A cure that's worse than the disease

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Date: 31 May 2007 11:46:43
From: RonSonic
Subject: A cure that's worse than the disease

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

Date: 09 Jun 2007 08:16:33
From:
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 8, 10:10 pm, "Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo. com > wrote:

> Actually that's the best suggestion I've heard.

Oh dear. When Tom thinks it makes sense it means I must've fucked up
somewhere.

Date: 09 Jun 2007 14:57:26
From: Tom Kunich
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

<rechungREMOVETHIS@gmail.com > wrote in message
news:1181376993.586771.66450@q66g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 8, 10:10 pm, "Tom Kunich" <cyclintom@yahoo. com> wrote:
>
>> Actually that's the best suggestion I've heard.
>
> Oh dear. When Tom thinks it makes sense it means I must've fucked up
> somewhere.

Well, you can always change your idea to something really Gay.

Date: 06 Jun 2007 21:47:12
From:
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 7, 4:19 am, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca > wrote:

> And that's the time of negative incentive that it would be nice to
> remove from the sport.

Dumbass, the negative incentive period only applies if a team is truly
clueless about which of their riders are doping. Yeah, right. The
current system allows team officials to put pressure on riders to
perform while simultaneously saying they know nothing about riders
doping. I don't think that's been working real well. Testing team
urine increases the probability of being caught, and a team-wide time
penalty gives an incentive not to select doping riders for the next
race. The other teams won't be able to whine as much that a doper won--
they'll always whine, just not as much--because the penalty is focused
exactly on equalizing the performance enhancing effect that doping is
supposed to give. Right now, doping riders get tossed but everyone is
suspicious that the tossing is incomplete--keep the riders in but
penalize them on time. The clean riders on a penalized team will gang
up to put pressure on the dopers who are causing them to bear time
penalties. If you instituted team urine testing next week, how long do
you think the "negative incentive period" would last?

This approach isn't a panacea, there are lots of practical holes that
would need to be patched, but it realigns the incentives in the right
way. Well, they'd need to be patched if you think doping control is
important--but it's not.

Date: 08 Jun 2007 20:10:55
From: Tom Kunich
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

<rechungREMOVETHIS@gmail.com > wrote in message
news:1181191632.192302.228350@n4g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 7, 4:19 am, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
>
>> And that's the time of negative incentive that it would be nice to
>> remove from the sport.
>
> Dumbass, the negative incentive period only applies if a team is truly
> clueless about which of their riders are doping. Yeah, right. The
> current system allows team officials to put pressure on riders to
> perform while simultaneously saying they know nothing about riders
> doping. I don't think that's been working real well. Testing team
> urine increases the probability of being caught, and a team-wide time
> penalty gives an incentive not to select doping riders for the next
> race. The other teams won't be able to whine as much that a doper won--
> they'll always whine, just not as much--because the penalty is focused
> exactly on equalizing the performance enhancing effect that doping is
> supposed to give. Right now, doping riders get tossed but everyone is
> suspicious that the tossing is incomplete--keep the riders in but
> penalize them on time. The clean riders on a penalized team will gang
> up to put pressure on the dopers who are causing them to bear time
> penalties. If you instituted team urine testing next week, how long do
> you think the "negative incentive period" would last?
>
> This approach isn't a panacea, there are lots of practical holes that
> would need to be patched, but it realigns the incentives in the right
> way. Well, they'd need to be patched if you think doping control is
> important--but it's not.

Actually that's the best suggestion I've heard. Make the entire team suffer
if one is caught cheating. That would certainly have the desired effect if
there wasn't some way around it.

Date: 07 Jun 2007 09:01:46
From: Ewoud Dronkert
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:47:12 -0700, rechungREMOVETHIS@gmail.com wrote:
> if you think doping control is important--but it's not.

It is inevatible, Mr. Anderson.

--
E. Dronkert

Date: 07 Jun 2007 04:05:50
From:
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 7, 9:01 am, Ewoud Dronkert <firstn...@lastname.net.invalid >
wrote:
> On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:47:12 -0700, rechungREMOVET...@gmail.com wrote:
> > if you think doping control is important--but it's not.
>
> It is inevatible, Mr. Anderson.

There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.

Date: 07 Jun 2007 08:49:33
From: Curtis L. Russell
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

<rechungREMOVETHIS@gmail.com > wrote in message
news:1181214350.964632.151390@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com...
> On Jun 7, 9:01 am, Ewoud Dronkert <firstn...@lastname.net.invalid>
> wrote:
>> On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:47:12 -0700, rechungREMOVET...@gmail.com wrote:
>> > if you think doping control is important--but it's not.
>>
>> It is inevatible, Mr. Anderson.
>
> There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path.
>
You lose obvious points for leaving off the 'Grasshopper'. And get them back
if you can display cool burn scars on your forearms.

