Sometimes those folks just tell the truth. Now if you are OK with cheating and this just annoys you that's another story but lets be honest here - professional cycling became pathetic deplorable 'sport' full of jokes of sportsmen that should not be respected or admired in any way, in contrary. Half of Olympics is heading that way but for some reason cycling was and still is ahead of the curve for quite some time.
I'll never pour a single cent worth of money into that activity, nor a nanosecond of my attention to avoid anyhow supporting it even by accident, voting with my wallet and all that. It almost seems like if there is enough money in the sport it becomes cut throat business and stops being what it was intended to be, in fact exactly the opposite.
That's how I raise my kids, there are tons of sports on the bike and off it to enjoy and even watch and admire if one is in passive mode. But as always doing sports > watching them and I really don't have enough time to do both.
> professional cycling became pathetic deplorable 'sport' full of jokes of sportsmen that should not be respected or admired in any way
And yet we have the major sports who don't test in any meaningful way.
Maybe the mistake cycling made was testing for real. If they tested like the major sports do, nobody would ever be caught.
Hey, that's a lot of mental gymanstics for saying "I dislike cyclists going slow on the road so I'll take it out on their sport".
If you had the opposite idea of "doping is okay in sports" and applied the categorical imperative to it, we'd have a bunch of roided superman doing insane sports and it would be awesome. Daniel Tosh of all people proposed this jokingly in some standup years ago but why not just admit that everyone is doping and accept it?
This is kind of what is done in NBA and NFL. They saw how the MLB shot themselves in the foot and just opted to keep things quiet.
Its interesting as I have a similar philosophy to the OC but the exact opposite takeaway. To declare my bias: I hate cyclists on the road AT ALL. Cars are fundamental and essential transportation in America and cyclists who want all the privileges of a pedestrian and follow none of the rules while operating at a fraction of the speed is a frustrating impediment to traffic.
Rant aside - The sport of cycling is quite cool. I feel bad for those athletes because they have to dope. It's simple game theory, if enough of a critical mass of people are doing it, you have to as well to be competitive. It really shouldn't have been as big of a scandal as it was. At least, making Lance Armstrong the face of the scandal wasn't really fair since, IIRC, almost all the front runners did that. I'm not sure what the answer is, but I think the way they do it now is reasonable. They test and ban so that people likely severely limit cheating. If they simply made it allowed, or had very limited protocols, it would be a total arms race similar to the Armstrong era where riders would have to run tons of gear and chemicals to even attempt to compete and it would have tons of knock on health effects.
To underline this:
So what about baseball, basketball, football, hockey, soccer, swimming, wrestling, boxing, mma, golf, etc?
Cycling got "exposed" by french media because they wanted to go after soccer, but it was a world cup year being held by france, so they went after cycling.
You need to understand something about pro sports: everyone is on stuff. If you can make a million or more a year, most if not certainly all of the athletes are on something:
steroids - vastly increase strength by 10-30% or more (and endurance even)
stimulants - sustain attention and increase endurance and power
EPO - increase endurance and sustained power output by 20% or more. Think that's only cycling? If you breath hard doing something, EPO can help, because it will keep you in Zone 2 and more mentally clear.
Attention drugs - Think that lots of athletes don't want more ability to concentrate? Hello ADD drugs!
Relaxation drugs - Want to keep an even keel for that big tee-off, or for shooting targets? Beta blockers aren't just for heart disease!
Testosterone - Increases strength, but also can critically help in recovery from hard workouts or performances, Floyd Landis got busted for this.
Human Growth Hormone - heal quicker? get taller? recover faster?
Pro sports is a fantasy pageant. These people are supposed to be superhuman, and the pro sports all WANT their athletes on this stuff. Especially the stars, once a star gets big, they get a lot more hall passes.
They just don't want it to be TOO much, and don't want it getting too much press.
Psychologically, there is a bottomless pit of athletes willing to dope.
