Drugs in other sports and the media.

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  • danlikesbikes
    danlikesbikes Posts: 3,898
    RichN95 wrote:
    Some early reaction from the horses:

    Fair Hill has blamed contaminated supplements, possibly bought from Findus
    Bathrat Amal has said that this is plot from the jealous English, typical of their anti-Arab ways
    Certify has said it was probably due to the whisky it was drinking the night before
    Sweet Rose has admitted doping and said he acted on his own without the knowledge of his trainers - "of course you can operate a needle with hooves"
    Artigiano has claimed that the drugs were for Sheikh Mohammed, or a dog, one of the two
    Ghostflower said "if you think horses can talk, you're the one on drugs not me"

    Coffee + your post = :lol: splutter and computer clean up required
    Pain hurts much less if its topped off with beating your mates to top of a climb.
  • mr_poll
    mr_poll Posts: 1,547
    RichN95 wrote:
    Some early reaction from the horses:

    Fair Hill has blamed contaminated supplements, possibly bought from Findus
    Bathrat Amal has said that this is plot from the jealous English, typical of their anti-Arab ways
    Certify has said it was probably due to the whisky it was drinking the night before
    Sweet Rose has admitted doping and said he acted on his own without the knowledge of his trainers - "of course you can operate a needle with hooves"
    Artigiano has claimed that the drugs were for Sheikh Mohammed, or a dog, one of the two
    Ghostflower said "if you think horses can talk, you're the one on drugs not me"

    :lol:
  • Richmond Racer
    Richmond Racer Posts: 8,561
    Rich has it straight from the horses' mouth(s)


    On topic of another sport, tennis....6th-ranked Tomas Berdych sounding off on the woes of the ITF's AD...calls it a 'disaster'. Tested OOC twice in last 4 years (and just urine test, at that)

    http://tennis.si.com/2013/04/22/tomas-b ... -disaster/
  • danlikesbikes
    danlikesbikes Posts: 3,898
    Richmond Racer wrote:
    Rich has it straight from the horses' mouth(s)


    On topic of another sport, tennis....6th-ranked Tomas Berdych sounding off on the woes of the ITF's AD...calls it a 'disaster'. Tested OOC twice in last 4 years (and just urine test, at that)

    http://tennis.si.com/2013/04/22/tomas-b ... -disaster/

    Its quite worrying when a few tennis stars come out and say that their own testing regime is poor in terms of number of tests taken. Have seen a few reports in the last few months & does make you wonder, obviously its in the interest of the clean users (if you exclude the fact that some EPO users are getting around the test and giving a negative sample but thats a different issue) to suggest that there should be more testing both in & out of session.
    Pain hurts much less if its topped off with beating your mates to top of a climb.
  • Richmond Racer
    Richmond Racer Posts: 8,561
    Danlikesbikes wrote:
    Richmond Racer wrote:
    Rich has it straight from the horses' mouth(s)


    On topic of another sport, tennis....6th-ranked Tomas Berdych sounding off on the woes of the ITF's AD...calls it a 'disaster'. Tested OOC twice in last 4 years (and just urine test, at that)

    http://tennis.si.com/2013/04/22/tomas-b ... -disaster/

    Its quite worrying when a few tennis stars come out and say that their own testing regime is poor in terms of number of tests taken. Have seen a few reports in the last few months & does make you wonder, obviously its in the interest of the clean users (if you exclude the fact that some EPO users are getting around the test and giving a negative sample but thats a different issue) to suggest that there should be more testing both in & out of session.


    Reckoned to be quite a problem in tennis. Steroids more than EPO, perhaps. I watch amazed as players are given cort injections mid-match to enable them to play on.

    This is a great blogger if you're interested - this link takes you to the test stats reproduced from ITF's 2012 report...

    http://tennishasasteroidproblem.blogspo ... stics.html
  • wombly_knees
    wombly_knees Posts: 657
    They're going to pilot a blood passport in tennis too, aren't they? When's that being started? Not that it'll make a difference immediately...
    squired wrote:
    For me the Tom Maynard story was very sad and the follow up by the ECB was disappointing too. They went on about starting out of competition testing, when the player prompting this was clearly abusing drugs during the season. I think they gave a stat indicating that the number of tests they perform equate to 40% of players being tested once per season. If they'd had a proper drugs testing programme Tom Maynard could well still be alive. One has to ask about his flatmate, the former Surrey captain. I hope that the ECB will be performing targeted testing on him over the next few months, although hopefully the events of last summer have been enough to make him see sense.