--
Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Date: 05 Jun 2007 12:58:35
From: Bill C
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 5, 4:10 pm, "Curtis L. Russell" <cur...@the-md-russells.org >
wrote:
> "Ryan Cousineau" <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote in message
>
> news:rcousine-BFF61B.21295803062007@news.telus.net...> In article <YKL8i.14295$C96.9...@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net>,
> ...
> > 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.
>
> ...
>
> FWIW, that isn't even close to what medical doctors already have permitted
> in organized sports. You can see 50 y.o athletes that hobble around like
> octogenarians that are the results of physicians signing off on drug
> regimens in U.S. football. So evidently the course has already been written
> and we can use outside doctors to conduct it when we need it in cycling.
>
> Curtis L. Russell
> Odenton, MD (USA)
> Just someone on two wheels...

Then there's all the repeat concussion news. All those players were
cleared, by doctors, to continue playing in that game, or future
games. Noone really wants to talk about the fact that the doctors
existed almost solely to keep players on the field a6t almost any cost
to the player. Pop the painkillers, shoot the injury up, sign off on
it.
Not good stuff and most teams had a policy against players seeing any
other doctor without prior team approval. Baseball is almost as bad,
but the players there use a little more sense.
Bill C

Date: 05 Jun 2007 00:36:11
From:
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 5, 2:38 am, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca > wrote:
> 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.

Then regulate safety, not doping (this is consistent with my position
that bike safety should be regulated, not bike weight). An example is
the hematocrit standard. You have to sit down if your HCT is unusually
high, no matter how it got there.

[NASCAR safety argument snipped]

So you agree that safety should be the focus, not doping. Here's a
question for you: if HCT limits are in place, what's the safety
argument against autologous blood transfusions?

> But again, I look to the children

What is this thing you have about looking at children? Brrrr.

As I've said, my plan only works if people think doping in sports is
important and it's not. But if you were somehow misguided enough to
think it was, you've got to create enough incentive on the riders and
the teams to do this. Existing mechanisms don't appear to do this
well, so you need a different mechanism.

So, everyone from the same team pees into the same cup. Mix it up,
test the team pee. You don't care about individual pee. If the team
pee shows abnormalities, penalize every rider on the team some number
of seconds on the next stage or the next race. Repeated offenses
increase the penalties. You can get creative about when to apply the
time penalty. Under the red kite might work.

Date: 07 Jun 2007 02:19:31
From: Ryan Cousineau
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

In article <1181028971.887206.81510@p47g2000hsd.googlegroups.com >,
rechungREMOVETHIS@gmail.com wrote:

> On Jun 5, 2:38 am, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> wrote:
> > 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.
>
> Then regulate safety, not doping (this is consistent with my position
> that bike safety should be regulated, not bike weight). An example is
> the hematocrit standard. You have to sit down if your HCT is unusually
> high, no matter how it got there.

There's merit to this idea, but then you get forced into the corner of
potentially being forced to prove things are unsafe before you ban them.
Tom's probably right that the long-term perils of EPO aren't that bad,
but it will be a while before we really know.

> [NASCAR safety argument snipped]
>
> So you agree that safety should be the focus, not doping. Here's a
> question for you: if HCT limits are in place, what's the safety
> argument against autologous blood transfusions?

The greatest merit of this argument is that it forces me to say things
like "but autologous blood transfusions are just creepy!" And indeed,
that's the gist of the current argument against. Then we have treatments
like laser eye surgery, which in its most baroque current forms is
performance-enhancing in a great many sports (possibly including
cycling, but I suspect the advantage would be hard to measure)

> > But again, I look to the children
>
> What is this thing you have about looking at children? Brrrr.

"To," not "at." You're out of practice with this English thing, Chung.
But really, there's so many great jokes I could put here (eg, "I don't
look at them, I just wait until they turn 18 and then send them
flirtatious text messages,") but they would all be very creepy and
unseemly, and ruin my future political aspirations. Couldn't have that.

> As I've said, my plan only works if people think doping in sports is
> important and it's not. But if you were somehow misguided enough to
> think it was, you've got to create enough incentive on the riders and
> the teams to do this. Existing mechanisms don't appear to do this
> well, so you need a different mechanism.
>
> So, everyone from the same team pees into the same cup. Mix it up,
> test the team pee. You don't care about individual pee. If the team
> pee shows abnormalities, penalize every rider on the team some number
> of seconds on the next stage or the next race. Repeated offenses
> increase the penalties. You can get creative about when to apply the
> time penalty. Under the red kite might work.

