Drugs in other sports and the media.

RichN95.

Dolan Driver wrote:

I think PK believes that sport should only be played by the 100% clean. That shouldn't be a fantasy.

DD.

No. His delusion is that rugby players, if denied painkillers, wouldn't play. They would. The idea that sportsmen would easily give up the moment they have trained hard for is the fantasy.

dinyull

RichN95 wrote:

Dolan Driver wrote:

I think PK believes that sport should only be played by the 100% clean. That shouldn't be a fantasy.

DD.

No. His delusion is that rugby players, if denied painkillers, wouldn't play. They would. The idea that sportsmen would easily give up the moment they have trained hard for is the fantasy.

^This

In the NFL over the past few years the issue of concussions and the link to CTE/brain injuries has really come to light. You have many ex pro's suing the league/commiting suicide/suffering with CTE YET it still takes trained Dr's on the sideline's to remove players who they feel could have suffered a concussion. Despite all of the evidence in front of them most NFL players given a choice still would play through a concussion.

Richmond Racer 2

RichN95 wrote:

Dolan Driver wrote:

I think PK believes that sport should only be played by the 100% clean. That shouldn't be a fantasy.

DD.

No. His delusion is that rugby players, if denied painkillers, wouldn't play. They would. The idea that sportsmen would easily give up the moment they have trained hard for is the fantasy.

Yeppa

dolan_driver

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

Dolan Driver wrote:

I think PK believes that sport should only be played by the 100% clean. That shouldn't be a fantasy.

DD.

Can you define '100% clean' for me, please, DD?

Probably not but I would generally describe it as being an athlete who has not consumed an artificial product (insert P.E.D. of choice) for the purpose of artificially-enhancing his/her athletic performance. Pane e Acqua, basically.

Injecting a medication into your sore/injured knee to allow pain-free athletic participation is performance-enhancing, in my opinion. Others might see that practice as simply returning an injured player to the same status as an injury-free, pain-killer-free athlete.

DD.

RichN95.

Dolan Driver wrote:

Probably not but I would generally describe it as being an athlete who has not consumed an artificial product (insert P.E.D. of choice) for the purpose of artificially-enhancing his/her athletic performance. Pane e Acqua, basically.

Injecting a medication into your sore/injured knee to allow pain-free athletic participation is performance-enhancing, in my opinion. Others might see that practice as simply returning an injured player to the same status as an injury-free, pain-killer-free athlete.

DD.

How about taking a paracetemol for a headache? Or some Gaviscon for a touch of heartburn. Common everyday medicines.

Must athletes be denied bog standard remedies to be declared pure by the Church of Kimmage?

My guess is your ethics are divided into things you do yourself (OK) and things you don't do (not OK).

Richmond Racer 2

Dolan Driver wrote:

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

Dolan Driver wrote:

I think PK believes that sport should only be played by the 100% clean. That shouldn't be a fantasy.

DD.

Can you define '100% clean' for me, please, DD?

Probably not but I would generally describe it as being an athlete who has not consumed an artificial product (insert P.E.D. of choice) for the purpose of artificially-enhancing his/her athletic performance. Pane e Acqua, basically.

Injecting a medication into your sore/injured knee to allow pain-free athletic participation is performance-enhancing, in my opinion. Others might see that practice tas simply returning an injured player to the same status as an injury-free, pain-killer-free athlete.

DD.

So energy drinks, gels etc off the list?

dolan_driver

RichN95 wrote:

Dolan Driver wrote:

No. His delusion is that rugby players, if denied painkillers, wouldn't play. They would. The idea that sportsmen would easily give up the moment they have trained hard for is the fantasy.

No, I reckon he believes that if a player is injured to such an extent that they have to revert to using pain-killing injections to play, then maybe they are sufficiently injured to require rest and physio-treatment instead.

It all comes back to what is being presented to us in each sporting contest. Pretty much every sport is sold to us on the premise that the athletes and their legendary and breath-taking performances are the result of hard work, grit and honest-to-goodness raw talent. No sport as yet has come out and admitted; "Yea, this show is powered by drugs". We are sold "clean sporting endeavour" in any sport you care to mention yet we all know the truth is a little murkier. PK is simply calling bullsh!t on rugby at the moment.

DD.

dish_dash

A through prompted by the Contador podcast. It's odd how a percieved tolerance/acceptance of doping/busted dopers in Spain/Italy is sometimes atributed to their Catholic culture (concepts of forgiveness etc). And yet somehow another, at least historically, Catholic country - Ireland - seems to have produced some of the most vociferous anti-doping campaigners with little sense of either forgiveness or willingness to compromise...

Richmond Racer 2

Excellent

Primary school sports day might be a better follow for the most evangelical

dish_dash

Dolan Driver wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Dolan Driver wrote:

No. His delusion is that rugby players, if denied painkillers, wouldn't play. They would. The idea that sportsmen would easily give up the moment they have trained hard for is the fantasy.

