Dopers suck

[Spinnaroonie]

18 minutes ago, Headshot said:

Yeah, they even asked the question " ya thinks he's doping" 

From what I've learned from that show and the YouTube channel above, cheating or at best seeking gains by whatever means possible is just ingrained in cycling culture. Look at how the hair doping team go about riding other people off the road in sprints. Crazy.

 

Hair doping team lol! For a guy who's always exuding confidence (if not, arrogance), the owner of said team looked VERY uncomfortable when asked a question about doping. His whole frame changed. 

*takes tin foil hat off* 

 

[Pandatron]

41 minutes ago, Jewbacca said:

It just astounds me how people see the advancements in medicine, stem cell research, gene splicing, re-connecting spinal chord injuries, growing teeth, manufacturing ligaments and tendons etc but still think performance enhancing is injecting prehistoric drugs, testosterone etc that falls under scrutiny in even the most basic of tests.

Things have moved on 

 

Also from what ive found, the tip of spear hardly evers goes into regulation...

[Irvin85]

I wonder if the Biological passport actually works. 

I am not exactly sure when they start tracking and excatly how it works, so please correct me if I am wrong. 

From my knowledge of it is that it tracks anomalies from the established levels of an athlete, so if you doped before they started tracking you, lets say from 13years and your levels was high from the start but they could not detect any of the drugs in your system, then you basically will never raise a flag if you continued to dope and your levels remained the same. 

I honestly think that is what is currently happening and why we are seeing so much younger guys on the podiums of the Grand tours. In the past guys only reached their prime for the 3 week races at the age of 28 onwards. 

[DieselnDust]

25-32 was prime before EPO.

there were a few riders who were exceptions to the rule. LeMond won his first Tour de France at 25

but ride his first at 23. I. Those days you couldn’t turn pro until you were done with U23. There was a more ancient period when that rule did not exist and the youngest winner was 21 I believe. I don’t think age is a good differentiator of performance.

@Jewbacca, I hear you on medical advancements but do you reckon these teams have budgets big enough to play around with experimental medical practices without there being some sort of highly influential partner in the background? 

[Jewbacca]

2 minutes ago, DieselnDust said:

25-32 was prime before EPO.

there were a few riders who were exceptions to the rule. LeMond won his first Tour de France at 25

but ride his first at 23. I. Those days you couldn’t turn pro until you were done with U23. There was a more ancient period when that rule did not exist and the youngest winner was 21 I believe. I don’t think age is a good differentiator of performance.

@Jewbacca, I hear you on medical advancements but do you reckon these teams have budgets big enough to play around with experimental medical practices without there being some sort of highly influential partner in the background? 

I think the age readiness has a lot to do with science and structure being introduced into junior sport (and sport in general) over the last 25 years. These kids have been exposed to structured training, fatigue tracking etc from a much younger age so there is little to no adjustment when reaching 'the big stage'.

Remco was being spoken about by LeFauvre as a future world champ when he was 16.

We tend to forget how much things have developed in the last 20 years. 25 years ago GU sachets were still 'new'. I remember the release of pre sealed corn syrup sachets being 'life changing' 30 years ago.

With regards the 'experimental medicine'.... well, history shows us that huge, complex, expensive Drug/Doctor rings have existed in the past, there is nothing to say they don't exist now. The methodology and treatment is just different

[J Wakefield]

1 hour ago, Irvin85 said:

I wonder if the Biological passport actually works. 

I am not exactly sure when they start tracking and excatly how it works, so please correct me if I am wrong. 

From my knowledge of it is that it tracks anomalies from the established levels of an athlete, so if you doped before they started tracking you, lets say from 13years and your levels was high from the start but they could not detect any of the drugs in your system, then you basically will never raise a flag if you continued to dope and your levels remained the same. 

I honestly think that is what is currently happening and why we are seeing so much younger guys on the podiums of the Grand tours. In the past guys only reached their prime for the 3 week races at the age of 28 onwards. 

Shew. 

[dexterdent]

I find comfort in the fact that only now we are really starting to see EPO-era climbing records being challenged, and that is with 20+ years of technical, nutritional and training progress on the side of the current crop, not even to mention I think the amount of people trying to be pro is higher which means more opportunity to find the outliers.

[DieselnDust]

54 minutes ago, Jewbacca said:

I think the age readiness has a lot to do with science and structure being introduced into junior sport (and sport in general) over the last 25 years. These kids have been exposed to structured training, fatigue tracking etc from a much younger age so there is little to no adjustment when reaching 'the big stage'.

Remco was being spoken about by LeFauvre as a future world champ when he was 16.

We tend to forget how much things have developed in the last 20 years. 25 years ago GU sachets were still 'new'. I remember the release of pre sealed corn syrup sachets being 'life changing' 30 years ago.