Collective punishment! It makes each team responsible for the actions of
their least competent doper! Nice.

Being utterly non-sarcastic, I think this is a great idea. I think the
creation of a clean culture in cycling could easily begin at the team
level, since the teams have an incentive to sell themselves as clean to
sponsors. Already, I think there have been some real attempts to create
clean teams, though the problem is that if you really want to create a
clean-team, you likely spend a few years looking really dirty, since you
keep finding and purging your dirty riders! Meanwhile, the more
permissive teams look oh so clean...

And that's the time of negative incentive that it would be nice to
remove from the sport. I have a natural sense (as you do, by your
excellent game-theory-influenced idea) that slight changes to the
inherent incentives of pro cycling could cause big changes in the amount
of doping in the sport and the sense that it is a social norm.

Heck, this is already a sport that has well-codified social norms about
working in breaks and opportunistic attacks! I think it might manage to
incorporate a truce on drugs.

I'll fall back on a tertiary argument besides "think of the children"
and "think of the health of the racers," and that's "think of the large
corporations."

They, after all, are the sponsors of cycling, except when they stay away
because they don't want to have a drug scandal named after their company
(was the Festina incident a net benefit because of the name recognition,
or a net detriment because of the implicit association with doping?)

Cycling is arguably an under-sponsored sport, considering its inherent
attractiveness and its large audience in Europe. This may not matter to
us fans, but it should matter to the teams, the organizers, and even the
racers, whose salaries are so dependent on sponsorship levels.

I suspect this even affects the quality of competition to a certain
extent: if you were a triple-threat athlete, would you go into football,
football, or cycling?

Heck, we'd probably get better riders with more and deeper sponsorship.

--
Ryan Cousineau rcousine@sfu.ca 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

Date: 05 Jun 2007 00:03:46
From:
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 5, 6:48 am, Bob Schwartz <bob.schwa...@REMOVEsbcglobal.net >
wrote:

> 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.

So you're admitting you doped?

Date: 05 Jun 2007 06:15:48
From: bjw@mambo.ucolick.org
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 4, 9:48 pm, Bob Schwartz <bob.schwa...@REMOVEsbcglobal.net >
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.

Date: 04 Jun 2007 10:43:35
From:
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 4, 7:04 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca > 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.

Date: 05 Jun 2007 00:38:57
From: Ryan Cousineau
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

In article <1180979015.305388.147060@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com >,
rechungREMOVETHIS@gmail.com wrote:

> On Jun 4, 7:04 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca> 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 rcousine@sfu.ca 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

Date: 04 Jun 2007 23:48:01
From: Bob Schwartz
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

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

Date: 06 Jun 2007 02:52:19
From: Tom Kunich
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

"Bob Schwartz" <bob.schwartz@REMOVEsbcglobal.net > wrote in message
news:7W59i.15919$C96.6612@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net...
>
> You also seem to think there is no possibility for meaningful success
> in the sport without dope.

This is Bob's most important point - the fact is that MOST successful
amatuers DO NOT use dope. The only reason that so many pros use it is
because they've become convinced that they have to use it in order to
maintain competitiveness.

Date: 05 Jun 2007 07:40:37
From: Ryan Cousineau
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

In article <7W59i.15919$C96.6612@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net >,
Bob Schwartz <bob.schwartz@REMOVEsbcglobal.net > 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.

Well, I realize that. But I fear that the libre solutions are a pure
disaster (think pro bodybuilding), the "medical-supervision" solutions
are worse than the present, but with no redeeming enforcement benefits,
and that leaves us with...making something like the present regime work
about as well as possible. Which is probably, suprisingly
(depressingly), about the best presently available outcome.

> 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?

This analogy breaks down at the point where it asserts that doping
enforcement will create dopers.

I'm not certain that one more anything will end pro doping. But I'm
pretty sure it's worth trying.

> 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.

Well...pro sport isn't a charity. It's an entertainment. Complaining
about doping enforcement costs in pro sport is approximately as
meaningful as complaining about catering costs in Hollywood movies. Both
are a peripheral side-effect of a big-dollar entertainment mechanism,
and one removes either at peril.

A better question is whether those dollars would be better spent, oh, on
devising elaborate tortures for commissaires who approve flagrantly
dangerous course designs, or some other element of the sport that would
improve the safety and spectacle.

Or better yet, you could figure out a way to make your favourite worthy
cause as entertaining as pro cycling!

