Guradian interview with David Millar



In article <[email protected]>,
Peter Clinch <[email protected]> wrote:
> And you may be caught by varying values of "apple" and so on. James
> Grieves have practically nothing in common with Golden Delicious (for a
> start, they're usually golden and delicious which Golden Delicious have
> never managed IME) and aren't available in any supermarket I've ever
> been in.


Are you prepared to gamble they're the same chemically?

> Things like tayberries would be Right Out, and probably even things like
> damsons. Anyone who ate from a decent vegetable garden (never mind made


Nah. I topped up the damsons I got from my in-law's allotment with a
few from the supermarket to make the right amount of jam.

> liberal use of books like "Food for Free") would be doing a fair bit of
> submitting to the relevant labs, I'd think. Could get quite unworkable
> Real Soon.


One could consider this a collective punishment for twenty years of
pushing the doping envelope. Remember, cycling loves lying drug users,
to judge from Virenque's popularity, and athletes like Denise Lewis can
only get the special training they need from East German drug
specialises who ruined the lives of hundreds of young people, something
which is not regarded as a problem by UK Athletics. If the end game
means they get to lead complicated lives, that's to an extent tough.

ian
 
Peter Clinch <[email protected]> writes:
> Arthur Clune wrote:
> > Because of your critera that it had to be sold in major retaliers (ie
> > supermarkets). These don't sell local produce or that much in the
> > way or organic stuff (at least not compared to my local wholefood
> > shops)

> Things like tayberries would be Right Out, and probably even things
> like damsons. Anyone who ate from a decent vegetable garden (never
> mind made liberal use of books like "Food for Free") would be doing a
> fair bit of submitting to the relevant labs, I'd think. Could get
> quite unworkable Real Soon.


Damson jam's available in my local shops, thank goodness, given the
lack of damson trees amongst people I know.

A
 
Ian G Batten wrote:
> Why? Carrots without pesticides are clearly permitted if carrots with
> pesticides are.


And by that reasoning, genetically enhanced nandrolone-producing carrots
would be permitted because they are superficially the same as any
other carrot.

> It probably bans all those jars of tablets sold in
> `healthfood' shops, though --- I never understood: if the food's so
> healthy, how come they sell so many supplements?


Well, for a sportsman, these supplements aren't taken /instead/ of a
healthy diet, they're, um, /supplementary/ to a healthy diet.

To get the same quantities of vitamins/minerals you'd have to eat
carrots by the truckload - a non-sporty person could probably get enough
of the vitamins/minerals they need from their regular diet if they ate
properly but that's often not the case for sporty types.

d.
 
Ian G Batten <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>,
> Michael MacClancy <[email protected]> wrote:
> > 1. Do you think athletics and cycling are the same thing?

>
> For practical purposes, yes.
>
> > 2. Your point doesn't seem to be valid for athletics. Dwain Chambers

recently tried this defence for THG and failed:


>
> There's merit in what you say, but ``close enough'' isn't the point: my
> formulation would stop radical new blood doping techniques as yet
> undiscovered which work in novel new ways, just as EPO did when it first
> arrived.


What about hypobaric chambers?
 
Peter Clinch wrote:
> James
> Grieves have practically nothing in common with Golden Delicious (for a
> start, they're usually golden and delicious which Golden Delicious have
> never managed IME) and aren't available in any supermarket I've ever
> been in


I've got a James Grieve tree on my allotment. I've also got a Worcester
Pearmain, a Blenheim Orange, a Jupiter and a couple of others whose
names escape me right now. I've spotted Worcester Pearmain in
supermarkets once or twice but never any of the others.

> Anyone who ate from a decent vegetable garden (never mind made
> liberal use of books like "Food for Free") would be doing a fair bit of
> submitting to the relevant labs, I'd think.


I'm not sending my artichokes to any bloody lab - they're far too precious.

d.
 
In article <[email protected]>,
davek <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ian G Batten wrote:
> > Why? Carrots without pesticides are clearly permitted if carrots with
> > pesticides are.

>
> And by that reasoning, genetically enhanced nandrolone-producing carrots
> would be permitted because they are superficially the same as any
> other carrot.


No, the ingredients are not a subset of the permitted item. To whit,
nandrolone.

>
> > It probably bans all those jars of tablets sold in
> > `healthfood' shops, though --- I never understood: if the food's so
> > healthy, how come they sell so many supplements?

>
> Well, for a sportsman, these supplements aren't taken /instead/ of a
> healthy diet, they're, um, /supplementary/ to a healthy diet.


You mean all the customers of the wholefood co-operative I buy wholemeal
flour from are sportsmen? S'funny, most of them look like urban
hippies.

> To get the same quantities of vitamins/minerals you'd have to eat
> carrots by the truckload


Hmm. I wonder what there is in carrots which sportsmen require in such
massive quantities.

