Cheating in our sport?

cooldad

Majski wrote:

Thats a load of sh1t. You don't have to be competing for it to be a sport.

Whatever makes you happy.
I like playing on my bikes, you like to think you're a sportsman.

styxd

Must admit, I dont think I consider messing about on my mtb a sport. Definitely a hobby.

A hard road ride on the other hand, I'd say this is bordering on being a sport. You have to be wearing lycra though.

YeehaaMcgee

styxd wrote:

Must admit, I dont think I consider messing about on my mtb a sport. Definitely a hobby.

A hard road ride on the other hand, I'd say this is bordering on being a sport. You have to be wearing lycra though.

Maybe that's what defines a "sport"... the wearing of lycra.

styxd

I think its one of the defining factors.

Others might include:

Shaved legs
Oakley sunglasses
Stone cold death stare

njee20

I agree with the competition = sport thing I must say, and I can tick off all of those, although the legs are rather hairy presently!

boristhespie

I had a mate one night had a puff. Next day he was racing in nation series and got tested. He shat it while made great play on winding him up.

Nothing came of it despite the fact that it must have been positive. Either that or he'd been sold camel poo.

CommyAdam

I think the "our sport" point is probably semantics and maybe i should have said 'the' sport/activity, however you choose to refer to it, I feel some sort of sense of belonging to the activity/sport/competition etc. that involves a mountain bike... I probably used the wrong terminology, I certainly don't feel that in some way posses mountain biking...

Further to this...I don't think one is entitled to a sense of belonging only when directly involved in the competitive side of the sport, I have felt a sense of belonging to mountain biking in the same way someone might feel a strong sense of belonging to Rugby despite maybe only playing on a Sunday and watching it on the telly... more to the point it most likely a subjective matter....

but that aside i am glad to discover that sabotage or cheating don't seem to form a common culture within the sport...if our less than thorough discussion is anything to judge it on...

njee20

I had a mate one night had a puff. Next day he was racing in nation series and got tested. He shat it while made great play on winding him up.

Really? Assume this is DH, they don't test anyone but the winners of the Elite races generally in XC (at a national level), seems unlikely they'd do more in DH.

YeehaaMcgee

njee20 wrote:

I had a mate one night had a puff. Next day he was racing in nation series and got tested. He shat it while made great play on winding him up.

Really? Assume this is DH, they don't test anyone but the winners of the Elite races generally in XC (at a national level), seems unlikely they'd do more in DH.

Maybe it was a ruse.
Maybe the top riders were sending people out to get clean urine from the also-rans, so they could use it to pass their own drugs tests

angry_bird

Back onto cheating, there was an article in the July 2012 Dirt about people cutting corners skipping sections of track completely in the Enduro series.

Issue was mostly down poor taping and people taking advantage of this, properly cutting bits of track off and really taking the piss and couldn't be considered fair play... which IMO is cheating as it's not in the spirit of the sport.

But then the other issues was they had was people riding different lines who weren't deliberately trying to cheat, they were within the taping etc. They were just lines the organisers hadn't noticed when they set the track and that a lot of other riders didn't notice either.
Some of the riders who did find these more tricky lines were then forced to agree to a time penalty for it. Even though they'd been doing what they're supposed to and riding a track as fast as they could. Line choice is part of the sport and as Joe Barnes said, it's up to riders to interpret and ride the marked course the best they can...

Majski

As long as it's between the tape it's fair game surly?

t0pc4t

it's not a new thing in road racing is it. It was cocaine in the start, then speed after ww2 and now all manner of things. I don't have a moral objection to people doing it if they make that choice but it did stop me following road racing simply because I got sick of winners being dethroned months after they supposedly won.

I think there's also an element that because road racing is so infamous for drug use they test harder than other sports.

boristhespie

njee20 wrote:

I had a mate one night had a puff. Next day he was racing in nation series and got tested. He shat it while made great play on winding him up.

Really? Assume this is DH, they don't test anyone but the winners of the Elite races generally in XC (at a national level), seems unlikely they'd do more in DH.

It was national XC series of a home nation a number of years ago. He was in elite races but not too serious obviously. It was a normal random test.

njee20

Fair enough, he'd not have to worry in the UK!

BoarderGreen

Loving the way this turned into the classic it is/isnt a sport thread.

Spend more than 30 seconds on a snowboard forum and that old chestnut pops up

Its sport, its not a sport its a hobby, no its a lifestyle, no its a bird, a plane ..................superman!!!

Mountain biking and snowboarding are so alike it frightening, both get accused of not having there own identity and nicking from other sports/hobbies/games be that surfing, skating, bmx, motocross.

The whole cheating thing is relative, in part mountain biking doesnt have the complex regulations,money and pressure of road racing, i would also probably say that compared to road cycling a smaller percentage of of mountain bikers race in some form or another compared road cyclists, you can properly live and breath mountain biking yet feel no need or pressure to race, if your roadie i imagine competition is part and parcel of it, why have a racing bike and not race?
The other point is how heavily regulated is road cycling, how organized are the big races........we are still a fairly young sport i'm sure we can end up just bogged down with baggage, regulation and general sh*te as road racing (swap road racing for skiing and mountain bike for snowboard and it all still rings true!)