> 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.

Dumbass: you scored that medal because nobody cared. And I mean that,
honest to goodness, in the nicest possible way.

All joking aside, any national-level cycling achievement is impressive.
Well, it's impressive to me, and it should be impressive to most people
in this group. The competition at any track natz is meaningful.

What separates fat old guys winning track natz medals from skinny young
kids competing in track natz is that the fat old guy completely
understands the importance of the event (minimal except to him, rbr, and
the rest of the participants), and he has no expectations of
transforming his track natz performance into a career.

In the case of the kids going to track natz, Many of them can seriously
contemplate turning cycling into something like a career, at least for a
few years, and I am all but certain that one of our kids who is going is
at least future Div III material, and I have no idea what his ultimate
potential is.

I don't really know at what point in the transition from fast kid to
aspiring pro the first guy comes up to these kids and says "look, if you
want to take the next step, you're going to need to get on the program."
I don't know if that's their first semi-pro DS, or the suggestion of pro
mentors, or if the precocious kids just look it up online and figure out
how to get mail-order veterinary drugs. But I want that culture of
temptation driven out of the sport as much as possible, and I want the
kids in the sport to be mature enough that they choose to race clean.

Hell, if the solution is to have the PhDs and lawyers in our club do
little motivational speeches that go "I make more money than all but the
top 20 pros, and I enjoy riding my bike more, too," then maybe that's
the best anti-drug of all.

> 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?

All of the ones smart enough not to dick around with prescribed
protocols in the hopes of gaining an extra advantage over their
competition. What's that you say? All of the deceaseds were already
doing that?

Okay, unfair. but then those guys would also have been on hgh, some
roids, and whatever other rocket fuel their doctors thought might work
out nicely that week. And I bet some would still opt for "over-cheating"
once they figured out there was some sort of margin between the "safe"
dose their doctor was prescribing and the maximum-performance dose.

> > 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.

As others have said, I think of amateur doping as acceptable for two
reasons: in the context of categorized racing, the dopers can only cheat
the Cat 1s out of results for more than a few races, and doping in
amateur racing is so pathetic that it really is its own punishment.

It is actually even more risible than toasting a Zipp 404 during a crash
in a Cat 4 training race! Which I have seen.

--
Ryan Cousineau rcousine@sfu.ca 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

Date: 04 Jun 2007 22:49:30
From: Howard Kveck
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

Date: 05 Jun 2007 01:59:51
From: Tom Kunich
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

"Ryan Cousineau" <rcousine@sfu.ca > wrote in message
news:rcousine-6D3FB3.17385704062007@news.telus.net...
> In article <1180979015.305388.147060@p77g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>,
>
> 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!

Date: 04 Jun 2007 03:38:44
From: Bill C
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 4, 2:13 am, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org >
wrote:
> On Jun 3, 2:39 pm, Bill C <tritonri...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > For kids it's about being someone. Education about steroids makes kids
> > want them even more. "You mean if I keep working my ass off, like I
> > am, and take this shit I'll get bigger and stronger? Hell Yeah!!".
> > Future consequences never even enter the equation other than as,
> > "Yeah, then shit happens. Who gives a fuck."
>
> I've never been a believer in the effectiveness of
> school anti-drug programs, but maybe if an anti-steroid
> program included "My hair fell out, I grew breasts,
> and my dick and nuts shriveled up to the size of
> raisins," it would have some effect. You can't put
> fear of the future into HS kids, but you can gross
> them out.
>
> Ben

That's it Ben that might get their attention, but telling them
steroids don't work and showing them "Reefer Madness" along with the
other BS just convinces them adults are idiots and full of crap.
There're way too many internet sites that promote drug use and give
details on how to use everything known to man to get high, and
supposedly beat testing, at least for recreational drugs. The same is
probably out there for steroids too.
Erowid is one of the most influential and the community there
encouraged, and enabled a huge chunk of the drug problems for the kids
I know. They may save a few lives but they hook a shitload more kids
much deeper into hard drugs by their glorifying of them and the
experience, especially in their blogs.
Bill C

Date: 04 Jun 2007 06:13:56
From: bjw@mambo.ucolick.org
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 3, 2:39 pm, Bill C <tritonri...@verizon.net > wrote:

> For kids it's about being someone. Education about steroids makes kids
> want them even more. "You mean if I keep working my ass off, like I
> am, and take this shit I'll get bigger and stronger? Hell Yeah!!".
> Future consequences never even enter the equation other than as,
> "Yeah, then shit happens. Who gives a fuck."