    One thing that shouldn't be forgotten is that drugs tests are not all equal. A test on one sportsman today could screen for hundreds of drugs, where as a test on a different sportsman in a different sport could test for just a few (and be far cheaper as a result). Ideally the substances tested for should be targeted, but I doubt they are. Taking the example of cricket, one would imagine performance benefits from drugs making you more alert (drugs like Adderal - not sure if it is banned), drugs making you stronger (especially as the power hitting of the shorter forms of the game becomes a great way of earning lucrative contracts) and drugs to heal injuries (especially for bowlers). Testing for EPO would probably be pointless. Testing for steroids probably wouldn't be useful on a skinny bowler, but definitely useful on a powerful batsman.
    Okay, I'm regurgitating some old shit here, but I'm not convinced cricket has a major PED problem yet. You've got a guy like Ed Smith, who till recently was involved in the county championship and also in the England setup briefly, talking not just about doping and the ability to win clean but all forms of cheating freely. It won't be free of it, but being riddled by it is another. Fixing's prevalent, but extrapolating that to other sports and the unwillingness to look into such matters, it'd not be solely confined to cricket.

    As for recreational drugs, cricket has had this problem for long, well at least since the 70s and 80s, and alcoholism forever. Ask Beefy about cocaine usage and he'd probably have a laff and leave it. . The story of Chris Lewis and what he turned out is known. Sometimes one just has to expect that these guys know when to stop. Teams weren't really very professional (training wise, not contract wise) till the last decade.

    As it is, Rory Hamilton Brown's statement in court was rubbish. Might as well not have turned up.
  • danlikesbikes
    danlikesbikes Posts: 3,898
    Richmond Racer wrote:


    Reckoned to be quite a problem in tennis. Steroids more than EPO, perhaps. I watch amazed as players are given cort injections mid-match to enable them to play on.

    This is a great blogger if you're interested - this link takes you to the test stats reproduced from ITF's 2012 report...

    http://tennishasasteroidproblem.blogspo ... stics.html

    Cheers for that. I'm quite interested in the use of drugs in other sports from the point of is it a issue, how often is testing done & if the numbers caught cheating in a sport increased with a low numbers of testing would then cause the sport to change to a much higher testing regime.
    Pain hurts much less if its topped off with beating your mates to top of a climb.
  • Richmond Racer
    Richmond Racer Posts: 8,561
    edited April 2013
    wombly knees wrote:
    They're going to pilot a blood passport in tennis too, aren't they? When's that being started? Not that it'll make a difference immediately...
    squired wrote:
    For me the Tom Maynard story was very sad and the follow up by the ECB was disappointing too. They went on about starting out of competition testing, when the player prompting this was clearly abusing drugs during the season. I think they gave a stat indicating that the number of tests they perform equate to 40% of players being tested once per season. If they'd had a proper drugs testing programme Tom Maynard could well still be alive. One has to ask about his flatmate, the former Surrey captain. I hope that the ECB will be performing targeted testing on him over the next few months, although hopefully the events of last summer have been enough to make him see sense.

    One thing that shouldn't be forgotten is that drugs tests are not all equal. A test on one sportsman today could screen for hundreds of drugs, where as a test on a different sportsman in a different sport could test for just a few (and be far cheaper as a result). Ideally the substances tested for should be targeted, but I doubt they are. Taking the example of cricket, one would imagine performance benefits from drugs making you more alert (drugs like Adderal - not sure if it is banned), drugs making you stronger (especially as the power hitting of the shorter forms of the game becomes a great way of earning lucrative contracts) and drugs to heal injuries (especially for bowlers). Testing for EPO would probably be pointless. Testing for steroids probably wouldn't be useful on a skinny bowler, but definitely useful on a powerful batsman.
    Okay, I'm regurgitating some old shoot here, but I'm not convinced cricket has a major PED problem yet. You've got a guy like Ed Smith, who till recently was involved in the county championship and also in the England setup briefly, talking not just about doping and the ability to win clean but all forms of cheating freely. It won't be free of it, but being riddled by it is another. Fixing's prevalent, but extrapolating that to other sports and the unwillingness to look into such matters, it'd not be solely confined to cricket.