YeehaaMcgee

BoarderGreen wrote:

The other point is how heavily regulated is road cycling, how organized are the big races........we are still a fairly young THING i'm sure we can end up just bogged down with baggage, regulation and general sh*te as road racing (swap road racing for skiing and mountain bike for snowboard and it all still rings true!)

Fixed that for you

Thewaylander

So does this mean competetive darts is a sport, because if it is im gobsmacked :P

njee20

The other point is how heavily regulated is road cycling, how organized are the big races........we are still a fairly young sport i'm sure we can end up just bogged down with baggage, regulation and general sh*te as road racing (swap road racing for skiing and mountain bike for snowboard and it all still rings true!)

Not convinced on that. You can organise a road circuit race just about anywhere there's a circle of tarmac. MTB racing is governed by all sorts of daft rules on course length, signage and course marking, duration, number of riders etc.

Ok open road racing has road closures to think about, but by and large I think there are more barriers to organising an MTB race.

supersonic

in part mountain biking doesnt have the complex regulations,money and pressure of road racing

Many other sports do though, but road cycling still sees (seemingly) more drug abuse than most other sports.

I hope for the sports sake that Armstrong is cleared, or will be the final nail for many followers.

mrmonkfinger

supersonic wrote:

road cycling still sees (seemingly) more drug testing than most other sports.

FTFY

plenty drug abuse in lots of other sports, some not even particularly big money ones

off top of my head:

weightlifting, for instance... no "professional preparation"? you'll be 20% down on the winner's totals then.
rugby... look at average bodyweight / strength in pros over the last 20/30 years
triathlon... yup, pros get kicked out of that, and that's low budget and fairly niche

supersonic

That was going to be the other point in my post, that the money is not always the reason. Testing or not, road cycling has the biggest cloud hanging over it of all sports. The TdF is just one race in the year, yet seemingly every year someone is found to have cheated.

Rushmore

I heard Crack is quite More-ish

Chunkers1980

But you love crack. It's your favourite said Jez.

King_Pin_Rich

Perhaps what is seen as cheating may infact have been the innocent consumption of a banned substance, it's a shame when riders get tarred with the doping brush when it may be something as simple as rubbing in the wrong saddle cream.

YeehaaMcgee

King_Pin_Rich wrote:

Perhaps what is seen as cheating may infact have been the innocent consumption of a banned substance, it's a shame when riders get tarred with the doping brush when it may be something as simple as rubbing in the wrong saddle cream.

They're professionals, with professional support, and professional medical teams.
They should never have to think for themselves "I wonder if this stuff is legit?" Their team should have done the groundwork and only given them stuff that's all-clear.
So I don't buy the argument of "accidental use".

paul.skibum

Wasn't it Alan Baxter who lost his Olympic medal in Salt Lake City because of testing positive for a banned substance which turned out he'd taken through Sinex he'd bought in the US which had a different active ingredient than in the UK and no one knew? I don't think there was even an arguement that the ingredient would have helped him unless taken over a prolonged period so a couple of blasts up the nose before his run just cleared his nose so he could breath.

The Schleck fella is saying he doesnt believe he took a banned substance, is having his B sample testd and will argue he was poisoned if that tests positive too. The substance he took apparently has no benefits in itself (as a diuretic it is the reverse of what you want on the tour) but apparently can be used to mask the effects of other banned subs which is why its a banned substance itself.

Seems to me for some sports you either race clean or work on the basis that your team are going to keep ahead of the testers in masking your drug taking. If I was racing I'd rather win honest but I have the luxury of not seeing a race career slip into the toilet due to injury.

YeehaaMcgee

paul.skibum wrote:

I don't think there was even an arguement that the ingredient would have helped him.

So why do you think it's on the banned substance list?

They're not just going to arbritrarily add random stuff to the banned list, there'll be a reason behind it somewhere.
If it was an isolated case, then I'd be more inclined to believe it was a genuine mistake, but such stories crop up so often in connection to road cycling, and so rarely in other sports, that my default reaction has become to side against the riders.

King_Pin_Rich

While ignorance is no excuse, these types of things do happen and in my opinion does not make the athlete a cheater. TdF riders should be judged by thier own actions and not on those of the past.

Innocent until proven guilty.

YeehaaMcgee

All the masking agents have made it practically impossible to confirm doping, so any reasonable amount of doubt must be taken seriously.

chez_m356

mrmonkfinger wrote:

plenty drug abuse in lots of other sports, some not even particularly big money ones

off top of my head:

rugby... look at average bodyweight / strength in pros over the last 20/30 years

nothing to do with the fact that they are now full time athletes, and over the last 20/30 years they weren't