Drugs in other sports and the media.

rick_chasey

Yeah, I guess I'm conditioned to assume the doping is probably there.

I would imagine got to be enough new material for the editors to commission *another* documentary on it.

gsk82

rick_chasey said:

Yeah, I guess I'm conditioned to assume the doping is probably there.

I would imagine got to be enough new material for the editors to commission *another* documentary on it.

Panorama seems to be pretty tabloid these days.

rick_chasey

Yeah I don't disagree.

larkim

david37 said:

RichN95. said:

rick_chasey said:

gsk82 said:

The BBC are sticking the boot in to Farah again. I don't particularly like the guy, but think this again seems to be over playing something that isn't illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/51591701

I'd suggest, like with various riders in cycling, if sensible journos are really banging the drum loudly, it's often because they know something they can't say....

Or alternatively they spent a lot of time and money chasing a story which didn't materialise and are now exaggerating what small things they did find.

well they found that uk athletics and Farah were trying to hide what they were doing. They found another sports doctor forgot on just one occasion to keep records. that is not the behaviour of professionals with nothing to hide, any more than British Cycling and Freeman had nothing to hide.

They didn't find they were trying to hide it - that's a conclusion you're jumping to.

This sort of paragraph annoys me:-
"Documents show Farah repeatedly denied to US Anti-Doping (Usada) investigators he had received injections of the controversial supplement L-carnitine before the 2014 London Marathon.

Farah later changed his account to Usada investigators, saying he had forgotten."

It is actually true, but you'd get the impression from that that the denials and recollections were a long way apart. In fact, the BBC article says it was within a few minutes that the denials were changed to acceptance. The whole paragraph could be easily re-written as:-
"Documents show during an interview Farah repeatedly denied to US Anti-Doping (Usada) investigators he had received injections of the controversial supplement L-carnitine before the 2014 London Marathon.

Within a few minutes of leaving the interview, Farah returned and changed his account to Usada investigators, saying he had forgotten."

The denial about L-Carnitine injections does seem to have a close parallel to Salazar's distinction drawn for his athletes (for which he was sanctioned) to distinguish between "infusions" and "injections" because there was a fear that one of them (I forget which) might give a misleading impression about what were entirely legal administrations.

david37

i think there are those who would ignore no end of evidence and those that will draw their own conclusions.
just like the jiffy bag saga, just like the Armstrong saga, just like all of these things. The only thing they have in common is the ridiculous dishonesty.

I personally am in the no smoke without fire camp. the fact that salazar and everyone of his athletes apparently with the exception of Farah have been cheating is now fact, we're told he was the only one, and here were told it was all above board, and yet the doctor cant show what was actually happening because he forgot to take any notes and farah changed his story straight after colluding with others. 2 minutes or 2 weeks his amnesia seemed short-lived and thereafter the stories were the same.

And as it happens, i dont have any feelings about Farah for or against or even for marathons or long distance track events, I do however have an eyebrow raised

larkim

david37 said:

i think there are those who would ignore no end of evidence and those that will draw their own conclusions.
just like the jiffy bag saga, just like the Armstrong saga, just like all of these things. The only thing they have in common is the ridiculous dishonesty.

I personally am in the no smoke without fire camp. the fact that salazar and everyone of his athletes apparently with the exception of Farah have been cheating is now fact, we're told he was the only one, and here were told it was all above board, and yet the doctor cant show what was actually happening because he forgot to take any notes and farah changed his story straight after colluding with others. 2 minutes or 2 weeks his amnesia seemed short-lived and thereafter the stories were the same.

And as it happens, i dont have any feelings about Farah for or against or even for marathons or long distance track events, I do however have an eyebrow raised

You see, this is precisely the problem. Not a single one of Salazar's athletes has been found to have been cheating. Nor did any of the actions that Salazar was convicted of directly imply that any of his athletes were cheating.

Yet you seem to think his athletes did.

(They might have done, of course, but there have been no findings that make that anything other than an extrapolation).

Eyebrow raised is fine. And as a Farah fanboy, I am quite shocked about the way he handled the USADA interviews as reported by the BBC - at the very least I'd have expected him to have checked back through diaries, his own recollection etc before talking to them so that he didn't look like an idiot when having to come back into the room to change his statement.

david37

Give it time the investigations into his charges are ongoing and informed by the case.

Anyway when all is said and done Farahs actions and those of the other people discussed dont exactly look innocent. unless sitting in a room full of people injecting drugs couriered from Switzerland is normal and forgettable. In which case...... my other eyebrow may get cracked out for a raising too

RichN95.

larkim said:

Eyebrow raised is fine. And as a Farah fanboy, I am quite shocked about the way he handled the USADA interviews as reported by the BBC - at the very least I'd have expected him to have checked back through diaries, his own recollection etc before talking to them so that he didn't look like an idiot when having to come back into the room to change his statement.