    As for recreational drugs, cricket has had this problem for long, well at least since the 70s and 80s, and alcoholism forever. Ask Beefy about cocaine usage and he'd probably have a laff and leave it. . The story of Chris Lewis and what he turned out is known. Sometimes one just has to expect that these guys know when to stop. Teams weren't really very professional (training wise, not contract wise) till the last decade.

    As it is, Rory Hamilton Brown's statement in court was rubbish. Might as well not have turned up.


    Doesnt seem to be too much of an issue in cricket to date - but certainly has a fine history on the rec drugs side :wink:
  • Richmond Racer
    Richmond Racer Posts: 8,561
    Danlikesbikes wrote:
    Richmond Racer wrote:


    Reckoned to be quite a problem in tennis. Steroids more than EPO, perhaps. I watch amazed as players are given cort injections mid-match to enable them to play on.

    This is a great blogger if you're interested - this link takes you to the test stats reproduced from ITF's 2012 report...

    http://tennishasasteroidproblem.blogspo ... stics.html

    Cheers for that. I'm quite interested in the use of drugs in other sports from the point of is it a issue, how often is testing done & if the numbers caught cheating in a sport increased with a low numbers of testing would then cause the sport to change to a much higher testing regime.



    ITF were talking 2014 - but it will take them a while to build up the profiles...AND some of the tennis observers are concerned that the ITF havent given proper thinking as to how they will implement it, and that this is just a knee-jerk ITP pronouncement forced on them in response to Federer and Murray speaking out as they've been doing.
  • wombly_knees
    wombly_knees Posts: 657
    Richmond Racer wrote:
    Doesnt seem to be too much of an issue in cricket to date - but certainly has a fine history on the rec drugs side :wink:

    Indeed, some drunks and stoned blokes in the sport in the past. Lewis and Beefy epitomising it, one who got into the crap too deeply and the other a playboy who's put a leg over anything that moves.
  • danlikesbikes
    danlikesbikes Posts: 3,898
    Richmond Racer wrote:



    ITF were talking 2014 - but it will take them a while to build up the profiles...AND some of the tennis observers are concerned that the ITF havent given proper thinking as to how they will implement it, and that this is just a knee-jerk ITP pronouncement forced on them in response to Federer and Murray speaking out as they've been doing.

    Yep it will take time.

    Talking of other sports & recreational drugs I guess it depends on the culture and if its acceptable. Seem to recall a report stating that in football WADA (might have the agency wrong) stopped telling FIFA (could be FA England) about failed tests for none banned but recreational drugs & the football agency giving a statement that it wasn't an issue.
    Pain hurts much less if its topped off with beating your mates to top of a climb.
  • edhornby
    edhornby Posts: 1,780
    Hang on, what about Warne and his ban for diuretics - remember the excuse 'me Mum gave them to me to lose weight so I wouldn't look so fat on the telly'

    I reckon PED abuse would have a great payback in cricket - faster bowling, more sixes and fours, chasing the 2's and 3's in the field, bigger throws back to the stumps, recovery in test matches so your 5th day is like your 1st....
    "I get paid to make other people suffer on my wheel, how good is that"
    --Jens Voight
  • danlikesbikes
    danlikesbikes Posts: 3,898
    edhornby wrote:
    I reckon PED abuse would have a great payback in cricket - faster bowling, more sixes and fours, chasing the 2's and 3's in the field, bigger throws back to the stumps, recovery in test matches so your 5th day is like your 1st....

