I'm sure I saw a thread dedicated to this once. Though I suppose the cycling one acted like the default drug thread for a while. Anyway... we have one now.
This is a remarkable piece of writing.
A must read.
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/...k-ped-question
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Great piece. This is good too: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/luke...?utm_hp_ref=tw
#NeverStopNotGivingUp
I lost almost a full oz in Tolka Park back in the mid 00's.
I like high energy football. A little bit rock and roll. Many finishes instead of waiting for the perfect one.
I don't take anything Simmons or Reilly write seriously as for years they've been cheerleaders for people who turned out to be dirty. The US media is largely guilty of allowing their own athletes away with all sorts - Janet Evans being given a platform to destroy Michelle Smith and others (despite her being about as clean as a toilet/wall in a 1980's LOI ground).
The Luke John piece is very factual and interesting. There is so much more to come with doping and as mentioned on the LA thread, there are some major cases to hit the fan.
The reason that Simmons article is interesting is how such volte face has occurred. He says it as much in the article.
It's a spectacular piece of writing considering what has gone on before.
DID YOU NOTICE A SIGN OUTSIDE MY HOUSE...?
Fair enough, I just don't buy that he or others like him in the US media will truly change. They are able to "speak out" now, but it's just riding the wave of outrage. I'm trying to find a journalist here who wrote a damning piece on biathlon ped's (in 2005) that was re-tweeted by him 2 months ago. The Russians love this sport and yet when skier after skier fails with epo and other crap, it just passes on. I don't see the US or Irish or UK media being any different as they all have to earn their wages.
Simmons point is that there isn't any outrage in the US. None whatsoever. Look at the Lance issue. They don't care he cheated, they're ****ed he lied while raising money for cancer. The Ray Lewis deer antler spray thign was made fun of one day, and completely forgotten the next.Originally Posted by Spudulika
Jacoby Jones ran 108 yards in 11 seconds after playing a half in American football, wearing full pads on astro turf and NO ONE even considers that he's kuiced up. Its physically impossible for him to do that without help
I listen to Simmons podcasts, and read all his stuff. He's not about investigating athletes or covering the truth. He has opinions and he fits ideas around them. To be fair to him, he has always spoke about PEDs (and other 'science based' help) for Athletes. Be they baseball pitchers looking to keep a career, or Kobe Bryant and the like going to germany regualry for work on their knees. (Dunno if its possible but search for his podcast with malcolm Gladwell where Gladwell said there shouldn't be any drugs testinf "let them do what they want) for example)
A lot of Irish & British journalist and commentators have spoken about how they simply couldn't write a piece like that due to libel laws this side of the atlantic.
As for Rick Reilly, he's a complete and utter ****ebag
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Dodge, Simmons, to be fair, is an unusual one, though if he was going to do something to damage his career, he wouldn't. There is an allowance in the US media to let people rant, even if they're lying (Mikey Graham), wrong (CNN) or just mental (any one of a hundred left and right wingers), so long as they get listeners, viewers, readers....it's grand. I don't think they will address anything.
I get what you're saying about Jones, but when you have Bolt sailing down the track and pulling up short of breaking 9seconds, we're all told to believe it's natural. Then when he gets busted it's a scandal for a bit and disappears.
Yanks get outraged that their sports are "tarnished", but it's all down to money.
Reilly, agreed, he has acted as a cheerleader for so many scumbags, before turning on them, and I'm just tired of him.
I don't buy the excuse about libel, if there is proof it can be pushed via authorities, but journos will too often look to get a scoop than actually do something constructive. I know the laws/protections on whistleblowers are weak, but it has to start.
But that's exactly the point, there is ZERO evidence that Ray Lewis took PEDs ro recover from injury and go to the Superbowl, which is what Simmosn claims he believes to be true. It simply wouldn't be allowed in the UK (or here)
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That's the American way, Obama is an alien from space until he has to provide proof that he isn't.
You're correct, however there are a lot of ways journalists can find out about ped's and other ways of cheating, casting dispersions on others is easy, better to be netbased and can be guided by vested interests, or insanity. The likes of Declan Hill, Paul Kimmage and David Walsh (just a few faves) are actual journalists where they interview, research, dig and discover - not just give opinions. Which is why I don't take much of the US talking heads rhetoric seriously.
Are the boundaries of 'legal' therapy defined, that an athlete like Ray Lewis can and cannot use, to heal his torn tricep while he was injured and out of the game for a season?
