A cure that's worse than the disease



Revtom wrote:
> On Jun 2, 12:35 am, Bob Schwartz <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>> Revtom wrote:
>>> Thanks; I'll stand back and wait for the assault to begin.

>> I guess my biggest issue with your proposal is that it's a
>> pretty major production over something as insignificant and
>> unimportant as bike racing.
>>
>> Bob Schwartz

>
> It could be applied to all sports. After all, sport in general is a
> multi-national, multi-billion dollar enterprise. Plus, when you think
> about it, the only thing a zero-tolerance policy does is get kids
> expelled for bringing tableknives to school.


Ummm, If you can't justify it for cycling then the solution is to
do something unjustified on a much larger scale? Do I have that
right?

I'm glad you brought up the economics of sport. That allows me to
make the point that the industry looks a lot like entertainment.
Lots of money into stuff that doesn't matter in people's daily
lives. Looks like entertainment to me.

Look, if I could wave a magic wand and make the problem go away, I
would. But there is no magic wand. And I am not going to support
creating a huge and expensive testing and monitoring infrastructure
to ensure that a particular field of entertainment is pure. That
makes no sense. Sport is entertainment. It isn't that important.

And besides, you don't really care that much about doping. Really,
you don't. No one does. Maybe because it isn't that important. It
just bothers you to see it. If you couldn't see it, you'd be totally
OK with it, no matter how depraved it was.

Want to know how I know that?

A couple of years ago I was reading an article in the Minneapolis
newspaper about how the size of US high school football linemen was
accelerating. The author had gone back to newspaper listing for about
10 years and determined that the average All Minn/St Paul Metro
lineman had gained about 50 pounds over that period.

When I read that I thought "Hmmmmmm." I know what is going on there.
You know what is going on there. Everyone knows what is going on
there.

But no one cares. The article was not about kids taking steriods. It
was about the negative health effects of being a big as a house,
once your football career was over. Really, I'm not making that up.

People don't want to see stuff like that so they make a point of not
seeing it. They know it's there, but if they have an option to not
see it, they will choose to not see it. A friend that went into
social work tells me that kids take steroids for no reason other to
look good at the beach. So they are certainly going to load up for
something like football. But no one wants to see that, so they don't
see it. Things only hit the fan when people are forced to look.
That's what has got you going, you've been forced to look. If you
hadn't been forced to look you'd feel everything was OK.

So I guess I'm of the opinion that all the doping warriors that want
to throw unlimited enforcement resources at something that really
isn't that important are hypocrites with totally screwed up
priorities.

And I will also point out that there is a mountain of evidence that
education is much cheaper and more effective against doping problems
than enforcement.

Bob Schwartz
 
In article
<[email protected]>,
Revtom <[email protected]> wrote:

> On May 31, 10:46 am, RonSonic <[email protected]> wrote:
> > I just happened across this quote again about the Riis admission:
> >
> > "McQuaid's solution: "I think the way to sort that out is to declare
> > that there was no winner of the race in 1996. I wouldn't even think of
> > going down the classification [to search for a clean rider]."
> >
> > Now think about this from the point of view of either a sponsor or fan. All that
> > investment of money, emotion, time all waved away because someone didn't like
> > the way racing was conducted a dozen years ago.
> >
> > THIS is what's killing cycling. How could you possibly watch a sport, cheer for
> > anyone or invest money if it all disappears because a rule that had been broken
> > with a wink for decades suddenly becomes retroactively enforced. Maybe that's
> > why Eddie Merckx didn't want to talk on the stand, the question of his doping
> > would come up and he'd have to lie or watch this pack of moral hyenas try to
> > strip his palmares.
> >
> > I say we go look at film and video footage of riders getting pushes from fans
> > uphill and relegate them. Break down the old film and add time penalties for the
> > guys who hold the water bottle a bit too long on a hand up. Let's dig up the
> > corpses of the guys who won the first few tours and test their bones for
> > strychnine. I've seen photos of guys riding with their knees covered in warm
> > weather, let's DQ that bunch of dirty cheaters. I'm sure we could find enough
> > rules violations to pretty well change the outcomes of every season in the
> > sport.
> >
> > Yeah, this is all a little over the top. But what's the fun in ranting if you
> > don't let it rip.
> >
> > Ron