    Think you could say that of any sport that requires a large physical element - athletics, swimming, cricket, football, rugby, tennis think the list cold be very long indeed.
    Pain hurts much less if its topped off with beating your mates to top of a climb.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,253
    edhornby wrote:
    Hang on, what about Warne and his ban for diuretics - remember the excuse 'me Mum gave them to me to lose weight so I wouldn't look so fat on the telly'
    ..
    With Warne though that is comfortably the most believable reason for him taking it.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • wombly_knees
    wombly_knees Posts: 657
    edhornby wrote:
    Hang on, what about Warne and his ban for diuretics - remember the excuse 'me Mum gave them to me to lose weight so I wouldn't look so fat on the telly'

    I reckon PED abuse would have a great payback in cricket - faster bowling, more sixes and fours, chasing the 2's and 3's in the field, bigger throws back to the stumps, recovery in test matches so your 5th day is like your 1st....
    There's actually been a diuretic positive since Warne, Upul Tharanga. Got away with a light penalty as a herbal medicine he'd used had it as a substance. That story could be a load of bollocks. And it could be extrapolated to any sport, but from a small sample size of Ed Smith, Trescos, and some others, they do seem to verge on the Kittel side of reaction to doping rather than the Samuel Sanchez.
  • Pross
    Pross Posts: 43,463
    RichN95 wrote:
    edhornby wrote:
    Hang on, what about Warne and his ban for diuretics - remember the excuse 'me Mum gave them to me to lose weight so I wouldn't look so fat on the telly'
    ..
    With Warne though that is comfortably the most believable reason for him taking it.

    Didn't work though. Then again, if the upshot of looking fat on TV is that you end up pulling Liz Hurley someone please point a TV camera at me!!
  • wombly_knees
    wombly_knees Posts: 657
    Merv Hughes really deserved Cindy Crawford.
  • dennisn
    dennisn Posts: 10,601
    Dolan Driver wrote:
    The media are hammering cycling at the moment and God knows the cycling world is providing them with an endless supply of ammunition, but the media need to widen the net and start to look at all sports and see how they are tackling and preventing drug-taking. The ironic thing is that cycling might be one of the cleanest sports nowadays (I hope) but it is portrayed as the dirtiest by a biased media.

    One minute you're saying that the media needs "to widen the net". In the next you're talking about "a biased media".
    Asking the media to "help" is like asking the fox to guard the henhouse.
  • menchovʹsstabilisers
    menchovʹsstabilisers Posts: 122
    wombly knees wrote:
    edhornby wrote:
    Hang on, what about Warne and his ban for diuretics - remember the excuse 'me Mum gave them to me to lose weight so I wouldn't look so fat on the telly'

    I reckon PED abuse would have a great payback in cricket - faster bowling, more sixes and fours, chasing the 2's and 3's in the field, bigger throws back to the stumps, recovery in test matches so your 5th day is like your 1st....
    There's actually been a diuretic positive since Warne, Upul Tharanga. Got away with a light penalty as a herbal medicine he'd used had it as a substance. That story could be a load of ****. And it could be extrapolated to any sport, but from a small sample size of Ed Smith, Trescos, and some others, they do seem to verge on the Kittel side of reaction to doping rather than the Samuel Sanchez.

    The best defence in cricket was the "he's from a small village" defence when Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif got busted for nandrolone. Somehow they got off on appeal with this. Asif later got deported Dubai by the police for being in possession of a banned substance. Still not to be deterred he then tested positive fro steriods in the IPL and was banned for a year. This was all before he got done for match-fixing :roll:

    I'd be amazed if cricket didn't have a drug problem. Just a look at how batsmen have bulked up, how bowlers are pressured to bowl faster and for longer and how the relentless daily grind sounds like something out of Rough Ride. Asif was a very skilful bowler who was thought to be short of a yard of pace in the international game. There must be a huge temptation to juice in that situation.
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,253
    Menchov'sStabilisers wrote:
    I'd be amazed if cricket didn't have a drug problem. Just a look at how batsmen have bulked up, how bowlers are pressured to bowl faster and for longer and how the relentless daily grind sounds like something out of Rough Ride. Asif was a very skilful bowler who was thought to be short of a yard of pace in the international game. There must be a huge temptation to juice in that situation.
    Batsmen haven't bulked up. Just because Chris Gayle is in the news, it doesn't mean they're all like that (and there's always been big sloggers, right back to the days of Jessop). Cook and Bell aren't bulky, neither are the likes of Chanderpaul and Amla. Tendulkar's tiny, so was Lara. Just because they don't look like Gatting and Inzamam any more (Kallis aside) it doesn't mean they're all on drugs. Even a fat lump like Mark Cosgrove is playing Sheffield Shield in Australia.