In a self-reported anonymous poll at a European Ironman (so not even top-end athletes, a range of "good" endurance athletes) more than half admitted to taking performance enhancing drugs.
An article I once read said in Cat 1 amateur cycling races there was tons of doping. Dude, that is so far below the pro ranks it is laughable. No one in Cat 1 amateur cycling will SNIFF european protour.
Cycling is peanuts in terms of money. Tadej makes 8 million euros. He is a legendary superstar of the sport. Now look at what the top quarterbacks, basketball players, soccer players, baseball players make. HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS. You think there isn't worse doping in those sports than cycling?
I mean maybe Michael Jordan, the most ruthlessly competitive person in NBA history, doubled his muscle (while going bald) right after joining the NBA naturally. Maybe Lebron james (also went bald) is 280 lbs naturally. Maybe Tom Brady got a stronger arm and kept healthy as he aged with yoga. Maybe Katie Ledecky just "tries really hard in practice". Maybe Tiger Woods with his popping muscles in mid career was just hitting the bench press.
Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds aren't anomalies or outliers or rogues. Really, they didn't treat the media well and were too big of a-holes to hide, so the media busted them, but other athletes play the game and don't get busted. Is cycling really that bad, or is it sufficiently a "small player" that the dirt-mucking sports reporters are allowed to expose it. Do you think the NFL would let something like that happen? MLB already found out. FIFA sure as hell won't, neither will the NBA.
We are well past the point where the best of the best of previous generations that were shown to be doping have been passed comprehensively by modern athletes and are told that it's just better coaching, science, training and effort.
Enjoy the show.
"How I became a drug cheat athlete to test the system"
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-32983932
Outside Magazine in 2004 tries all the drugs
https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/road-training/drugs-a-ca...
Amateur doping
https://velo.outsideonline.com/road/totally-amateur/
Sports + capitalism is bad already, then add mass media and you've got a corruption pipeline of massive porportions. Sports are best left to individuals and small groups. Massive leagues and pro sports? Not at all sports, but pure entertainment capitalism.
> Sports + capitalism is bad already (...)
I love a good bashing, but are you aware doping runs rampant in amateur levels of any sport or even physical activity? Why do you presume that competitions would be different?
That's why I include "massive leagues". If a city or school district is large enough to impel doping, the entire premise of sport is undermined. Why even bother, the entire enterprise becomes nothing about the sport and everything about "getting noticed, using this platform to stairstep to going pro!!!" It is just exploitative capitalism driving people insane.
I assume a not insignificant portion of people, especially men, are taking steroids/testosterone/human growth hormone or whatever else to augment their fitness.
Yes, a large proportion of older age-group endurance athletes are taking some sort of (legal) hormone therapy and then racing without having the required TUE in place. There is virtually zero blood testing in local amateur races so they just cheat and never get caught.
That’s completely wrong and you are just making things up to fit your anticapitalist world view. I know people that take dope to break 3h in marathon, trust me, no one thinks that you will get any financial benefit from breaking 3h.
> That's why I include "massive leagues". If a city or school district is large enough to impel doping, the entire premise of sport is undermined.
I don't think you understand. Some amateur athletes purposely resort to doping even if they are not particpating in major competitions. Hell, check out steroid abuse in bodybuilding circles. Is taking ADHD drugs also a kind of doping?
I'm not sure you get the "performance enhancing" part of performance enhancing drugs. The pull is not from the competition, but the way they enhance performance. Capitalism has zero to do with this.
Oh I get, too well. I was into the scene decades ago, and exited when I realized how toxic it is, and how heavily marketed it is... and now that level is insane. Cultural toxic masculinity manufacturing is what it is, it's a physical endurance and power fantasy.
The fact that rich, powerful countries earn more medals at the Olympics should dispel any notion of "fairness".
The list of Olympic gold medals per capita is typically led by small Caribbean nations like the Bahamas and Jamaica. Middle income eastern block countries like Hungary are a close follow.
Let's give all participants a medal.