> a non-sporty person could probably get enough
> of the vitamins/minerals they need from their regular diet if they ate
> properly but that's often not the case for sporty types.


Indeed, what vitamins and minerals are required by sportsmen at
quantities greater than, say, 2x adult RDA? This isn't rhetorical: I
genuinely don't know. But since `Sports Science' is part science done
by scientists, and part voodoo done by svengalis in tracksuits, I'd
prefer references to the former to the latter.

ian
 
Ian G Batten wrote:

> Are you prepared to gamble they're the same chemically?


If any chemist worth his salt couldn't differentiate between a James
Grieve and a Golden Delicious without resorting to DNA s/he'd be a
pretty sorry case. That they're chemically different is clear from
merely the taste, different chemical compositions giving different taste
sensations.

>>Things like tayberries would be Right Out, and probably even things like
>>damsons. Anyone who ate from a decent vegetable garden (never mind made


> Nah. I topped up the damsons I got from my in-law's allotment with a
> few from the supermarket to make the right amount of jam.


Damsons not, then. But what about the tayberries? And so on.

> One could consider this a collective punishment for twenty years of
> pushing the doping envelope.


Or one could work a bit more on your defining statement for the drug
policy taking on board a bit of constructive criticism!

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net [email protected] http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
 
davek <[email protected]> wrote:
> I've got a James Grieve tree on my allotment. I've also got a Worcester
> Pearmain, a Blenheim Orange, a Jupiter and a couple of others whose
> names escape me right now. I've spotted Worcester Pearmain in
> supermarkets once or twice but never any of the others.


My tenancy agreement specifically prevents me from growing trees
on my allotment (lest they become protected... of course). I am
not sure what to do if the next walnut sapling I find survives.

> I'm not sending my artichokes to any bloody lab - they're far too precious.


Ah so they're precious enough that you manage to get them all out
of the ground before the end of the season; do you?
 
On 28/7/04 4:18 pm, in article [email protected], "davek"
<[email protected]> wrote:

> I've got a James Grieve tree on my allotment.

I've got one in teh front garden. Only two apples on it this year, but we
only planted it a few years ago.

The tree in the back garden is now half a tree as a major branch became
detatched. Unfortunately the resulting apple jelly is more like apple toffee
as I boiled it a bit much last night.

...d
 
In article <[email protected]>,
Peter Clinch <[email protected]> wrote:
> Ian G Batten wrote:
>
> > Are you prepared to gamble they're the same chemically?

>
> If any chemist worth his salt couldn't differentiate between a James
> Grieve and a Golden Delicious without resorting to DNA s/he'd be a
> pretty sorry case. That they're chemically different is clear from


Sure. But are there unique components, or is it a matter of (probably
quite small) differences in proportion? If I took half a dozen
different supermarket apples, pulped them together, and said ``anything
which contains at least 90% of these ingredients, within 20% of the same
proportions, and looks roughly like an apple, is an apple'', are there
cases for which that wouldn't work? I'm not an analytic chemist (having
a father and a father-in-law who are is enough), and my biology is
non-existant, but I was under the impression that varieties of fruits
are usually _very_ close in all but proportions.

> > One could consider this a collective punishment for twenty years of
> > pushing the doping envelope.

>
> Or one could work a bit more on your defining statement for the drug
> policy taking on board a bit of constructive criticism!


I'm happy with that: it was only a *** packet straw man.

My view, however, is that too many athletes have pushed the envelope for
there to be any sort of flexibility in a policy, and claims that extreme
diets are anything other than covers for drug use are to be taken with a
large pinch of sea salt.

That, to quote the example again, Denise Lewis saw no problem in
employing a drug specialist as her coach, claiming that no-one else
could offer the special training he did, without her being immediately
(a) laughed to scorn and (b) suspended from competitive events, shows
how weak athletics is in the face of people who don't really see drugs
as a problem. Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones were only stopped from
employing Ben Johnson's erstwhile coach by the threat of Nike suspending
all sponsorship. It now looks awfully like the obvious reason for this
was the obvious reason.

ian
 
Ian G Batten wrote:
> No, the ingredients are not a subset of the permitted item. To whit,
> nandrolone.


Ah, but I was talking about carrots in which the nandrolone is not an
added 'ingredient' but a constituent of the carrot itself - in the same
way that GM 'Roundup ready' soy is "the same" as ordinary soy.

> You mean all the customers of the wholefood co-operative I buy wholemeal
> flour from are sportsmen? S'funny, most of them look like urban
> hippies.


They need the supplements because they don't have a proper diet. Nothing
a few BLTs wouldn't sort out.

> Hmm. I wonder what there is in carrots which sportsmen require in such
> massive quantities.


Nandrolone, of course. ;)

> Indeed, what vitamins and minerals are required by sportsmen at
> quantities greater than, say, 2x adult RDA? This isn't rhetorical: I
> genuinely don't know.