    And as for bowling, pace isn't that revelevant any more. No-one has been intimidated by pace since Ambrose and Donald. The padding's too good and there's a limit on bouncers. The best 'pace' bowler of recent times was McGrath and he was slow as anything. It's all about consistency and variation these days. And drugs don't make you bowl faster anyway. And spinners are the one's that do the long spells now.

    Now booze. That's a problem for some - I know at least of England cricketer who basically drank away his career and plenty of them still smoke. But PEDs? Nah. I've seen plenty of cricketers in Cardiff, including many internationals - and not one of them looks anything other than normal - even Chris Gayle. We've even got a first class cricketer (and apparently potential future international) playing hockey in our 4th team. He seems to spend his life in Nandos.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • wombly_knees
    wombly_knees Posts: 657
    edited April 2013
    The best defence in cricket was the "he's from a small village" defence when Shoaib Akhtar and Mohammad Asif got busted for nandrolone. Somehow they got off on appeal with this. Asif later got deported Dubai by the police for being in possession of a banned substance. Still not to be deterred he then tested positive fro steriods in the IPL and was banned for a year. This was all before he got done for match-fixing
    And will Vinokourov be the barometer for every cyclist? Alleged fixer, doper, cheat, liar. The other drug was Hashish btw and if he wasn't an international cricketer, he might be dead. And there's never been a doubt that recreational drugs were abused in cricket.

    That's not a best defence and that board is pretty much the nadir in terms of morals on anything. If you'd followed the Shoaib case up, you'd have also notice Inzy saying that Shoaib had abused drugs regularly and him being reticent to drug tests.
    I'd be amazed if cricket didn't have a drug problem. Just a look at how batsmen have bulked up, how bowlers are pressured to bowl faster and for longer and how the relentless daily grind sounds like something out of Rough Ride. Asif was a very skilful bowler who was thought to be short of a yard of pace in the international game. There must be a huge temptation to juice in that situation.
    Except it's not a daily grind. In fact, it's easy to give statistics to prove exactly the opposite. The workload of a Freddie Trueman, at his peak, over a summer of cricket in terms of balls was twice the amount of balls that Anderson has ever and four times the amount he does nowadays. The fact is international cricketers are subject to least workloads and cricketers are subject to the minimum they've ever been. The CC is half the length it used to be. The counties taking precedence over England was one of the many reasons for being gash in the 90s.

    I think you'll have to verify the speed issue again. Marshall, Holding, Roberts, Garner, Croft, Donald, Lillee, Thommo, Waqar and even going back to the days of Lindwall, Miller and Typhoon Tyson and further in Larwood (though I haven't seen the last three live). All of them were far faster than any current test match bowler and some played all over the year (Garner in 82-83, Barbados, Somerset, South Australia, Barbados and then Somerset again, that's almost 2 straight years with tests in between). As it is, Lee was the epitome of overrated, yet he was blistering. Bichel, 10 mph slower was far better a bowler (if only he were given chances after a 1/200 effort that Lee was afforded) and McGrath, still head and shoulders above everyone to have played since 1990 and well slower than Lee.

    The biggest six at Lords according to all reliable prose, came from Albert Trott. His remains the only six to have cleared the Pavilion at Lords. Now changed dimensions won't make a difference as the square still remains where it ought to and down the ground, the length is the same. Not Gayle, not Simo O'Donnell, not Pollard nor Dhoni have come close to getting over the pavilion. This is not accounting for the change in bats. I know for a fact being an amateur the difference in my ancient mid 90s 2lb 7 oz Gray Nicolls and the 2lb 10oz bats nowadays. The life's shorter but the ball pings off it. A decade ago, hitting the handle of the bat wouldn't get you caught at mid on (Shan Twatto). They could be cheating, but there are many more plausible explanations and as yet none of the former pros have claimed dope is the cause for everything and not even the Australian sports commission claimed that there was any link to doping and cricket in their investigation, but they did drag the NRL and tried the AFL through the mud.