>
> I know I'm setting myself up for a ton of abuse; I've brought this up
> with people in my bike club, and with all of the uproar about the
> consideration of ex post facto regulations, maybe it's time for
> something really radical. Amnesty. Have the riders 'fess up, come
> clean, spill it, give it up. Yes, I doped. No sanctions, no
> suspensions. Then, have each National governing body administer blood
> sampling, followed by weekly urine samples. The price for non-
> compliance is the loss of amnesty, and loss of the rider's job. Since
> the UCI and WADA can't handle the problem, and most national bodies
> get some form of assistance or subsidy from their governments, the
> cost of the initial and weekly sampling will be somewhat easier to
> bear. Yes, this sounds like giving up. But what would be given up?
> This constant screeching noise coming from the anti-doping idealogues?
> The "What?!! Doping?!!" from sponsors? If the riders put up, and the
> critics shut up, they can all go back to racing, having turned their
> backs on deception, guilt, and recrimination. Cyclists, footballers,
> track & field athletes, who, or more importantly, whomever, can go
> back to being either clean athletes, or the waiters, bus drivers and
> cable TV installers they would have been. Yes, this is a crazy idea,
> and very few people will even consider it. But all of the debris
> flying around sport is doing more long-term damage than doping is
> doing.
> Thanks; I'll stand back and wait for the assault to begin.


Amnesty for those who say nothing.

--
Michael Press
 
On Jun 1, 4:16 am, Donald Munro <[email protected]> wrote:
> [email protected] wrote:
> > [*] On the "what does not kill you makes you
> > stronger" theory.

>
> Nietzsche was a doper (Presumably philosophers do LSD).


Funny you should mention that -- his most productive years were just
before his mental breakdown, when the syphilis bug had first gotten to
his brain, but not yet made him totally insane. It's well-documented
that for a while, that creates a surge in mental activity -- not
always good, but sometimes. See Oliver Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook His
Wife for a Hat" which contains an excellent case study and some
discussion of the mechanism of action (roughly, the bacteria chew away
the myelin insulation on the long axons of nerve cells, causing cross-
signals to fire in unexpected directions). Franz Schubert is another
great artist who may have had a syphilis-induced final burst of
productivity before the disease did him in at an early age.

The cognitive changes syphilis induces are largely irreversible, but
the progress of the damage can be stopped now with antibiotics. So
it's a promising form of intellectual doping. When I was younger this
was my backup plan in the event I topped out as an academic
mediocrity. I decided to live with it when it happened.--Shane
 
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] wrote:

> On Jun 1, 4:16 am, Donald Munro <[email protected]> wrote:
> > [email protected] wrote:
> > > [*] On the "what does not kill you makes you
> > > stronger" theory.

> >
> > Nietzsche was a doper (Presumably philosophers do LSD).

>
> Funny you should mention that -- his most productive years were just
> before his mental breakdown, when the syphilis bug had first gotten to
> his brain, but not yet made him totally insane. It's well-documented
> that for a while, that creates a surge in mental activity -- not
> always good, but sometimes. See Oliver Sacks' "The Man Who Mistook His
> Wife for a Hat" which contains an excellent case study and some
> discussion of the mechanism of action (roughly, the bacteria chew away
> the myelin insulation on the long axons of nerve cells, causing cross-
> signals to fire in unexpected directions). Franz Schubert is another
> great artist who may have had a syphilis-induced final burst of
> productivity before the disease did him in at an early age.
>
> The cognitive changes syphilis induces are largely irreversible, but
> the progress of the damage can be stopped now with antibiotics. So
> it's a promising form of intellectual doping. When I was younger this
> was my backup plan in the event I topped out as an academic
> mediocrity. I decided to live with it when it happened.--Shane


Huh, that's interesting. Then I suppose we might say that the victims, er,
participants of the Tuskegee Syphilis Study were being administered intellectual
doping. (I'm kidding, of course.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_Syphilis_Study

--
tanx,
Howard

Never take a tenant with a monkey.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
 
In article <[email protected]>,
Bob Schwartz <[email protected]> wrote:

> Revtom wrote:
> > On Jun 2, 12:35 am, Bob Schwartz <[email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >> Revtom wrote:
> >>> Thanks; I'll stand back and wait for the assault to begin.
> >> I guess my biggest issue with your proposal is that it's a
> >> pretty major production over something as insignificant and
> >> unimportant as bike racing.
> >>
> >> Bob Schwartz

> >
> > It could be applied to all sports. After all, sport in general is a
> > multi-national, multi-billion dollar enterprise. Plus, when you think
> > about it, the only thing a zero-tolerance policy does is get kids
> > expelled for bringing tableknives to school.