To be honest, I don't know either. I take advice from my friendly local
nutritionist. He has suggested, for example, that I would benefit from
taking CoQ10 supplements when doing longer Audax rides. Apparently, it's
a bit good. It's also bloody expensive.

The only supplements I take are Glutamine, which is mostly to help with
my digestive problems but also aids muscle recovery after a long ride,
and Chondroitin complex (Chondroitin and Glucosamine) which is supposed
to help strengthen the cartilage in my knees. I also sometimes have
Maxim in my drinks bottle for a bit of extra zip. I can't really vouch
for the effectiveness of any of these, except the Maxim, which /seems/
to work but is probably no more effective than orange squash.

d.
 
Geraint Jones wrote:
> My tenancy agreement specifically prevents me from growing trees
> on my allotment


We have fairly relaxed rules at ours - partly because they're run by a
co-operative rather than the council.

> Ah so they're precious enough that you manage to get them all out
> of the ground before the end of the season; do you?


Mine are the type that grow on stalks not in the ground (ie globe, not
Jerusalem) and I pick them off as they become ready. They are divine.

I mentioned them because you hardly ever see /fresh/ artichokes in
supermarkets, but I've just realised that they are, of course, the same
vegetable that you can buy in cans and jars.

d.
 
davek <[email protected]> writes:
> Geraint Jones wrote:
> > My tenancy agreement specifically prevents me from growing trees
> > on my allotment

>
> We have fairly relaxed rules at ours - partly because they're run by a
> co-operative rather than the council.
>
> > Ah so they're precious enough that you manage to get them all out
> > of the ground before the end of the season; do you?

>
> Mine are the type that grow on stalks not in the ground (ie globe, not
> Jerusalem) and I pick them off as they become ready. They are divine.


Indeed, globe artichokes are precious and AIUI hard to grow, jerusalem
artichokes are almost inedible weeds.

> I mentioned them because you hardly ever see /fresh/ artichokes in
> supermarkets, but I've just realised that they are, of course, the
> same vegetable that you can buy in cans and jars.


I recall seeing them fresh.sometimes, though.

A
 
Ambrose Nankivell wrote:
> Indeed, globe artichokes are precious and AIUI hard to grow,


They aren't hard to grow at all for an allotmenteer. They are hard to
grow /commercially/ because the plants take up a lot of space and have a
fairly low yield. That's why when you do see them in the supermarkets
they are so expensive.

d.
 
Gawnsoft wrote:
>
> On Wed, 28 Jul 2004 19:38:16 +1000, MSeries wrote (more or less):
> ... > The question is more complex than is he or isn't he.
>
> Absolutely. I used to fence competitively.
>
> I made sure I never ever drank coffee.
>
> That way, at the round when I first expected to be eliminated, I'd
> have a couple of strong cups of coffee.
>
> And I got the 10% uplift in reaction time that most daily
> coffee-drinkers have acclimated out of.


> Now was I using performance enhancing drugs, or not?


Yes.
But not now. AIUI caffeine is no longer on the list of proscribed substances.

John B
 
"Arthur Clune" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> I'll be both very surprised and very disollusioned if LA takes drugs

though.
It seems odd that he's cried off going to the Olympics though. **** Pound of
WADA says they will be storing all the tests even if the technicalities of
finding the drugs are not ready in time..
After Simeoni the calls of support to Millar etc there are too many
questions.
All the best
Dan Gregory


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Ian G Batten wrote:


> If the rules said something like:
>
> The athlete is responsible for any and all substances they ingest or
> otherwise administer. They are permitted to consume any material
> which is sold as a foodstuff for general consumption in at least 20%
> of the branches of at least two of the largest five (by turnover)
> retail food distribution companies of the athlete's home or training
> country.


That might include a bit more than you intended....a colleague just
brought back a packet of mate de coca from Ecuador.

James
--
If I have seen further than others, it is
by treading on the toes of giants.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/
 
Arthur Clune wrote:


>
> I'll be both very surprised and very disollusioned if LA takes drugs though.


I don't see how anyone could be surprised at yet another top-level
cyclist being caught.

James
--
If I have seen further than others, it is
by treading on the toes of giants.
http://www.ne.jp/asahi/julesandjames/home/
 
In news:[email protected],
James Annan <[email protected]> typed:
> Ian G Batten wrote:
>> If the rules said something like:
>>
>> The athlete is responsible for any and all substances they ingest
>> or otherwise administer. They are permitted to consume any
>> material which is sold as a foodstuff for general consumption in
>> at least 20% of the branches of at least two of the largest five
>> (by turnover) retail food distribution companies of the athlete's
>> home or training country.

>
> That might include a bit more than you intended....a colleague just
> brought back a packet of mate de coca from Ecuador.
>

Well, if caffeine's not prohibited in infusion like doses, why should
cocaine be?

A
 

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