The World Games

[Edward4492]

Gary, you're right of course. It is an utter minefield. Virtually any Masters male can get a testosterone prescription. My personal viewpoint has always been, for me, there's the moral and ethical nature of sport. But how about the health implications? You start messing around with unnecessary hormone prescriptions you're playing with fire. No telling what your body will do. I've been fortunate and have made it this far (60) with out any major health issues; I currently take no meds and the only "supplements" I take are fish oil and Super Beets. Because there is another side to this, like the occasional athlete who gets branded a doper for taking a quasi-legal health related medication or an off-the-shelf product from the local GNC. As you said....a minefield to be sure!

[hjs]

Gary, you're right of course. It is an utter minefield. Virtually any Masters male can get a testosterone prescription. My personal viewpoint has always been, for me, there's the moral and ethical nature of sport. But how about the health implications? You start messing around with unnecessary hormone prescriptions you're playing with fire. No telling what your body will do. I've been fortunate and have made it this far (60) with out any major health issues; I currently take no meds and the only "supplements" I take are fish oil and Super Beets. Because there is another side to this, like the occasional athlete who gets branded a doper for taking a quasi-legal health related medication or an off-the-shelf product from the local GNC. As you said....a minefield to be sure!

That would be 100% doping ofcourse. Test level slowly drop after 40, nothing strange about that.

Must say, over here in Europa I don,t think its very common, never heard someone using it.

[jackarabit]

Need a prescription for demodex blepharitis? Salve for a sore on your bum? Mr. T for the shy pecker? I'm a little surprised that chocolate milk is missing from the WADA/USADA lists. I am firm in the belief that me and thee are competing on sunshine and the morning dew and could not possibly be considered PE offenders.

[GJS]

Ed - where I'm coming from. Sport is fun, an opportunity to push one's physical limits and to compete with others but also a means of shaping character. Cricket, rugby, American football call upon video replays quite often to make refereeing calls. The use is creeping into soccer too.
I hate it. Reflects a desperate desire for everything to be just so, to be perfect. When you suffer a little bad luck on the field, or are on the wrong end of a poor decision, or naughtiness, you live with it and get on with things: sport as a crucible for the development of character.

And, I pay some attention to long dead white males. So shoot me. One idea floating about a long time ago was that, at root, wrongdoing is ignorance. Sure, on a shallow level, a dope fiend knows he's breaking the rules but, the argument might go, if he genuinely understood the degree to which doping undermines both his own efforts and that unspoken solidarity between competitors he would not do it. So the doper is to be pitied and if you're keen for punishment to be meted out be sure that it is a greater punishment for the offender not to face justice: in being exposed and chastised he may begin to understand the true nature of his conduct and will lose a little ignorance and gain a little insight. Let the cheater, hammer under his arm, sally forth into the Boston night dripping from head to toe in wretched ignorance.

Anyways, about that drag factor experimentation of yours...

[H2O]

It's not limited to sports of course it's deeply embedded in our fake culture:
Make up, colored hair, microphones (the speaker who is otherwise a rotten corpse now has a booming voice),
camera angles, artificial teeth, colored lenses, ridiculous pumped up CVs, intense outrageous self promotion of every
imaginable kind.

Welcome to the world created by the "philosophy" of corporations!

[Shawn Baker]

All for testing, especially the sprint events where doping (at least the steroid kind) would be more advantageous- ethical and health beliefs aside, if I'm not mistaken I believe Cincept 2 states that it is against the rules of competition and thus cheating- it is my experience, especially as a masters guy, that drugs and hormone replacement is absolutely not needed to achieve a high level of performance!

[Droode]

All for testing, especially the sprint events where doping (at least the steroid kind) would be more advantageous- ethical and health beliefs aside, if I'm not mistaken I believe Cincept 2 states that it is against the rules of competition and thus cheating- it is my experience, especially as a masters guy, that drugs and hormone replacement is absolutely not needed to achieve a high level of performance!

I do agree with you Shawn that a high level of fitness can be maintained after forty and beyond without ped's, one just needs to manage there training accordingly. I too just turned fifty at the end of last year and based on the C2 rankings for lw men 50-59 I fall into the bottom end of the top 10% for the majority of the events from 30 minutes down. I have been training since I was thirteen so I have the advantage of knowing my body as do most of the men and women who maintain a high level of conditioning, that being said there are a lot of people these days taking advantage of the now available doctor prescribed hormones, to each there own, I say just be honest about it with your peers. Regarding C2 being against ped's just because someone is against something it does not mean they are actively doing anything to change it, as the leading indoor rowing manufacturer and event organizer they are in a position to act on there convictions.