I've never been a believer in the effectiveness of
school anti-drug programs, but maybe if an anti-steroid
program included "My hair fell out, I grew breasts,
and my dick and nuts shriveled up to the size of
raisins," it would have some effect. You can't put
fear of the future into HS kids, but you can gross
them out.

Ben

Date: 04 Jun 2007 22:30:10
From: Michael Press
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

In article
<1180937636.245342.167190@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com >,
"bjw@mambo.ucolick.org" <bjw@mambo.ucolick.org >
wrote:

> On Jun 3, 2:39 pm, Bill C <tritonri...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
> > For kids it's about being someone. Education about steroids makes kids
> > want them even more. "You mean if I keep working my ass off, like I
> > am, and take this shit I'll get bigger and stronger? Hell Yeah!!".
> > Future consequences never even enter the equation other than as,
> > "Yeah, then shit happens. Who gives a fuck."
>
> I've never been a believer in the effectiveness of
> school anti-drug programs, but maybe if an anti-steroid
> program included "My hair fell out, I grew breasts,
> and my dick and nuts shriveled up to the size of
> raisins," it would have some effect. You can't put
> fear of the future into HS kids, but you can gross
> them out.

I doubt that works either. By this time they are not
amenable to counsel, and why should they? They decided
on a course and they'd be idiots to change. For is it
not said, `A fool who persists in his folly will be made wise.'

After about age seven I never took anybody's word for
anything, including my peers; remembered what they
said, but found out for myself.

--
Michael Press

Date: 03 Jun 2007 14:39:08
From: Bill C
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 3, 3:19 pm, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org >
wrote:

>
> 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

For kids it's about being someone. Education about steroids makes kids
want them even more. "You mean if I keep working my ass off, like I
am, and take this shit I'll get bigger and stronger? Hell Yeah!!".
Future consequences never even enter the equation other than as,
"Yeah, then shit happens. Who gives a fuck."
At that point 'roids wasn't on my radar, but what was was a 1968 BSA
Lightning rat chopper that was a death trap on it's best day. The
motor was built the rest of it was garbage, but it was cool as hell
IMO. Riding altered was always good because I wasn't gonna kill
anybody but me, and I didn't give a fuck and would've died with a
smile as long as it was done right, like hitting a semi head on
sliding out of a corner while wasted.
If sports is your life, then you're gonna do anything you can to make
it happen and go with it when you are a teenager.
Coaches just take advantage of that, and steroid education can just
pump kids up to take them because they work great.
Bill C

Date: 03 Jun 2007 19:19:08
From: bjw@mambo.ucolick.org
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 2, 9:21 pm, Ryan Cousineau <rcous...@sfu.ca > wrote:
> Bob Schwartz <bob.schwa...@REMOVEsbcglobal.net> 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

Date: 02 Jun 2007 19:44:55
From:
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 1, 4:16 am, Donald Munro <fat-dumb...@hotmail.com > wrote:
> b...@mambo.ucolick.org 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

Date: 05 Jun 2007 00:19:36
From: Tom Kunich
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

<shayana.kadidal@gmail.com > wrote in message
news:1180813495.027359.36840@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com...
> 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.

Date: 02 Jun 2007 21:05:10
From: Howard Kveck
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

In article <1180813495.027359.36840@m36g2000hse.googlegroups.com >,
shayana.kadidal@gmail.com wrote:

> On Jun 1, 4:16 am, Donald Munro <fat-dumb...@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > b...@mambo.ucolick.org 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?

Date: 02 Jun 2007 05:59:12
From: Revtom
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 2, 12:35 am, Bob Schwartz <bob.schwa...@REMOVEsbcglobal.net >
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.

Stay Cool,
Tom P.

Date: 02 Jun 2007 12:26:08
From: Bob Schwartz
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

Revtom wrote:
> On Jun 2, 12:35 am, Bob Schwartz <bob.schwa...@REMOVEsbcglobal.net>
> 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

Date: 03 Jun 2007 04:21:09
From: Ryan Cousineau
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

In article <VKh8i.5487$u56.4008@newssvr22.news.prodigy.net >,
Bob Schwartz <bob.schwartz@REMOVEsbcglobal.net > wrote:

> Revtom wrote:
> > On Jun 2, 12:35 am, Bob Schwartz <bob.schwa...@REMOVEsbcglobal.net>
> > 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 rcousine@sfu.ca 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

Date: 03 Jun 2007 22:34:15
From: Bob Schwartz
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

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

Date: 07 Jun 2007 05:49:54
From: RicodJour
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 7, 3:01 am, Ewoud Dronkert <firstn...@lastname.net.invalid >
wrote:
> On Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:47:12 -0700, rechungREMOVET...@gmail.com wrote:
> > if you think doping control is important--but it's not.
>
> It is inevatible, Mr. Anderson.

