Drugs in other sports and the media.

mm1

Meanwhile John Whittindale and his "relationships" escape all notice. Pure Crosby dead cat.

joelsim

mm1 wrote:

Meanwhile John Whittindale and his "relationships" escape all notice. Pure Crosby dead cat.

Who's John Whittindale?

tailwindhome

150 is small time.

I've provided PEDs to over 500 athletes.

I don't have any paperwork to prove it, no evidence of money transfers, no specific names, dates or products.
But I'm dead good at it honest.

Click the link. You'll be amazed at who doped next!

joelsim

The ARD doc will be available in English tmw.

The whistleblower is Dan Stevens.

mm1

Joelsim wrote:

mm1 wrote:

Meanwhile John Whittindale and his "relationships" escape all notice. Pure Crosby dead cat.

Who's John Whittindale?

Sorry failed to type the "g" - Whittingdale. Crosby is behind this made up bollocks,.

stagehopper

You really don't have to scrape far below the surface of his Twitter account to find a seriously delusional individual, posting stories/videos that 911 was a conspiracy, Mark Zuckerberg a CIA plant, ISIS fabricated by the US etc, the New World Order etc. He's obsessed with poker and systems and supports UKIP (even though he's Irish).

Did any of the journalistic team do any digging and think" hmmmm, maybe his credibility is a bit worrying". And all that's without his real issues with the GMC.

RichN95.

Joelsim wrote:

The whistleblower is Dan Stevens.

I refer the forum to my initial assessment

RichN95 wrote:

My guess is that the nearest to the Tour de France that his cyclists have got is L'Etape.

The doctor most likely sells drugs but he's clearly a vain bullsh1t artist too. I've met a few in my time, we all have. If you massage their ego and hang on their every word they'll tell you whatever you want with the right prompting. (A friend of mine is brilliant - and very funny - at doing this)

There are dopers in pro sport in the UK, but they don't go to clowns like this.

Der Kaiser

Bo Duke wrote:

Of course he was bragging to get business. You don't think that Ferrari spoke of his achievements like that at a first meeting do you? The guy's another Walter Mitty.

I was thinking exactly the same. Walter Mitty and Billy Liar rolled into one.

stu-bim

Mechanism wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

The_Boy wrote:

RichN95 wrote:

Mechanism wrote:

I'm a bit vague on legal aspects of doping in the UK but the police here don't seem to get involved which contrasts with the cases in Italy and Spain.

Doping isn't a crime in the UK. It is in Italy and Spain (or at least 'sporting fraud' is)
And medical malpractice, such as this, is a GMC matter.

Doesn't the illegality also have something to do with supplying controlled substances? Or am I thinking if France? Or possibly just making it up?

If you're some bloke selling it out of a gym locker room, then yes. But a doctor prescribing it wouldn't be illegal, I wouldn't have thought.

Also illegal (I may be wrong on this) to obtain without a prescription e.g. buying online from China.

Not necessarily, possession of a substance that should be prescribed in the UK is not a crime unless selling it. Certain drugs can be purchased over the counter in some countries not illegally and returned to the UK without breaking any laws. It can be confiscated though if found.

joelsim

From @wjohngalloway

"Bonar gave me Testosterone" Shouldn't that be the other way round?

Te he

the article don

^Bravo, sir

dolan_driver

This article by Ken Early in the "Irish Times" is interesting. It pretty much raises the same question I posed in the very first post of this thread. Here is a link and I have also added the full text in case the link doesn't work at a later date. Just as with Track&Field and Rugby, Soccer is afraid to even ask the question of itself; "Do we have a drugs problem?" Given how corrupt that sport's world governing body has been shown to be, that question is probably low down on their list of priorities. Ken Early also posses a pertinent question with regard to Leicester's sparkling form of late! Dr Wicker's comments at the end of the article sum things up nicely too when it comes to how cycling and other sports are regarded in many countries.

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/soccer/ ... -1.2597155

Text of article;
"Over the weekend, the Sunday Times reported that a doctor who prescribed performance-enhancing drugs for athletes claimed to have worked with footballers from clubs including Leicester City.

On Sunday afternoon, Leicester beat Southampton to go seven points clear at the top of the Premier League. On the same day last year, Leicester were seven points adrift of safety at the bottom of the table. In that calendar year, Leicester have taken 91 league points – 18 more than the next best teams, Arsenal and Tottenham.