Depends on the context of the questioning though. This wasn't a quick polite query. It was part of five hours of questioning, which must be mentally draining, and I expect some of the questioning would have been hostile in tone at times.

Pross

I see one of the loons has returned under a new name.

Pross

rick_chasey said:

gsk82 said:

The BBC are sticking the boot in to Farah again. I don't particularly like the guy, but think this again seems to be over playing something that isn't illegal.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/51591701

I'd suggest, like with various riders in cycling, if sensible journos are really banging the drum loudly, it's often because they know something they can't say....

If you are an ambitious reporter then you might see following the boss's long term editorial narrative so when the editor is Roan you follow his slash and burn approach to UK sporting success.

rick_chasey

Hey look, we're all guessing.

I spent 15 years watching cyclists and their drs/coaches all pretend they weren't on the sauce when they pretty much all were, so that has certainly conditioned my view.

It's not like athletics doesn't have a rep for doping.

I get that the UK press likes to knock down the heroes they build, but there seem to be a lot of ex-athletes of Salazar who want to make this case quite loudly, so I'm inclined to think there's something dodgy going on.

RichN95.

Delete

larkim

rick_chasey said:

Hey look, we're all guessing.

I spent 15 years watching cyclists and their drs/coaches all pretend they weren't on the sauce when they pretty much all were, so that has certainly conditioned my view.

It's not like athletics doesn't have a rep for doping.

I get that the UK press likes to knock down the heroes they build, but there seem to be a lot of ex-athletes of Salazar who want to make this case quite loudly, so I'm inclined to think there's something dodgy going on.

Yep, can't fault that logic. Though I don't think there really are a lot of ex-Salazar athletes making that case. There's Kara Goucher (for whom none of the allegations she raised made it into the case against Salazar), her husband Adam (ditto) and Steve Magness (former NOP coach). Only Magness is truly implicated in that he was the one who received some excess infusions (after he had ceased to be a competitive athlete) for experimental purposes. Then there's Mary Cain who's problems with NOP were not doping, they were mental / physical abuse / neglect.

Beyond that, there's not really anyone ex NOP who is saying "yep, they doped."

But I can't argue with your cynical view - it's not grossly unfair, providing you're happy to accept some little snippets of defensive information too that contradict your expectations.

rick_chasey

Sure. I'm also not enormously invested in it so I'm not going to pretend I know the ins-and-outs.

No_Ta_Doctor

No smoke without fire, they say...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Midland

Pross

I counted 8 occurrences in that article either quoting or acknowledging that the injections / infusion is allowed within WADA guidelines so irrespective of anything else why put so much time into it?

RichN95.

Pross said:

I counted 8 occurrences in that article either quoting or acknowledging that the injections / infusion is allowed within WADA guidelines so irrespective of anything else why put so much time into it?

The article seems one part accusing Farah of using the legal supplement, and one part accusing UK Athletics of not offering it to other athletes.

david37

ahhhh but its all so far from the ideals of sport and its most virtuos qualities.

orraloon

david37 said:

ahhhh but its all so far from the ideals of sport and its most virtuos qualities.

The ideals of sport being....? Far cry from small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, mmmm?

david37

orraloon said:

david37 said:

ahhhh but its all so far from the ideals of sport and its most virtuos qualities.

The ideals of sport being....? Far cry from small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, mmmm?

yes its a far cry from that. Of course if you accept that professional sport is just an arms race, this sort of thing is fine. Spirit counts, not just the letter of the law. or at least it does to me.

RichN95.

david37 said:

orraloon said:

david37 said:

ahhhh but its all so far from the ideals of sport and its most virtuos qualities.

The ideals of sport being....? Far cry from small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, mmmm?

yes its a far cry from that. Of course if you accept that professional sport is just an arms race, this sort of thing is fine. Spirit counts, not just the letter of the law. or at least it does to me.

Who decides what the spirit of the law is? Is it consistent throughout the sport? And if it is, why isn't in the actual letter of the law?


I used to be a patent examiner and around half of applications ended with some statement about the 'spirit of the claims' and every time we asked them to take it out because it was meaningless nonsense.

darkhairedlord

RichN95. said:

david37 said:

orraloon said:

david37 said:

ahhhh but its all so far from the ideals of sport and its most virtuos qualities.

The ideals of sport being....? Far cry from small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, mmmm?

yes its a far cry from that. Of course if you accept that professional sport is just an arms race, this sort of thing is fine. Spirit counts, not just the letter of the law. or at least it does to me.