It seems that you've been living two lives.
One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.

R

Date: 07 Jun 2007 15:04:37
From: Donald Munro
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

Ewoud Dronkert wrote:
>> It is inevatible, Mr. Anderson.

RicodJour wrote:
> It seems that you've been living two lives.
> One of these lives has a future, and one of them does not.

He's a Dutch cat.

Date: 04 Jun 2007 23:07:54
From: Michael Press
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

Date: 04 Jun 2007 04:29:58
From: Ryan Cousineau
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

In article <YKL8i.14295$C96.9401@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net >,
Bob Schwartz <bob.schwartz@REMOVEsbcglobal.net > 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 rcousine@sfu.ca 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

Date: 05 Jun 2007 15:10:16
From: Curtis L. Russell
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

"Ryan Cousineau" <rcousine@sfu.ca > wrote in message
news:rcousine-BFF61B.21295803062007@news.telus.net...
> In article <YKL8i.14295$C96.9401@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net>,
...
> 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.
...

FWIW, that isn't even close to what medical doctors already have permitted
in organized sports. You can see 50 y.o athletes that hobble around like
octogenarians that are the results of physicians signing off on drug
regimens in U.S. football. So evidently the course has already been written
and we can use outside doctors to conduct it when we need it in cycling.

Curtis L. Russell
Odenton, MD (USA)
Just someone on two wheels...

Date: 05 Jun 2007 19:37:21
From: RonSonic
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Tue, 5 Jun 2007 15:10:16 -0500, "Curtis L. Russell"
<curtis@the-md-russells.org > wrote:

>"Ryan Cousineau" <rcousine@sfu.ca> wrote in message
>news:rcousine-BFF61B.21295803062007@news.telus.net...
>> In article <YKL8i.14295$C96.9401@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net>,
>...
>> 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.
>...
>
>FWIW, that isn't even close to what medical doctors already have permitted
>in organized sports. You can see 50 y.o athletes that hobble around like
>octogenarians that are the results of physicians signing off on drug
>regimens in U.S. football. So evidently the course has already been written
>and we can use outside doctors to conduct it when we need it in cycling.

Unfortunately, no drugs are needed to batter a young man enough for that to
happen. But I do take your point. Team doctors exist to keep guys going not keep
them off the field.

Ron

Ron

Effect pedal demo's up at http://www.soundclick.com/ronsonicpedalry

Date: 04 Jun 2007 08:09:46
From: Bob Schwartz
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> In article <YKL8i.14295$C96.9401@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net>,
> Bob Schwartz <bob.schwartz@REMOVEsbcglobal.net> 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

Date: 04 Jun 2007 17:04:11
From: Ryan Cousineau
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

In article <vaU8i.10652$4Y.1351@newssvr19.news.prodigy.net >,
Bob Schwartz <bob.schwartz@REMOVEsbcglobal.net > wrote:

> Ryan Cousineau wrote:
> > In article <YKL8i.14295$C96.9401@newssvr23.news.prodigy.net>,
> > Bob Schwartz <bob.schwartz@REMOVEsbcglobal.net> 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 rcousine@sfu.ca 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

Date: 04 Jun 2007 03:29:15
From: Bob Schwartz
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

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

Date: 02 Jun 2007 04:27:23
From: Bret
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 1, 12:35 pm, rechungREMOVET...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Jun 1, 7:01 pm, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
> wrote:
>
> > Getting beat by the Stealers on a freak play was karmic
> > payback for the Raiders and Jack Tatum, who never just
> > tackled a guy when he could spear him instead.
>
> The Raiders have done more to bring modernization to the rulebook than
> any other team, evar. Because of the Raiders, there's the "no spearing
> the quarterback while he's lying on the ground" rule, the "no fumbling
> forward in the last two minutes of the half" rule, the "no stickum on
> body parts" rule, the "no bumping more than 5 yards beyond the line"
> rule, the "no handing the ball to another guy to spike" rule
> (subsequently replaced), and I'm sure I'm forgetting others.

I was watching the Raiders-Chiefs game thirty seven years ago when Ben
Davidson speared Len Dawson and I became a Raider hater from that day
forward. When I learned that Kathy Rigby married Davidson, my first
thought was "How could she do that? Doesn't she know what he did to
Len Dawson?" I later moved to Colorado where Raider hating is the
state pastime so it hasn't been hard to keep that theme going.