No, I reckon he believes that if a player is injured to such an extent that they have to revert to using pain-killing injections to play, then maybe they are sufficiently injured to require rest and physio-treatment instead.

It all comes back to what is being presented to us in each sporting contest. Pretty much every sport is sold to us on the premise that the athletes and their legendary and breath-taking performances are the result of hard work, grit and honest-to-goodness raw talent. No sport as yet has come out and admitted; "Yea, this show is powered by drugs". We are sold "clean sporting endeavour" in any sport you care to mention yet we all know the truth is a little murkier. PK is simply calling bullsh!t on rugby at the moment.

DD.

That's all well and good. But that's not what the fans actually want... they want to see the sport's top stars everytime they watch...

dolan_driver

dish_dash wrote:

A through prompted by the Contador podcast. It's odd how a percieved tolerance/acceptance of doping/busted dopers in Spain/Italy is sometimes atributed to their Catholic culture (concepts of forgiveness etc). And yet somehow another, at least historically, Catholic country - Ireland - seems to have produced some of the most vociferous anti-doping campaigners with little sense of either forgiveness or willingness to compromise...

Ireland is moving swiftly away from it Catholic past and there is now a growing intolerance of anything associated with Catholicism in the media and government, to a large degree!

Not sure if PK goes to Mass every Sunday or not.

DD.

spam02

In the world according to PK sport would have been a very different place going back just a few years when salbutamol and other asthma and allergy medication required a TUE. A huge amount of the top sports men and women would have been barred from competing across all sports

Thank goodness the high and mighty self-confessed doper doesn't set the rules.

Dorset_Boy

The has been massive intolerance and bigotry within Ireland for centuries.
As an example, not untypical, my mother's family were catholic from the south. Her brother wouldn't step foot in a protestant church, even for his niece's wedding!

On the playing with injury side, it is (generally) a very short career at the top level in sport and there's always someone wanting to steal your shirt. You let them have it and they perform well, and you may not regain the shirt and that has an impact....
Not saying it's right to play through injuries, but that's what happens.

rick_chasey

dish_dash wrote:

A through prompted by the Contador podcast. It's odd how a percieved tolerance/acceptance of doping/busted dopers in Spain/Italy is sometimes atributed to their Catholic culture (concepts of forgiveness etc). And yet somehow another, at least historically, Catholic country - Ireland - seems to have produced some of the most vociferous anti-doping campaigners with little sense of either forgiveness or willingness to compromise...

Pious Irish people?

No. Way.

RichN95.

Dolan Driver wrote:

It all comes back to what is being presented to us in each sporting contest. Pretty much every sport is sold to us on the premise that the athletes and their legendary and breath-taking performances are the result of hard work, grit and honest-to-goodness raw talent. No sport as yet has come out and admitted; "Yea, this show is powered by drugs". We are sold "clean sporting endeavour" in any sport you care to mention yet we all know the truth is a little murkier. PK is simply calling bullsh!t on rugby at the moment.

DD.

But that's not what we're being sold. It's a fantasy you have created for yourself.

The sportsman being patched up by the doctor to heroically take the stage is a key narrative of sport. They provide legendary moments - the burnt Lauda not giving up his title challenge, Terry Butcher's bloodied shirt, Buck Shelford's dangling testicle, Tyler Hamiton's collarbone, Dean Jones's 210 in India, Tiger Woods limping to US Open victory



Paul Kimmage's entire writing career is a massive Catholic guilt penance for taking a couple of disco biscuits at some crits

ddraver

RichN95 wrote:

Paul Kimmage's entire writing career is a massive Catholic guilt penance for taking a couple of disco biscuits at some crits

With regard to Bertie and Spain, most of the spanish people I know, cyclists and non-cyclists (of which there are a lot in Europe at the moment) just assume everyone is on drugs anyway. The relative ambivalence about previous dopers comes from a place, not of forgiveness - hell, the catholic church isn't actually all that good at forgiveness is it - but from a place of not really believing it was all that much of a big deal and that everyone else was doing it anyway...

A few years back after the spitting at the TdF, my mate told me his mates were going up to the local stage to gob on Froome too, not because they had any particular interest in clean cycling but because that was the current "thing to do". They couldn't have cared less who it was.

Richmond Racer 2

:P it was last year, you loon

dennisn

Sort of off topic but wasn't PK some sort of literary hero to everyone some years back, in the Armstrong era? So he's a zero now?

dolan_driver

RichN95 wrote:

Dolan Driver wrote:

It all comes back to what is being presented to us in each sporting contest. Pretty much every sport is sold to us on the premise that the athletes and their legendary and breath-taking performances are the result of hard work, grit and honest-to-goodness raw talent. No sport as yet has come out and admitted; "Yea, this show is powered by drugs". We are sold "clean sporting endeavour" in any sport you care to mention yet we all know the truth is a little murkier. PK is simply calling bullsh!t on rugby at the moment.

DD.

But that's not what we're being sold.