[hjs]

All for testing, especially the sprint events where doping (at least the steroid kind) would be more advantageous- ethical and health beliefs aside, if I'm not mistaken I believe Cincept 2 states that it is against the rules of competition and thus cheating- it is my experience, especially as a masters guy, that drugs and hormone replacement is absolutely not needed to achieve a high level of performance!

All nice and well, but.... Who is gonna pay for that? And if you test, it should be out of competition to. Its an amateur sport, there is no money.

Re strongman/erg. We do know ped use in strongman is normal, so any strongman 500m is nice, but not valid, they all use.

[Droode]

All for testing, especially the sprint events where doping (at least the steroid kind) would be more advantageous- ethical and health beliefs aside, if I'm not mistaken I believe Cincept 2 states that it is against the rules of competition and thus cheating- it is my experience, especially as a masters guy, that drugs and hormone replacement is absolutely not needed to achieve a high level of performance!

All nice and well, but.... Who is gonna pay for that? And if you test, it should be out of competition to. Its an amateur sport, there is no money.

Re strongman/erg. We do know ped use in strongman is normal, so any strongman 500m is nice, but not valid, they all use.

Usually a part of the registration fee for the competition goes towards the testing.

[lindsayh]

Regarding C2 being against ped's just because someone is against something it does not mean they are actively doing anything to change it, as the leading indoor rowing manufacturer and event organizer they are in a position to act on there convictions.

Actually one of the problems is that C2 don't organise any events at all - they are all done by volunteer groups. If C2 did take responsibility and support racing OTE then it might be possible to fund and support a WADA compliant program - I am afraid they hardly care about racing anywhere in the world and the national franchise/licence holders do even less.

[hjs]

All for testing, especially the sprint events where doping (at least the steroid kind) would be more advantageous- ethical and health beliefs aside, if I'm not mistaken I believe Cincept 2 states that it is against the rules of competition and thus cheating- it is my experience, especially as a masters guy, that drugs and hormone replacement is absolutely not needed to achieve a high level of performance!

All nice and well, but.... Who is gonna pay for that? And if you test, it should be out of competition to. Its an amateur sport, there is no money.

Re strongman/erg. We do know ped use in strongman is normal, so any strongman 500m is nice, but not valid, they all use.

Usually a part of the registration fee for the competition goes towards the testing.

Do you have any idea what a real testing program would cost? Now the full fee would not cover the testing.

I believe a base urine test is around 200 usd. Let alone blood. How many people should be tested? There are large numbers of classes. M/f h/l age groups etc etc.
How about year round testing?

[Droode]

You could start by testing the top 3 in each category plus one random selection from that group, in total 4 people tested per category. This would reduce the cost of having to test everyone and the random selection helps keep people more honest as they could be the randomly tested person from there category.

[hjs]

You could start by testing the top 3 in each category plus one random selection from that group, in total 4 people tested per category. This would reduce the cost of having to test everyone and the random selection helps keep people more honest as they could be the randomly tested person from there category.

Looking at a average erg race, not talking about this one. That would a serious amount of money. Erging is mostly age group ing. Jun. 30, 40, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70 etc x4 m/f h/l so easily 40 cath.
So just a urine sample would be 4x40x200 = 32 extra.
If you have 1000 racers. 32 a pop. Doable, but expensive. Won,t help participation.

Still leaves out blood and out of competion testing. Its pretty easy to get around testing on the day only.

[GJS]

Still leaves out blood and out of competion testing. Its pretty easy to get around testing on the day only.

Right. Without out of competition testing, testing on the day is pretty much window dressing.

[Droode]

Still leaves out blood and out of competion testing. Its pretty easy to get around testing on the day only.

Right. Without out of competition testing, testing on the day is pretty much window dressing.

IMO window dressing is better than no dressing at all it would at least be a step towards being in line with other organized sports. There is no perfect solution to weeding out dopers but something has surely got to be better than nothing. Why believe that any event held world record is honest look at how convinced Lance Armstrong was that he was clean and the amount of sheep that followed him, his story should be a lesson to all of us in the honest athlete.