Bret

Date: 01 Jun 2007 21:13:19
From: Revtom
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On May 31, 10:46 am, RonSonic <ronso...@tampabay.rr.com > 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.
Tom P.

Date: 02 Jun 2007 11:29:07
From: Michael Press
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

In article
<1180757599.301976.313020@o5g2000hsb.googlegroups.com >,
Revtom <smipypr@yahoo.com > wrote:

> On May 31, 10:46 am, RonSonic <ronso...@tampabay.rr.com> 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

Date: 02 Jun 2007 00:35:48
From: Bob Schwartz
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

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

Date: 01 Jun 2007 18:35:31
From:
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 1, 7:01 pm, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org >
wrote:

> Getting beat by the Stealers on a freak play was karmic
> payback for the Raiders and Jack Tatum, who never just
> tackled a guy when he could spear him instead.

The Raiders have done more to bring modernization to the rulebook than
any other team, evar. Because of the Raiders, there's the "no spearing
the quarterback while he's lying on the ground" rule, the "no fumbling
forward in the last two minutes of the half" rule, the "no stickum on
body parts" rule, the "no bumping more than 5 yards beyond the line"
rule, the "no handing the ball to another guy to spike" rule
(subsequently replaced), and I'm sure I'm forgetting others.

Date: 01 Jun 2007 20:42:35
From: RonSonic
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:35:31 -0000, rechungREMOVETHIS@gmail.com wrote:

>On Jun 1, 7:01 pm, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
>wrote:
>
>> Getting beat by the Stealers on a freak play was karmic
>> payback for the Raiders and Jack Tatum, who never just
>> tackled a guy when he could spear him instead.
>
>The Raiders have done more to bring modernization to the rulebook than
>any other team, evar. Because of the Raiders, there's the "no spearing
>the quarterback while he's lying on the ground" rule, the "no fumbling
>forward in the last two minutes of the half" rule, the "no stickum on
>body parts" rule, the "no bumping more than 5 yards beyond the line"
>rule, the "no handing the ball to another guy to spike" rule
>(subsequently replaced), and I'm sure I'm forgetting others.

Quote from a San Diego waitress when it was Raiders v Bucs in the super bowl
there: "The only people happy to see the Raiders come to town are the bail
bondsmen."

Ron

Ron

Effect pedal demo's up at http://www.soundclick.com/ronsonicpedalry

Date: 01 Jun 2007 17:01:41
From: bjw@mambo.ucolick.org
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 1, 1:28 am, rechungREMOVET...@gmail.com wrote:
> On Jun 1, 6:06 am, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
> wrote:
>
> > On May 31, 9:23 am, bdbafh <bdb...@gmail.com> 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.

Getting beat by the Stealers on a freak play was karmic
payback for the Raiders and Jack Tatum, who never just
tackled a guy when he could spear him instead.

Ben

Date: 03 Jun 2007 07:11:41
From: Fred Fredburger
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

bjw@mambo.ucolick.org wrote:
> On Jun 1, 1:28 am, rechungREMOVET...@gmail.com wrote:
>> On Jun 1, 6:06 am, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> On May 31, 9:23 am, bdbafh <bdb...@gmail.com> 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

Date: 01 Jun 2007 08:28:50
From:
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On Jun 1, 6:06 am, "b...@mambo.ucolick.org" <b...@mambo.ucolick.org >
wrote:
> On May 31, 9:23 am, bdbafh <bdb...@gmail.com> 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.

Date: 01 Jun 2007 04:06:28
From: bjw@mambo.ucolick.org
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On May 31, 9:23 am, bdbafh <bdb...@gmail.com > 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."

Also, there are persistemt rumors that they were
one of the first teams where experimenting with
steroids was commonplace. I, of course, believe
that they grew strong just by drinking Iron City[*]
and the rumors are put about by jealous Dallas
snobs. Get over it, losers!

-Ben
[*] On the "what does not kill you makes you
stronger" theory.

Date: 01 Jun 2007 12:58:45
From: Michael Press
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

In article
<1180670788.996742.189570@j4g2000prf.googlegroups.com >,
"bjw@mambo.ucolick.org" <bjw@mambo.ucolick.org >
wrote:

> On May 31, 9:23 am, bdbafh <bdb...@gmail.com> 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."
>
> Also, there are persistemt rumors that they were
> one of the first teams where experimenting with
> steroids was commonplace. I, of course, believe
> that they grew strong just by drinking Iron City[*]
> and the rumors are put about by jealous Dallas
> snobs. Get over it, losers!
>
> -Ben
> [*] On the "what does not kill you makes you
> stronger" theory.