This is exactly what we are being sold. All the players/athletes are presented to us in their respective sports as being clean because "Drugs" is a dirty word that no sport wants to be associated with. If there is a properly-governed athletic sport that publicly condones PED-use amongst its participants, I'd like to read about. All the big money, mainstream sports trade under the illusion that they are "clean".

Of course, if you are a rugger bugger, soccer/T&F/tennis fan etc and PK rolls up and starts shining a light into a few dark places, everyone will be quick to condemn him as a one-trick lunatic because the ostrich syndrome kicks in automatically. He is abrasive but maybe that is what's needed from time to time. Everyone would get too comfortable otherwise.

DD.

dolan_driver

Dorset Boy wrote:

The has been massive intolerance and bigotry within Ireland for centuries.

The same could be said for your fair land too! :roll:

DD.

Richmond Racer 2

Um, no, DD. I'm not being sold anything along those lines

Basically because I'm not 10 years old

dish_dash

dennisn wrote:

Sort of off topic but wasn't PK some sort of literary hero to everyone some years back, in the Armstrong era? So he's a zero now?

No. His writing style annoys me even more than his opinions...

dennisn

dish_dash wrote:

dennisn wrote:

Sort of off topic but wasn't PK some sort of literary hero to everyone some years back, in the Armstrong era? So he's a zero now?

No. His writing style annoys me even more than his opinions...

Ahhhh, I see.

Pross

Dolan Driver wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Dolan Driver wrote:

No. His delusion is that rugby players, if denied painkillers, wouldn't play. They would. The idea that sportsmen would easily give up the moment they have trained hard for is the fantasy.

No, I reckon he believes that if a player is injured to such an extent that they have to revert to using pain-killing injections to play, then maybe they are sufficiently injured to require rest and physio-treatment instead.

It all comes back to what is being presented to us in each sporting contest. Pretty much every sport is sold to us on the premise that the athletes and their legendary and breath-taking performances are the result of hard work, grit and honest-to-goodness raw talent. No sport as yet has come out and admitted; "Yea, this show is powered by drugs". We are sold "clean sporting endeavour" in any sport you care to mention yet we all know the truth is a little murkier. PK is simply calling bullsh!t on rugby at the moment.

DD.

Not sure how many professional rugby teams would get 15 players on the field each week or what size their squad would be if that ever happened. Like it or not players will play injured and if you took that approach they would probably avoid letting anyone know they were injured. In an ideal world I agree and the duty of care to injured sportspeople has been sadly lacking (North's being allowed to continue after being knocked out twice in a game, the Mourinho case at Chelsea and cyclists being picked up with no assessment of injuries and put back on their bikes to ride 150km with broken vertebrae spring to mind) but take a look at National Hunt racing where jockeys will do anything to avoid being assessed by a doctor and risk missing race days.

bobmcstuff

Isn't the risk of letting players play when they're constantly on tramadol that they will end up with serious or chronic injuries?

I get wanting to play through injuries and that some injuries might be OK but I don't think it's right that players should be routinely playing under strong painkillers or be dependent on them in order to compete. Same for cyclists and tramadol.

Pross

I think in cycling the problem is more the danger they pose to other cyclists. I guess the same applies to an extent in other sports (late tackles or delayed responses in protecting yourself). That said, playing with any painkiller is unlikely to help long term as pain is the bodies way of warning you to stop.

RichN95.

bobmcstuff wrote:

Isn't the risk of letting players play when they're constantly on tramadol that they will end up with serious or chronic injuries?

I get wanting to play through injuries and that some injuries might be OK but I don't think it's right that players should be routinely playing under strong painkillers or be dependent on them in order to compete. Same for cyclists and tramadol.

But the players are going to play, with or without painkillers.

bobmcstuff

RichN95 wrote:

bobmcstuff wrote:

Isn't the risk of letting players play when they're constantly on tramadol that they will end up with serious or chronic injuries?

I get wanting to play through injuries and that some injuries might be OK but I don't think it's right that players should be routinely playing under strong painkillers or be dependent on them in order to compete. Same for cyclists and tramadol.

But the players are going to play, with or without painkillers.

Independent doctors need to be there and be better at benching people then. I know that the players will always want to play regardless but someone needs to step in. One of the reasons for anti-doping efforts is to protect athlete health, this is no different really.

Also I understand the UCI is monitoring tramadol use so you should be able to quickly figure out who is dependent on it.

narbs

RichN95 wrote:

Paul Kimmage's entire writing career is a massive Catholic guilt penance for taking a couple of disco biscuits at some crits

This is perhaps the bestest ever thing I've ever read on this forum. Chapeau.

RichN95.

bobmcstuff wrote:

Independent doctors need to be there and be better at benching people then. I know that the players will always want to play regardless but someone needs to step in. One of the reasons for anti-doping efforts is to protect athlete health, this is no different really.

But no doctor has the right to order someone to do anything. And anyway, that would just encourage sportsmen to keep quiet about their injuries - which is even worse.

(For example, look at Pierre Rolland in the Tour who refused to have his hand examined in case he was told to quit. Vaughters praised him for this attitude.)