    Is there a temptation to dope? Yeah, of course. But being an epidemic or a drug problem is a tall claim. Unless we go by the clinic's or similar standards that if you're paid for sport you have to cheat. I don't subscribe by that.
  • Cumulonimbus
    Cumulonimbus Posts: 1,730
    Courtney Walsh used to bowl very long spells and he was a fast bowler. I think that one of the keys to being a successful fast bowler for a long time is to be quite thin. Fast bowling is not quite what humans were designed to do and the stresses will mount up if you are heavy, both maybe in terms of a heavy arm going round or a lot of weight being put on the joints in the delivery stride. Im not a physio but thats how it seems to me. PEDs which increase muscle mass might therefore not be a good idea for fast bowlers although ones which dont bulk you up could be beneficial.

    On a side-note, for Gayle the important nutrition seems to be

    "All I had for breakfast this morning was a plain omelette, two pancakes and a hot chocolate."

    (http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/cricket/22268071

    Worth a go maybe :D
  • inkyfingers
    inkyfingers Posts: 4,400
    RichN95 wrote:
    Menchov'sStabilisers wrote:
    I'd be amazed if cricket didn't have a drug problem. Just a look at how batsmen have bulked up, how bowlers are pressured to bowl faster and for longer and how the relentless daily grind sounds like something out of Rough Ride. Asif was a very skilful bowler who was thought to be short of a yard of pace in the international game. There must be a huge temptation to juice in that situation.
    Batsmen haven't bulked up. Just because Chris Gayle is in the news, it doesn't mean they're all like that (and there's always been big sloggers, right back to the days of Jessop). Cook and Bell aren't bulky, neither are the likes of Chanderpaul and Amla. Tendulkar's tiny, so was Lara. Just because they don't look like Gatting and Inzamam any more (Kallis aside) it doesn't mean they're all on drugs. Even a fat lump like Mark Cosgrove is playing Sheffield Shield in Australia.

    And as for bowling, pace isn't that revelevant any more. No-one has been intimidated by pace since Ambrose and Donald. The padding's too good and there's a limit on bouncers. The best 'pace' bowler of recent times was McGrath and he was slow as anything. It's all about consistency and variation these days. And drugs don't make you bowl faster anyway. And spinners are the one's that do the long spells now.

    Now booze. That's a problem for some - I know at least of England cricketer who basically drank away his career and plenty of them still smoke. But PEDs? Nah. I've seen plenty of cricketers in Cardiff, including many internationals - and not one of them looks anything other than normal - even Chris Gayle. We've even got a first class cricketer (and apparently potential future international) playing hockey in our 4th team. He seems to spend his life in Nandos.

    I hate to say it, but I think you're outlook on cricket is a bit naive Rich. Assuming that a problem doesn't exist is an excellent way of helping it to fester and grow.

    There are plenty of reasons to dope in cricket; to allow players to play through injuries, to improve your strength, to improve your endurance, to improve concentration etc etc.

    Will the amount of money sloshing round the IPL there is plenty to gain from players pushing their luck, particularly if the testing regime is not that rigorous. As I said in another thread, there will always be people prepared to break the rules to win or to make financial gains, I don't see any reason why cricket should be any different.

    As a Man of Kent I think it's very lucky that the testers haven't yet developed a reliable test for pork pies, else Rob Key would be in serious trouble.
    "I have a lovely photo of a Camargue horse but will not post it now" (Frenchfighter - July 2013)
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,253
    inkyfingers wrote:

    I hate to say it, but I think you're outlook on cricket is a bit naive Rich. Assuming that a problem doesn't exist is an excellent way of helping it to fester and grow.

    There are plenty of reasons to dope in cricket; to allow players to play through injuries, to improve your strength, to improve your endurance, to improve concentration etc etc.

    Will the amount of money sloshing round the IPL there is plenty to gain from players pushing their luck, particularly if the testing regime is not that rigorous. As I said in another thread, there will always be people prepared to break the rules to win or to make financial gains, I don't see any reason why cricket should be any different.

    As a Man of Kent I think it's very lucky that the testers haven't yet developed a reliable test for pork pies, else Rob Key would be in serious trouble.
    No nit's not naive. I know quite a few cricketers and they just go about their business much like any other person.

    They don't play through injuries - that just makes them worse. That's a concept from the dark ages. Strength isn't going to make a lot of difference, you can't score an '8'. Endurance, well a fair few unfit cricketers have managed in the past, and some still do (such as Key).