With regards the 'experimental medicine'.... well, history shows us that huge, complex, expensive Drug/Doctor rings have existed in the past, there is nothing to say they don't exist now. The methodology and treatment is just different

Agreed and Pogacãr too. He was identified at 15 or something silly. First TDF win at 20 yrs old.
 

doping rings is an interesting tangent here. I asked a pathologist pal of mine some time ago about doping in younger kids because we know it’s rife in rugby and grid iron , contact sports, etc. I wanted to know if there were outward signs that one would look for in developing kids that were being groomed through dooong programs. He reckons it’s fairly easy to spot because their development rate accelerated faster than kids developing naturally, a lot faster but they tended to bulk up more and be taller which are not desirable traits for a cyclist.
But this happens at schools where there’s money and opportunity. Brink fit back to cycling, many cyclists don’t grow up I. Families with means, most have fairly humble beginnings and therefore less access to sophisticated doing programmes today. Those who get caught over the past 15yeara have tended to be fairly amateurish in their approach to cheating which the directs the discussion to sophistication and organisational support….

[Headshot]

And yet we have Piccolo ferrying growth hormones.. 

Edited June 25, 2024 by Headshot

[Shebeen]

57 minutes ago, dexterdent said:

I find comfort in the fact that only now we are really starting to see EPO-era climbing records being challenged, and that is with 20+ years of technical, nutritional and training progress on the side of the current crop, not even to mention I think the amount of people trying to be pro is higher which means more opportunity to find the outliers.

Indeed. I purposefully try to be naive about the whole thing, makes it far more enjoyable. I'm sure they are not eating pronutro for breakfast and microdosing and self testing can get you close to limits without breaking them. I'm sure if it is very murky as to how many are cross my heart and hope to die squeaky clean.

What I also find encouraging is that in the Lance era, the top guys got caught. Nowadays it seems that it is mainly the fringe guys who get popped. It makes the whole charade a lot more believable.

 

(I'm ignoring Astana. dodgy AF of course) 

 

 

 

[Jewbacca]

12 minutes ago, Shebeen said:

Indeed. I purposefully try to be naive about the whole thing, makes it far more enjoyable. I'm sure they are not eating pronutro for breakfast and microdosing and self testing can get you close to limits without breaking them. I'm sure if it is very murky as to how many are cross my heart and hope to die squeaky clean.

What I also find encouraging is that in the Lance era, the top guys got caught. Nowadays it seems that it is mainly the fringe guys who get popped. It makes the whole charade a lot more believable.

 

(I'm ignoring Astana. dodgy AF of course) 

 

 

 

I think the fringe guys are getting popped because they can't afford or aren't invited to the good stuff.

They are still using drugs/PEDS that get pinged.

We need to move away from assuming these guys are drugged. I don't think many of them are in terms of what we know to be PEDS.

Stem cells assume the genetic construction of the body and adapt to what the body needs and the treatment isn't as expensive as you'd think. Recovery from injury WAY faster with a lot less effort needed by the body.

I'm on the 'physical enhancement' boat as nothing will show up in a drug test and nothing will show up on the passport.

Yes, teams will still drug, kids will still get pushed basic things to achieve Craven Week u16 glory and Paarl Boys can beat Gym every now and then, but the tippy top of the ice berg has left that era 

Anyway, TDF fever! 

[DieselnDust]

1 hour ago, J Wakefield said:

Shew. 

Are you saying if the Shew! Fits then wear it …??🤣

[NGM]

8 minutes ago, Jewbacca said:

I think the fringe guys are getting popped because they can't afford or aren't invited to the good stuff.

They are still using drugs/PEDS that get pinged.

We need to move away from assuming these guys are drugged. I don't think many of them are in terms of what we know to be PEDS.

Stem cells assume the genetic construction of the body and adapt to what the body needs and the treatment isn't as expensive as you'd think. Recovery from injury WAY faster with a lot less effort needed by the body.

I'm on the 'physical enhancement' boat as nothing will show up in a drug test and nothing will show up on the passport.

Yes, teams will still drug, kids will still get pushed basic things to achieve Craven Week u16 glory and Paarl Boys can beat Gym every now and then, but the tippy top of the ice berg has left that era 

Anyway, TDF fever! 

Fringe guys also hitting that colostrum I reckon.

[Blahblah]

2 hours ago, J Wakefield said:

Shew. 

jip, in the 90's we called it the bionicle....just start them young....age 6, 7, etc.

[Irvin85]

3 hours ago, J Wakefield said:

Shew. 

The Russians has been doing it for decades. in the old days they raised the woman's natural testosterone levels by getting them pregnant shortly before the Olympics. In some eastern European countries the kids only why "out" is by excelling in a sport. I had a wrestling coach from Romania who was won a Silver medal at the 1968 Olympics. and the things they had did from a young age to achieve greatness and how their parents pushed them is hair raising. 

If a youngster has been micro-doping it is possible to be "undetected" and have a significant higher baseline to work from. 

"Shew" - I guess you know more about this kind of stuff being involved in Pro- cycling. 

 

[Shebeen]

2 hours ago, Irvin85 said:

The Russians has been doing it for decades. in the old days they raised the woman's natural testosterone levels by getting them pregnant shortly before the Olympics. In some eastern European countries the kids only why "out" is by excelling in a sport. I had a wrestling coach from Romania who was won a Silver medal at the 1968 Olympics. and the things they had did from a young age to achieve greatness and how their parents pushed them is hair raising. 

If a youngster has been micro-doping it is possible to be "undetected" and have a significant higher baseline to work from. 

"Shew" - I guess you know more about this kind of stuff being involved in Pro- cycling. 

 

Snopes is not convinced.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/abortion-doping-real-practice/

cold war doping, plenty of evidence for that.