powerful’ illegal PEDs would be used. I don’t know that to be the case though. I don’t see the reason to ban EPO for instance, you can only get so many red blood cells into your body before the effects turn negative and your blood can’t get fully oxygenated. Steroids and similar substances could be used to off season for healing and building muscle, which may be their only advantage in sports. There’s plenty of distance between each of a total ban, some allowable PED use, and no regulation at all.