Who decides what the spirit of the law is? Is it consistent throughout the sport? And if it is, why isn't in the actual letter of the law?


I used to be a patent examiner and around half of applications ended with some statement about the 'spirit of the claims' and every time we asked them to take it out because it was meaningless nonsense.

Getting someone to fly off to Switzerland to score some gear so you spend all day banging up doesn't really sound too "sporting" though does it.

Pross

darkhairedlord said:

RichN95. said:

david37 said:

orraloon said:

david37 said:

ahhhh but its all so far from the ideals of sport and its most virtuos qualities.

The ideals of sport being....? Far cry from small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, mmmm?

yes its a far cry from that. Of course if you accept that professional sport is just an arms race, this sort of thing is fine. Spirit counts, not just the letter of the law. or at least it does to me.

Who decides what the spirit of the law is? Is it consistent throughout the sport? And if it is, why isn't in the actual letter of the law?


I used to be a patent examiner and around half of applications ended with some statement about the 'spirit of the claims' and every time we asked them to take it out because it was meaningless nonsense.

Getting someone to fly off to Switzerland to score some gear so you spend all day banging up doesn't really sound too "sporting" though does it.

The thing the article fails to mention as far as I can tell is why it was done at all (unless I missed it). There may have been a reason for it being administered.

david37

Pross said:

darkhairedlord said:

RichN95. said:

david37 said:

orraloon said:

david37 said:

ahhhh but its all so far from the ideals of sport and its most virtuos qualities.

The ideals of sport being....? Far cry from small boys in the park, jumpers for goalposts, mmmm?

yes its a far cry from that. Of course if you accept that professional sport is just an arms race, this sort of thing is fine. Spirit counts, not just the letter of the law. or at least it does to me.

Who decides what the spirit of the law is? Is it consistent throughout the sport? And if it is, why isn't in the actual letter of the law?


I used to be a patent examiner and around half of applications ended with some statement about the 'spirit of the claims' and every time we asked them to take it out because it was meaningless nonsense.

Getting someone to fly off to Switzerland to score some gear so you spend all day banging up doesn't really sound too "sporting" though does it.

The thing the article fails to mention as far as I can tell is why it was done at all (unless I missed it). There may have been a reason for it being administered.

I don't think they did it to make him run slower

orraloon

Did it break any 'laws'? Yes = issue. No = more Roaneo style nonsense.

When I was younger 🤔 I used to think the BBC was impartial, open and honest. Recent years' events may have altered that view somewhat.

blazing_saddles

orraloon said:

Did it break any 'laws'? Yes = issue. No = more Roaneo style nonsense.

When I was younger 🤔 I used to think the BBC was impartial, open and honest. Recent years' events may have altered that view somewhat.

Me too and then some.
Agendas and click-bait inducing social trivia have replaced investigative journalism and real news. Much of the website resembles an old style gossip mag.

On the subject of Roan; he was at it again, yesterday.
HSBC pulling out of it's British Cycling commitment 4 years early.
One line on the real reason as to why.
Three paragraphs on his old obsessions, two of which have almost nowt to do with BC.

RichN95.

blazing_saddles said:

On the subject of Roan; he was at it again, yesterday.
HSBC pulling out of it's British Cycling commitment 4 years early.
One line on the real reason as to why.
Three paragraphs on his old obsessions, two of which have almost nowt to do with BC.

His fellow obsessive Lawton didn't even bother to mention the financial situation at HSBC at all

awavey

considering how much its reported it was costing HSBC, Im surprised it was agreed even if the bank were doing well, youd think youd be getting more bang for buck in terms of exposure for chucking 10million quid at BC every 4 years.

rick_chasey

awavey said:

considering how much its reported it was costing HSBC, Im surprised it was agreed even if the bank were doing well, youd think youd be getting more bang for buck in terms of exposure for chucking 10million quid at BC every 4 years.

The numbers involved at HSBC are in the billions...

awavey

rick_chasey said:

awavey said:

considering how much its reported it was costing HSBC, Im surprised it was agreed even if the bank were doing well, youd think youd be getting more bang for buck in terms of exposure for chucking 10million quid at BC every 4 years.

The numbers involved at HSBC are in the billions...

well maybe so...but if they were happy to spend millions on just a few static boards,kit logos,and the occasional fun ride...maybe that explains how they ended up with the kind of problems theyve got now

who knows, Sky apparently paid somewhere between 4 times as much to begin to roughly the same kind of amount by the end, but Id argue Sky had far more "market activation" in buzz word terms through their association, who even knew HSBC offered free British Cycling membership to account holders, theyve never exactly promoted their association.