>
> Ummm, If you can't justify it for cycling then the solution is to
> do something unjustified on a much larger scale? Do I have that
> right?
>
> I'm glad you brought up the economics of sport. That allows me to
> make the point that the industry looks a lot like entertainment.
> Lots of money into stuff that doesn't matter in people's daily
> lives. Looks like entertainment to me.


A good point. Because sport is entertainment. That's the only reason
there's money in it.

> Look, if I could wave a magic wand and make the problem go away, I
> would. But there is no magic wand. And I am not going to support
> creating a huge and expensive testing and monitoring infrastructure
> to ensure that a particular field of entertainment is pure. That
> makes no sense. Sport is entertainment. It isn't that important.
>
> And besides, you don't really care that much about doping. Really,
> you don't. No one does. Maybe because it isn't that important. It
> just bothers you to see it. If you couldn't see it, you'd be totally
> OK with it, no matter how depraved it was.


Well, the reason it bothers me is because I don't like to think of my
entertainment as containing excessive risks or inherent unfairness for
the participants. It's the same reason I don't like races that have an
excessively dicey parcours.

> Want to know how I know that?
>
> A couple of years ago I was reading an article in the Minneapolis
> newspaper about how the size of US high school football linemen was
> accelerating. The author had gone back to newspaper listing for about
> 10 years and determined that the average All Minn/St Paul Metro
> lineman had gained about 50 pounds over that period.
>
> When I read that I thought "Hmmmmmm." I know what is going on there.
> You know what is going on there. Everyone knows what is going on
> there.
>
> But no one cares. The article was not about kids taking steriods. It
> was about the negative health effects of being a big as a house,
> once your football career was over. Really, I'm not making that up.


Okay, but that's just a colossal blind spot on the part of the writers.
You and I know what was going on, but we're acutely sensitive to the
effects of doping in sports.

> People don't want to see stuff like that so they make a point of not
> seeing it.


> So I guess I'm of the opinion that all the doping warriors that want
> to throw unlimited enforcement resources at something that really
> isn't that important are hypocrites with totally screwed up
> priorities.


Well, that's certainly a fair critique of those looking for unlimited
resources. But the rest of us here in the reality-based community are
calling for an end to doping through less impossible means.

What, for example, do you think of the "health passport" idea that was
previously floated, where as an athlete WADA would basically track your
typical physiological characteristics and keep an eye out for any
freak-show changes (say, sudden massive body-composition changes, a
wandering hematocrit, or any of those other changes that are suggestive
(but not proof) of doping?

> And I will also point out that there is a mountain of evidence that
> education is much cheaper and more effective against doping problems
> than enforcement.


I am all down with the education. The grassroots end of that is getting
involved with young riders as they enter the sport, and to what extent I
can, I do so.

--
Ryan Cousineau [email protected] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos
 
[email protected] wrote:
> On Jun 1, 1:28 am, [email protected] wrote:
>> On Jun 1, 6:06 am, "[email protected]" <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On May 31, 9:23 am, bdbafh <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> Next thing you know, they'll invalidate the Immaculate Reception and
>>>> dem Stillers 4 Super Bowl victories.
>>> They didn't win it in the Immaculate Reception season,
>>> only after. But you probably knew that. If not, you
>>> lose the right to call them "Stillers."

>> Getting beaten by the Dolphins that following week was karmic payback
>> for the Stealers.

>
> Or maybe they just weren't that good that year. Not
> good enough to beat The Only Undefeated Team Of Destiny,
> certainly.


The Only Undefeated Team of Destiny spent most of that season with a
doper at QB:

http://tinyurl.com/2gf8z7

Just look at that hair and tell me he wasn't on the juice.

He was replaced in that game against the Stealers by this guy, who bears
a striking resemblance to Tyler Hamilton:

http://tinyurl.com/2e2rqr
 
On Jun 2, 9:21 pm, Ryan Cousineau <[email protected]> wrote:
> Bob Schwartz <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > And besides, you don't really care that much about doping. Really,
> > you don't. No one does. Maybe because it isn't that important. It
> > just bothers you to see it. If you couldn't see it, you'd be totally
> > OK with it, no matter how depraved it was.