Considering what passes for normal (destructive) therapy as told by Danny Mills to deal with small scale injures in a Telegraph article
Players would do almost anything to get an edge
“When I was at Middlesbrough, I had painkilling injections for six months in a really bad toe before games and at half-time just to get through games. I’d wake up at midnight in agony, toe an absolute balloon, throbbing.
“I played when I shouldn’t have done. I had injections to numb the pain, Cortisone to get me fit for games. It was rife. Cortisone was good but only if injected into pockets of fluid. If injected direct into a tendon or muscle you had to have 10 days of doing nothing. That wasn’t understood in the early days. It was a quick fix. That muscle would start to break down because you were hiding the problem. It was abused.
Danny makes a case for football players to attend a drug detox clinic in the post season period
Mills believes that an onset of post-tournament lethargy was connected to the discontinuing of these legal treatments as well as the usual emotional dip after such a major event.
“The week after the World Cup, I was in Spain on holiday and came down with a massive crash. I’ve never felt so bad in all my life,” he said.
“The body was used to getting all this stuff and was now deprived so it shut down. I was fluey, lethargic, feeling low. When I woke up, I couldn’t breathe properly. My body ached all over. It lasted a week. The players should know to wean themselves off it.”
There's certainly loads of grey areas (Spurs manager recently spoke about a process they did to Jermaine Defoe's blood taht sounded an awful lot like blood doping) but in Lewis' cases he's alleged to have taken that Deer antler spray, which contains a banned substance.
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Or deer antler spray is an 'innocent' cover for proper drugs.
I've only heard that mentioned once on OTB when the Oz drugs story broke and not one person bar you Charlie, has mentioned it since.
Imagine the shoitestorm if they actually bothered to adress the problem in the US big-4 or in the EPL.
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So there are restrictions on what an athlete can use to recover from a long term injury even though he is effectively out of competition and whatever he takes cannot in any way be deemed to be performance enhancing?
You make a good point geysir and you do play devil's advocate well, but by using those drugs they are giving themselves an advantage over others.
If say, there was a rule where you were out of competition and you could do what you want how would that work? You would have periodical "injuries" in order for players to get a boost every now and then.
Unfortuntaely it has to be an all-in or an all-out situation. And besides if you want to partake in any sport you should be prepared to abide by the rules of that sport no matter what. That the rules in NFL are slightly less stringent isn't any reason to gloss over what we all think and thought about Lewis. If you watch that Broncos game again it defies logic.
It was almost Paul McGrath-Giants Stadium-esque.
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I can see what you're saying, but what happens when the treatment helps the player recover from a long-term injury from which he wouldn't otherwise have recovered so quickly?
I remember an article in which Zidane talked about the injections they used to get to enable them to stay fit for a season, and his point was that how else did people expect players to be able to play 70 top level games a season.
Maybe PED can refer to performance enabling as well as performance enhancing.
Last edited by osarusan; 14/02/2013 at 10:50 AM.
Lets say, an athlete, certified out of competition with a certified long term injury.
It may well be a grey area but yes I think there should be some regulation to protect the athlete from using a proven destructive therapy in order to regain fitness. But I would not regard an infringement here as anything close to the class A cheat, doping in competition/training, doping to gain an advantage, such as to do with performance or/and recovery from exertions on the field.
Then you have the legal cheat as Danny Mills explained, the short term injured player, uses steroids/pain killers, not what you'd call performance enhancing but is a destructive therapy, used for short term gain. The pressure (financial and sporting) on a professional player are immense to get back on the field of play.
Absolutely, and even within these shores, amateurs too are clearly taking 'supplements' of varying dregrees of closeness to the allowed levels. Part of EPO's appeal when it first came out wasn't that it helped on-the-day performance, but rather it helped in training before the season started. So a cyclist could theoretically push himself to levels he couldn't without help, but that his body would reap the benefits of this extra training when the EPO had left his system
It seems many have decided that somebody having a complicated surgery (like inserting someone else's cartilage in their knee) isn't cheating but somebody rubbing a cream on their knee is. I'm not sure about that one either.
Co-incidentally WADA were speaking in Dublin yesterday. 8 failed tests from 787 tests, inclding 3 tug-of-warers and one LOI player.
http://balls.ie/football/facts-and-f...eland-in-2012/
Very interesting to see that 8 GAA inter country teams missed tests without any sanction
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