    IPL may have money, but it's just a 20/20 bash. The bowlers only have to manage four overs and for the batsmen timing shots or being imaginative is far more important than strength.

    What you doing is falling into the trap of thinking that because a sportsman can cheat they will cheat. But that isn't the case. Humans by and large are pretty honest, cheating is not their default setting. If there is no real need to cheat, they almost always won't. And there's no need to cricket.

    The idea that cricket has a widespread doping culture is frankly a little far fetched. Just because cycling has a doping culture it doesn't follow that all sports do, however much you like them to.
    Twitter: @RichN95
  • inkyfingers
    inkyfingers Posts: 4,400
    I'm not suggesting that cricket has a widespread doping culture, and I appreciate that it's not like cycling, where doping can turn a carthorse into a thoroughbred, but I still maintain that it's naive to think that there is little or no drug use in the sport.

    Doping is not just about giving you big muscles to hit big shots or allow you to bowl faster, it's used for weight loss, pain relief (for major events sportsmen do still sometimes play through injuries), and an improvement in endurance, speed and concentration, all of which are important in the various forms of the game. The gains are likely to be smaller than in a sport like cycling, but if you can avoid being so tired after 6 hours plus at the crease on the 5th day of a test match or have the legs to run for that match winning single in a T20 then there's going to be a temptation there. I don't "want" there to be doping in cricket, far from it, but I think there should be an assumption that there is some doping and that the testing regimes should reflect that. I believe that's the best way to deter people from doing it.

    Cycling is obsessed with doping, football and tennis seem to just ignore it, I think there is a happy medium where we accept that there may be a problem (though hopefully small) and that the best way to stop it getting anywhere near where cycling has found itself itself is to face up to it and do our best to make sure that it's as hard as possible to get away with it. Cycling ignored it for a long time and therefore it reached a point where it became ingrained in the sport, we need to try and avoid that happening again.

    Guess we'll just have to politely disagree, now there's a novel concept.
    "I have a lovely photo of a Camargue horse but will not post it now" (Frenchfighter - July 2013)
  • mroli
    mroli Posts: 3,622
    Drugs in cricket aren't the biggest problem as far as I know - match or spot fixing much more of a problem.

    This is an interesting article on the fall out from horse doping: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/ap ... n-lockdown
    Basically the owner of the stable has locked it down and ordered blood tests of all the horses to ensure they are clean before any of them race again. Now that would be an excellent policy to bring into cycling - can you imagine the team pressure not to dope if the whole team would be suspended?
    http://www.georgesfoundation.org
    http://100hillsforgeorge.blogspot.com/
    http://www.12on12in12.blogspot.co.uk/
  • Richmond Racer
    Richmond Racer Posts: 8,561
    mroli wrote:
    Drugs in cricket aren't the biggest problem as far as I know - match or spot fixing much more of a problem.

    This is an interesting article on the fall out from horse doping: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/ap ... n-lockdown
    Basically the owner of the stable has locked it down and ordered blood tests of all the horses to ensure they are clean before any of them race again. Now that would be an excellent policy to bring into cycling - can you imagine the team pressure not to dope if the whole team would be suspended?


    You know what? The rider who genuinely does go rogue would still risk it
  • dennisn
    dennisn Posts: 10,601
    Richmond Racer wrote:
    mroli wrote:
    Drugs in cricket aren't the biggest problem as far as I know - match or spot fixing much more of a problem.

    This is an interesting article on the fall out from horse doping: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2013/ap ... n-lockdown
    Basically the owner of the stable has locked it down and ordered blood tests of all the horses to ensure they are clean before any of them race again. Now that would be an excellent policy to bring into cycling - can you imagine the team pressure not to dope if the whole team would be suspended?


    You know what? The rider who genuinely does go rogue would still risk it

    Absolutely. Who believes they will get caught?
  • TheBigBean
    TheBigBean Posts: 21,927
    6 month ban for the guilty horses. Are we to assume that leniency has been shown because it was a forced East German style programme?
  • RichN95.
    RichN95. Posts: 27,253
    TheBigBean wrote:
    6 month ban for the guilty horses. Are we to assume that leniency has been shown because it was a forced East German style programme?
    It's not lenient. A flat racehorse's career only lasts two years, three at a push.
    Twitter: @RichN95

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