>
> Well, the reason it bothers me is because I don't like to think of my
> entertainment as containing excessive risks or inherent unfairness for
> the participants. It's the same reason I don't like races that have an
> excessively dicey parcours.


I don't like the idea (or rather, fact that) lots of
high school and college kids are taking steroids to
bulk up for football, more than I worry about the fact
that the pros are doing it. But I was more put off by
the discovery that a significant number of pro football
players suffer diminished mental capacity after
retirement due to the number of concussions they endure.
That's a property of the game and only secondarily
affected by dope (because the players are bigger/faster).

But who am I kidding? I'm still going to watch it
in the fall. So is most everyone else who ever had
an interest.

> Okay, but that's just a colossal blind spot on the part of the writers.
> You and I know what was going on, but we're acutely sensitive to the
> effects of doping in sports.


Yeah, but they aren't really blind. They know, or
they hear things. They hear more than they can put
in the papers; they should be able to put that together
with the facts about high school player size. But they
don't want to know and so they pretend. You can go back
and read lots of columns from a couple of years about
how baseball was clean to see people thinking about it
and steadfastly denying reality. As Bob said:

> > People don't want to see stuff like that so they make a point of not
> > seeing it.
> > So I guess I'm of the opinion that all the doping warriors that want
> > to throw unlimited enforcement resources at something that really
> > isn't that important are hypocrites with totally screwed up
> > priorities.


The thing that most bothers me is that there is
anecdotal evidence that coaches of HS and college
football teams actively encourage getting big with
pharmaceutical assistance. It would be naive to
believe otherwise, but it still bugs me.

Ben
 
Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> What, for example, do you think of the "health passport" idea that was
> previously floated, where as an athlete WADA would basically track your
> typical physiological characteristics and keep an eye out for any
> freak-show changes (say, sudden massive body-composition changes, a
> wandering hematocrit, or any of those other changes that are suggestive
> (but not proof) of doping?


Well, the idea that WADA would get it's hooks more deeply into athletes
makes me want to puke. I wouldn't support handing over even more
authority to them any more than I'd support performing brain surgery
with a hammer drill. But let's put aside for a moment that WADA is an
organization with the ethics of a dog turd.

If there was an easy way to accomplish what you seek, don't you think
we'd be there already? A health passport can be manipulated unless you
add a security mechanism to verify just who belongs to which bodily
fluids and then throw in the chain of custody stuff that you know
has to be there and, whoops, before you know it you've got a "huge
and expensive testing and monitoring infrastructure to ensure that
a particular field of entertainment is pure." I'm not sure who said
that, it was either me earlier in the thread or Benjamin Franklin.
At any rate, at the core you've got an activity that isn't that
important.

Of course you could just wing it on the health passport and let teams
all go to the same lab in Italy near their training camp and then be
surprised that they're all naturally at 60% hct.

If there were any easy answers we'd be moving on to different
questions, eh?

Bob Schwartz
 
Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> Well, the reason it bothers me is because I don't like to think of my
> entertainment as containing excessive risks or inherent unfairness for
> the participants. It's the same reason I don't like races that have an
> excessively dicey parcours.


If you wanted to minimize the risk you'd let people operate in the open
under proper medical supervision. Not that that's a likely solution, but
I just wanted to make that point.

Bob Schwartz
 
In article <[email protected]>,
Bob Schwartz <[email protected]> wrote:

> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> > Well, the reason it bothers me is because I don't like to think of my
> > entertainment as containing excessive risks or inherent unfairness for
> > the participants. It's the same reason I don't like races that have an
> > excessively dicey parcours.

>
> If you wanted to minimize the risk you'd let people operate in the open
> under proper medical supervision. Not that that's a likely solution, but
> I just wanted to make that point.


As I've noted before, the problem there is that you just move the lines.
There's an awful lot of drugs where dose-response is the order of the
day, right up to the point where it starts wrecking parts of your body
or making you die in your sleep.

It's basically the problem of having physicians who are motivated to do
what's best for their patient's performance, not their patient.

And even if you could regulate the doctors (we'll get Fuentes and
Ferrari to head up the seminar on medical ethics), there's always the
possibility the riders would self-medicate beyond the limits prescribed
by the doctors.

