highthief

The Tour de France is being rocked again by positive drug tests and athletes avoiding out of competition testing. Right now, no one is wearing the Yellow Jersey as the leader, who skipped two drugs tests, has been kicked out.

Some people are saying that cyclists are among the worst drug cheats in the athletic world, while others say cycling tests much mroe stringently than other sports and so more people get caught.

Thoughts?

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kurty[B]

What are they testing for? Would anything from a drink like Cytomax, or from protein drinks show up? Most of the serious cyclists I knew lived by protein drinks and cytomax (or equivalents). That was from velodrome athletes to downhill mountain bikers and many triathletes. Only a handful of them were pro though. So that's a rather narrow point of view.

highthief

I'm talking blood doping and steroids, not commercially available protein drinks and creatine.

There are so many more cyclists and track athletes busted for doping than, say pro baseball, football or basketball players - is it down to stringent standards in cycling and track or lax standards in pro team sports?

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Willravel

If you've ever met Lance Armstrong, you know what a true athlete is. Anyone who says otherwise probably doesn't know him or even of him.

Anyone who uses steroids is an idiot, be they a cyclist, weight lifter, runner, baseball player (ugh), or chess player. They should not be allowed to compete, and I hope they all grow tits.

kurty[B]

I believe the Tour de France cyclists are tested immediately after placing in a stage. That's a large number of tests a day during a multi-day competition. If pro football or baseball athletes were tested after every single win we would probably have the same dilemma as cycling is having. People doing everything they can to get that edge. That's why I like futbol where it's more about finess, skill and teamwork than how powerful you are. Although, I'm not saying that soccer does not have any athletes that are probably doping.

highthief

I would say that blood doping could be a great benefit to footballers (soccer players) - midfielders and strikers run 10-14 kilometres per game, after all.

I think there is simply too much money tied up in pro team sports - untold billions of dollars. To jeopardize that by instituting real drugs testing is something that I don't think football/soccer/baseball/etc is likely to do anytime soon.

I don't think I'd put anyone in such a pedestal, Will. As with most cyclists, there were certainly enough rumours going on about Armstrong over the years.

Not saying he did or did not use drugs, but given the spectre that hangs over the whole sport, I don't think you can say definitively.

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Ilow

"I hope they all grow tits" is classic, Will!
I think that part of the reason that many cyclists use/get caught is because there is such an obvious and almost perfect correlation between using and improving in the sport. With baseball, soccer, football etc, there are still other skills that are difficult to improve chemically, with cycling it's just the strength and conditioning. It's like putting nitrous in a car, you always get more power.
Another issue is the lab situations are apparently not ideal. No one is ever able to explain why it takes a few hours or a day to test an A sample but weeks to test the B, or even why the same lab is allowed to test the B. The labs are in France (for this tour) and it is well known that the French have a real chip on their shoulder about other countries cyclists. The only French cyclist i know of that was caught was not caught with a drug test, but with equipment etc, and after a mea culpa got a laughably short 6 month suspension. The French buses were not searched as everyone else's were the other day which adds to the suspicion.
I want so badly to believe that the three Tour leaders are clean, but you just don't know. I just hate that i enjoyed the battles all through the Alps and Pyrenees and the time trials as the riders were duking it out, only to find out that it was all bs.

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Willravel

Even if he's drugged up, he's won what 7 times? And after cancer? And after dating Sheryl "One Piece of TP" Crow? The man is something special. I know his body double (dates a friend of mine), and he has told a few stories about the man. He's impressive.
Hehe, thanks.

The_Jazz

While I'm fairly certain that Armstrong didn't take any performance enhancers, I do know for a fact that he was using technological advantages, albeit legal ones. He was the first major cyclist to adopt the African training model and the first one to create an artificial environment for high-altitude training, which allowed him to recover at a much lower altitude than he was training. He used hypo- and hyperbaric chambers to simulate 12,000 feet while training and sea level when resting, which allowed him to recover much faster from harder workouts. They're also portable.

The African training model is less important in the greater scheme of things but basically dictates how he rides his miles - pace, distance, terrain, etc.

Endurance sports are all about who can transport oxygen to the long muscles the most efficiently. All of the doping products artificially enhance that ability. Armstrong tricked his body into doing it by artificial means.

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squeeeb

lots o' people believe if no one doped, the same people would win but the times would be slower. vinokurov tested postive for an "illegal blood transfusion" but i think the guy got the transfusion to clean out his septic knee. i'm sure he was on some kind of painkillers, you don't cycle up the alps with stiches in both knees and elbow and not feel it.

you figure, these guys are cycling over 100 miles a day, every day, for three weeks. i do a century, i don't ride the next day, or i ride slow and short. and they aren't just riding a bike, they are RACING, which means they are going full throttle, with no recovery period.

this sounds like i am pro-doping, i'm not.

that said, i think doping should be mandatory. doping gives someone an edge, correct? if everyone doped, then the playing field would be even and it would come back down to training and natural talent and ability to suffer. make everyone dope, and take away the unfair advantage the dopers have.

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onward to mayhem!

highthief

Doesn't make sense - some people respond much better to various drugs than others. You see it in strength sports especially where you have two guys taking the same steroids, yet one gets noticeably stronger than the other. I presume the same holds in endurance events.

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Bear Cub

One of my roomates is a competition cyclist, and from what he tells me, it's one extreme or the other. There are those like him that simply refuse to touch any banned substance, regardless of the outcome, and those who simply cannot be competitive or don't even have the will to compete without them.

boom29

Interesting to note that Lance Armstrong is the equivalent to Barry Bonds in Europe, however, here in the U.S. he is one of the most admired athletes.