A lot of athletes have admitted using and benefiting from PEDs. Still others hold out that they didn’t, even though there seems to be a wealth of circumstantial evidence that they did (witness recent 60 Mins episodefeaturing interview with Lance Armstong’s cycling teammate). Clouds thus linger over the latters’ achievements during the times they allegedly used.
By now, it would seem that enough athletes have admitted using PEDs that something like the following could be done: Plot performance curves for the athletes who have admitted using PEDs to see how their performance improved (or, indeed, if it did) during the time they used. Do the same for athletes for whom there is very good reason to believe did not use PEDs. Then plot performance curves for the suspect athletes, and compare. If the suspects’ curves more closely resemble the PED curves (by some to be determined degree), then it is asserted that those athletes used PEDs until proven otherwise.
Career stats, record books, etc, could then be adjusted by nullifying those athlete’s achievements. Or, you might be able to use the performance curves to somehow subtract out the effect of the PEDs, and adjust the stats accordingly. Alternatively, this process may show that there really is/was no significant difference between the performance of those who used and those who (in all likelihood) did not. Then the whole issue could be declared moot.
I know there would be a lot of fudging and so forth, but this would be at least a semi objective way to evaluate the question of whether or not someone’s performance was boosted by PEDs.
You couldn’t ever do this in an official capacity - you can’t normalise athletic endeavour like that. You’d quickly arrive at a situation were you’d be concluding Usain Bolt, say, must be banned. Because he’s just put an enormous dent in the 1 and 200 m world records (relatively speaking), he must be using PEDs. Just compare his performances with everyone else - out with the ban stick.
It is done on a casual basis, by fans etc, though. The most compelling evidence that Lance doped is not a disgruntled team mate bullshitting on the back of a book deal. It’s exactly like you say - just look at all the proven, admitted cheaters he crushed in the mountains of the Tour. Doped to the gills and yet couldn’t hang with LA when he put the power down.
I must be in the minority with this view.
It’s so iffy to determine the drug enhancers and they can be discovered years down the road or not at all. I favor removing all the checks other than for gender and let the chips fall where they may. You’d have people overdosing and hurting their performance. The body can only do so much even with drugs before it gives out and goes backwards.
I’d like to see the same thing in other events too, especially NASCAR. Take those dam restrictor plates off. Make as mush HP as you can and go 300MPH. Strengthen the fencing accordingly to protect fans.
Why don’t we bring back gladiators and lions while we are at it? The doping rules and the restrictions on equipment are as much for the protection of the athletes as for trying to maintain an even playing field.
The curves wouldn’t be the only piece of evidence used to incriminate someone, but could be looked at in context of other evidence, accusations, etc. If such performance curves could be made, and shown valid, it would add at least a semi-objective way to evaluate what usually comes down to one person’s word against another, or sometimes many others.
As far as not being able to “normalise athletic endeavours”, why not? A lot of sports, especially individual ones, come down to numbers. How fast, how far, how many, etc. Analyzing numbers and how they change over time is the meat and potatoes of statistics. And you wouldn’t be normalizing athletes relative to one another, but relative to him/herself. For example, by analyzing athletes for whom there is no reason to think used PED’s, it seems you could arrive at something like a maximum rate of performance improvement. Then compare that rate to the rate of the suspected athletes.
Given the amount of attention, devotion - and money - dedicated to sports, I would be very surprised if the use of performance curves of this kind aren’t already used. How about horse racing, for example. Any one know?