--
Ryan Cousineau [email protected] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos
 
Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Bob Schwartz <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
>>> Well, the reason it bothers me is because I don't like to think of my
>>> entertainment as containing excessive risks or inherent unfairness for
>>> the participants. It's the same reason I don't like races that have an
>>> excessively dicey parcours.

>> If you wanted to minimize the risk you'd let people operate in the open
>> under proper medical supervision. Not that that's a likely solution, but
>> I just wanted to make that point.

>
> As I've noted before, the problem there is that you just move the lines.
> There's an awful lot of drugs where dose-response is the order of the
> day, right up to the point where it starts wrecking parts of your body
> or making you die in your sleep.
>
> It's basically the problem of having physicians who are motivated to do
> what's best for their patient's performance, not their patient.
>
> And even if you could regulate the doctors (we'll get Fuentes and
> Ferrari to head up the seminar on medical ethics), there's always the
> possibility the riders would self-medicate beyond the limits prescribed
> by the doctors.


And how is your worst case any different than what we've got today?
Except no one is watching. Are you OK with stuff like that going on,
as long as you don't see it? How many high school football players are
consulting with their family doctor before starting their steroid
program?

I'm not making the case for legalization. But if you wanted to minimize
the risks, that's what you'd do. And as you may have guessed, I am not
a proponent of the 'head in the sand' approach.

Bob Schwartz
 
In article <[email protected]>,
Bob Schwartz <[email protected]> wrote:

> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> > In article <[email protected]>,
> > Bob Schwartz <[email protected]> wrote:
> >
> >> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> >>> Well, the reason it bothers me is because I don't like to think of my
> >>> entertainment as containing excessive risks or inherent unfairness for
> >>> the participants. It's the same reason I don't like races that have an
> >>> excessively dicey parcours.
> >> If you wanted to minimize the risk you'd let people operate in the open
> >> under proper medical supervision. Not that that's a likely solution, but
> >> I just wanted to make that point.

> >
> > As I've noted before, the problem there is that you just move the lines.
> > There's an awful lot of drugs where dose-response is the order of the
> > day, right up to the point where it starts wrecking parts of your body
> > or making you die in your sleep.
> >
> > It's basically the problem of having physicians who are motivated to do
> > what's best for their patient's performance, not their patient.
> >
> > And even if you could regulate the doctors (we'll get Fuentes and
> > Ferrari to head up the seminar on medical ethics), there's always the
> > possibility the riders would self-medicate beyond the limits prescribed
> > by the doctors.

>
> And how is your worst case any different than what we've got today?
> Except no one is watching. Are you OK with stuff like that going on,
> as long as you don't see it? How many high school football players are
> consulting with their family doctor before starting their steroid
> program?


Fair enough. But your "improvement" wouldn't actually minimize the
risks. In other words, we have equally useless scenarios :).

> I'm not making the case for legalization. But if you wanted to minimize
> the risks, that's what you'd do. And as you may have guessed, I am not
> a proponent of the 'head in the sand' approach.


This is where I should post a rather elaborate and complicated scheme
that would work either with or without some level of "acceptable
doping", but I shall not :).

--
Ryan Cousineau [email protected] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos
 
On Jun 4, 7:04 pm, Ryan Cousineau <[email protected]> wrote:

> This is where I should post a rather elaborate and complicated scheme
> that would work either with or without some level of "acceptable
> doping", but I shall not :).


I have a relatively simple scheme but it's worth implementing only if
doping in sports were important, which it isn't.
 
In article
<[email protected]>,
Bob Schwartz <[email protected]>
wrote:

> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> > Well, the reason it bothers me is because I don't like to think of my
> > entertainment as containing excessive risks or inherent unfairness for
> > the participants. It's the same reason I don't like races that have an
> > excessively dicey parcours.

>
> If you wanted to minimize the risk you'd let people operate in the open
> under proper medical supervision. Not that that's a likely solution, but
> I just wanted to make that point.


Open doping with dangerous pharmaceuticals means every
professional _must_ dope. The old ways are the best
ways: clandestine drug use and shut yer maw. The fans
who prefer clean racing will see clean racing. It's a
win-win plan.

--
Michael Press
 
<[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> When I was younger this
> was my backup plan in the event I topped out as an academic
> mediocrity. I decided to live with it when it happened.--Shane


I suspect that it's a good thing you came to peace with that idea early in
life.
 