They went from being patsies. With steroids alone they
would have become contenders. They became champions
with Terry Bradshaw. Bradshaw was one of the best
quarterbacks ever by my single criterium. If a
quarterback throws an interception, then walks off the
field with a huge grin of amusement plastered on his
dial, then he is one of the immortals.
Joe Namath, Terry Bradshaw, Joe Montana.

--
Michael Press

Date: 01 Jun 2007 10:16:01
From: Donald Munro
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

bjw@mambo.ucolick.org wrote:
> [*] On the "what does not kill you makes you
> stronger" theory.

Nietzsche was a doper (Presumably philosophers do LSD).

Date: 31 May 2007 14:57:17
From: Mark
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

RonSonic wrote:
> 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.

Are knee warmers against the rules in warm weather, or is it just that
they might conceal bionic knees? Wait a minute, are bionic knees
against the rules? What's a decrepit master's fattie to do?

Good points, BTW

Mark J.

Date: 31 May 2007 13:20:41
From:
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On May 31, 12:52 pm, Simon Brooke <s...@jasmine.org.uk > wrote:
> in message <0fD7i.397215$2Q1.69...@newsfe16.lga>, Carl Sundquist
>
>
>
>
>
> ('carl...@cox.net') wrote:
> > "RonSonic" <ronso...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
> >news:djqt53dc15j0u2q91uuribel4d04g7uvmt@4ax.com...
>
> >> 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.
>
> > Recognize Boardman for the hour record again?
>
> Obree?

That's exactly what went through my mind. O'Bree may have been the
only person in professional cycling that wasn't juicing on something
simply because he couldn't afford a cigarette let alone anything else.

Date: 31 May 2007 23:02:58
From: Simon Brooke
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

in message <1180642841.605507.220380@q69g2000hsb.googlegroups.com >,
cyclintom@gmail.com ('cyclintom@gmail.com') wrote:

> On May 31, 12:52 pm, Simon Brooke <s...@jasmine.org.uk> wrote:
>> in message <0fD7i.397215$2Q1.69...@newsfe16.lga>, Carl Sundquist
>>
>> ('carl...@cox.net') wrote:
>> > "RonSonic" <ronso...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
>> >news:djqt53dc15j0u2q91uuribel4d04g7uvmt@4ax.com...
>>
>> >> 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.
>>
>> > Recognize Boardman for the hour record again?
>>
>> Obree?
>
> That's exactly what went through my mind. O'Bree may have been the
> only person in professional cycling that wasn't juicing on something
> simply because he couldn't afford a cigarette let alone anything else.

Obree, not O'Bree (he's a very nice guy, actually - friendly, modest, and
slightly off the wall).

No, definitely not doped, but I understand the UCI were considering listing
marmalade sandwiches as a banned substance.

--
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/
Windows 95:
You, you, you! You make a grown man cry...
M. Jagger/K. Richards

Date: 01 Jun 2007 01:55:09
From: Ewoud Dronkert
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

Simon Brooke schreef:
> No, definitely not doped, but I understand the UCI were considering listing
> marmalade sandwiches as a banned substance.

Marmite, they should make marmite a banned substance.

--
E. Dronkert

Date: 31 May 2007 12:04:41
From: Carl Sundquist
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

"RonSonic" <ronsonic@tampabay.rr.com > wrote in message
news:djqt53dc15j0u2q91uuribel4d04g7uvmt@4ax.com...
>
>
> 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.

Recognize Boardman for the hour record again?

Date: 31 May 2007 20:52:06
From: Simon Brooke
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

in message <0fD7i.397215$2Q1.69848@newsfe16.lga >, Carl Sundquist
('carlsun@cox.net') wrote:

> "RonSonic" <ronsonic@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
> news:djqt53dc15j0u2q91uuribel4d04g7uvmt@4ax.com...
>>
>> 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.
>
> Recognize Boardman for the hour record again?

Obree?

--
simon@jasmine.org.uk (Simon Brooke) http://www.jasmine.org.uk/~simon/

[ This mind intentionally left blank ]

Date: 31 May 2007 09:23:43
From: bdbafh
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

On May 31, 11:46 am, RonSonic <ronso...@tampabay.rr.com > 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

Next thing you know, they'll invalidate the Immaculate Reception and
dem Stillers 4 Super Bowl victories.

-bdbafh

Date: 31 May 2007 21:53:27
From: Donald Munro
Subject: Re: A cure that's worse than the disease

bdbafh wrote:
> Next thing you know, they'll invalidate the Immaculate Reception

Immaculate conceptions probably occur as a result of doping too.