In article <[email protected]>,
[email protected] wrote:

> On Jun 4, 7:04 pm, Ryan Cousineau <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > This is where I should post a rather elaborate and complicated scheme
> > that would work either with or without some level of "acceptable
> > doping", but I shall not :).

>
> I have a relatively simple scheme but it's worth implementing only if
> doping in sports were important, which it isn't.


Are you sure?

No, seriously: doping controls basically started after Tom Simpson's
tragic death. They arguably got much more aggressive after a couple of
neo-pros died in their sleep.

I'm not sure what exciting side-effects are next. Maybe a generation of
ex-pros who need to take EPO or T because their body has given up on
producing its own.

Sure, pro sports themselves aren't important. They're basically
something we do because movies are boring and because my proposal to
start a bear-baiting TV channel hasn't attracted funding yet.

But I dislike doping in cycling for the same reason I dislike
bear-baiting: it's not seemly for our entertainment to cross such lines,
in this case of becoming a sport where one flirts with death in ways
that have nothing to do with the nature of the sport. I like to think
that the organization of the sport is aimed at reducing the number of
deadly risks. I can hear the ripostes coming already, but NASCAR (to use
our favourite example) is a much more attractive spectacle now that
SAFER barriers are universal and a great number of steps towards driver
safety (notably HANS devices and the Car of Tomorrow) have been taken.

Dale Earnhardt, Sr. was the last driver to die in a Nextel/Winston Cup
race. That was in 2001.

But on the other hand, that highlights the other issue: we probably
haven't had a doping death in cycling since 2001 either (though I invite
debate and accusations of dumbassery on that one). So even if several
pros are currently on the way to turning their livers into
non-functioning organs, we haven't seen it yet.

But again, I look to the children :). No seriously, as in I don't want
to have cycling become like football, where juicing is routinely done
down to the high school level just to have a chance at the big show. I
hold out some hope that the local kids are kept clean, and I have to,
because my own club just sent 3 of the 4 provincial reps to track nats.
In other words, if there is a doping problem locally at the espoir
level, my club is probably involved.

Amateurs. The more I think about the nature of pro cycling, the more I
like amateur cycling,

--
Ryan Cousineau [email protected] http://www.wiredcola.com/
"I don't want kids who are thinking about going into mathematics
to think that they have to take drugs to succeed." -Paul Erdos
 
"Ryan Cousineau" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
>
> No, seriously: doping controls basically started after Tom Simpson's
> tragic death. They arguably got much more aggressive after a couple of
> neo-pros died in their sleep.


A couple of dozen but I understand your point. And mine is that if you
legalize dope you force those who don't want to use dope to use it in order
to have employment in cycle racing.

> I'm not sure what exciting side-effects are next. Maybe a generation of
> ex-pros who need to take EPO or T because their body has given up on
> producing its own.


This is a temporary mechanism. It isn't because you're developing an allergy
to it - it's because your body detects too much and shuts down production.
After that it requires time to start up again and during that interval you
could very well die without medical monitoring.

However, EPO is supposed to be in microscopic quantities in your body and
not the huge amounts used by racers without a clue. Because of that it is
possible to develop an allergy to the substance and then you're pretty much
cooked. Luckily it is rare enough that I haven't been able to find anything
definitive about such allergies.

> Sure, pro sports themselves aren't important. They're basically
> something we do because movies are boring and because my proposal to
> start a bear-baiting TV channel hasn't attracted funding yet.


Still, I'm guessing that you're going to buy the Giro DVD's too.

> But again, I look to the children :). No seriously, as in I don't want
> to have cycling become like football, where juicing is routinely done
> down to the high school level just to have a chance at the big show. I
> hold out some hope that the local kids are kept clean, and I have to,
> because my own club just sent 3 of the 4 provincial reps to track nats.
> In other words, if there is a doping problem locally at the espoir
> level, my club is probably involved.
>
> Amateurs. The more I think about the nature of pro cycling, the more I
> like amateur cycling,


The problem is that it appears that juicing is pretty regular among masters
racers for God only knows what reasons. Someone like Henry would juice in an
instant if he thought it would lead to a win in a third catagory local race
in Winnemucca.

There is a local club that rides faster than most races. There is a whole
group of front guys who are juicing. And the weird part about all this is
that they don't race - they only want to win the Saturday ride!
 
Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> But on the other hand, that highlights the other issue: we probably
> haven't had a doping death in cycling since 2001 either (though I invite
> debate and accusations of dumbassery on that one). So even if several
> pros are currently on the way to turning their livers into
> non-functioning organs, we haven't seen it yet.
>
> But again, I look to the children :). No seriously, as in I don't want
> to have cycling become like football, where juicing is routinely done
> down to the high school level just to have a chance at the big show. I
> hold out some hope that the local kids are kept clean, and I have to,
> because my own club just sent 3 of the 4 provincial reps to track nats.
> In other words, if there is a doping problem locally at the espoir
> level, my club is probably involved.


You are laboring under a number of misconceptions. One is that there
is an easy solution to the problem of doping in sport. There is not.
If there was we would have moved on long ago. You seem completely
unable to accept this. I don't know why, but you do.

Another is that escalating enforcement can make a difference. This is
similar to the approach that Bush is taking in Iraq. Past history has
shown this to be ineffective. But one last surge will turn the corner,
we're certain of that, aren't we?

My thesis, which I will stop repeating after this post, is that the
costs of making meaningful strides against doping in sport are not
anywhere near justified by the benefits. Especially when you consider
the alternative uses of those resources in areas that are actually
meaningful in people's lives.

You also seem to think there is no possibility for meaningful success
in the sport without dope. If it is possible for a fat old guy with
gray hair to score a medal at US track natz then it is possible for
the kids in your club to do so at Canadian track natz. But really, it
is healthier both physically and emotionally for everyone involved
to have a firm grasp of where track natz fits in the larger scheme of
things. It can be a lot of fun, but it's not that important.

And here is one more thing to think about. How many of those people
that died during the early adoption phase of EPO would have survived
if they had been able to do it under proper medical supervision?

> Amateurs. The more I think about the nature of pro cycling, the more I
> like amateur cycling,


Amateur cycling is 100% clean. Just like RAAM. To believe otherwise
would be to believe that doping is a societal problem rather than just
involving sport.

Bob Schwartz
 
In article <[email protected]>,
Bob Schwartz <[email protected]> wrote:

> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> > But on the other hand, that highlights the other issue: we probably
> > haven't had a doping death in cycling since 2001 either (though I invite
> > debate and accusations of dumbassery on that one). So even if several
> > pros are currently on the way to turning their livers into
> > non-functioning organs, we haven't seen it yet.
> >
> > But again, I look to the children :). No seriously, as in I don't want
> > to have cycling become like football, where juicing is routinely done
> > down to the high school level just to have a chance at the big show. I
> > hold out some hope that the local kids are kept clean, and I have to,
> > because my own club just sent 3 of the 4 provincial reps to track nats.
> > In other words, if there is a doping problem locally at the espoir
> > level, my club is probably involved.

>
> You are laboring under a number of misconceptions. One is that there
> is an easy solution to the problem of doping in sport. There is not.
> If there was we would have moved on long ago. You seem completely
> unable to accept this. I don't know why, but you do.
>
> Another is that escalating enforcement can make a difference. This is
> similar to the approach that Bush is taking in Iraq. Past history has
> shown this to be ineffective. But one last surge will turn the corner,
> we're certain of that, aren't we?


Hmm, corners.

http://www.mnftiu.cc/mnftiu.cc/images/gywo.corners.gif

--
tanx,
Howard

Never take a tenant with a monkey.

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?
 
On Jun 4, 9:48 pm, Bob Schwartz <[email protected]>
wrote:
> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
>
> > Amateurs. The more I think about the nature of pro cycling, the more I
> > like amateur cycling,

>
> Amateur cycling is 100% clean. Just like RAAM. To believe otherwise
> would be to believe that doping is a societal problem rather than just
> involving sport.


Of course. But the good thing about amateur cycling
is that, if there were doping in it, which of course
there isn't, it wouldn't matter, because the results
cease to be important five minutes after the race is
over [*]. Except for purposes of woofing and trash talk
on the next Saturday training ride, but you know what
I mean.

Doping in pro cycling is a problem because it distorts
the results (It's a problem because it is probably bad
for you and enriches Dr. Ferrari, but that only happens
because it distorts the results). It's not clear to
me that guys who dope for amateur cycling are any bigger
a problem than guys who yell at each other or get in
fights after amateur races, in the sense that they are
equally deserving of pity or scorn.

Ben

[*] Or half an hour after the race for Masters men's MTB
racing, based on my experience at the scorer's table.