In most other sports, such an improvement would lead to dark mutterings and sceptical questions, if not open derision. In the post-Armstrong world, no evidence is even necessary – the improvement alone is enough to trigger the rumours.

In football, most people are still talking about a fairytale, even on the day when Leicester’s name was mentioned in connection with doping allegations. The world’s biggest sport is still the only one where doping doesn’t really feature in the conversation.

Lax anti-doping system
Football is an intensely competitive sport that offers huge financial rewards and is policed by a comparatively lax anti-doping system. The incentives that drive athletes in other sports to take drugs are all present, so why do people recoil at the idea that a lot of top footballers are probably doping?
Part of it has to do with the still-common idea that performance-enhancing drugs don’t help you to play football. Their benefits are more obvious in a sport like cycling, which is all about athleticism and endurance, than in football, where the technical and tactical components are more important than the physical.

That argument is obviously absurd. Performance-enhancing drugs can’t turn you into a good footballer, but they can help turn you into a better one. Other things being equal, players who can improve strength, speed and stamina will become better.

Another argument is that contracted players usually have a guaranteed minimum income. The risks of exposure therefore outweigh the possible rewards doping can provide. But this doesn’t address the fact that a doped footballer might have more chance of winning a lucrative contract in the first place.

Still another argument suggests that the highly social nature of the sport, where teams consist of large numbers of players who are frequently on the move, and are in the glare of intense media interest, makes it hard to preserve the sort of omerta that dopers usually find indispensable.

But while those factors might make it complicated for a football club to dope in an organised way, it doesn’t prevent individual players from consulting privately with unscrupulous doctors to find a personal doping solution.

In that case the people most likely to catch them in the act are probably not the anti-doping agencies, but their own employers.

Football clubs in Germany at least have upped their scientific game in recent years, as I discovered when speaking to Dr Markus de Marées and Dr Pamela Wicker at the German Sports University in Cologne in September 2014.

Dr de Marées, of the Institute of Training Science and Sport Informatics, told me that Bundesliga clubs test their players’ blood “very often. Three to five years ago they did it three or four times a year. Now they’re doing it nearly every day.”

A club running frequent blood tests on its players could soon be aware of any freelance doping being undertaken. But what action are they likely to take?

Few doping positives
When I asked Drs Wicker and de Marées why there are so few doping positives in football, Dr Wicker, of the Institute of Sports Economics, answered flatly: “Because Fifa doesn’t want any positive tests.”
Dr de Marèes: “Doping will always be found in sports where you can earn lots of money. But in football it’s like they don’t want to have it. Maybe they’re looking at the wrong parameters. Maybe they’re looking at the wrong time. Or . . . maybe the players are clean. I don’t know. I used to sit in front of the TV cheering for Jan Ullrich. I was definitely sure that he didn’t dope. I was naive enough to think that. Now it’s gone totally in the other direction. I don’t believe that high performance sports are free of doping.”

Dr Wicker referred to the Operacion Puerto trial. “We had that Fuentes case with the cyclists in Spain. They also had some blood samples from other athletes, apparently including football players. And . . . I’m still wondering why they did not pursue these cases. Because the cyclists, they were caught, and the others, they were just put in the bin. It’s a question mark, I think. It gave a bit of an indication that the people in charge in Spain said: you can touch these cyclists, but not our great football players.”

Dr Wicker was wrong about one thing: those blood bags are not in the bin . We’re waiting for a final verdict on the appeal against the judge’s decision to destroy the bags. The eventual verdict will have a great bearing on whether football’s mood of passive denial can go on for much longer."

DD.

rick_chasey

To be honest, the timing was bad on this one.


This Panama stuff will blow the rest out of the water.

RichN95.

Rick Chasey wrote:

To be honest, the timing was bad on this one.


This Panama stuff will blow the rest out of the water.

The rest of the media had already lost interest when Panama broke. It's just not a strong story. And when the whistleblower turns out to be an over the hill printer salesmen it just gets weaker.

blazing_saddles

It's obvious that UKAD were the source of the Mossack Fonseca leak.
Panama is a smokescreen to hide the fact that they didn't carry out an illegal investigation into Bonar.
Exposing the rich and powerful's tax havens is just an excuse for not having come down
hard on Boner.

Or words to that effect.

stagehopper

In contrast to Ken Early, a story from Ian Herbert in the Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foot ... 66361.html

First journalist I've seen call out the Sunday Times on their "scoop".

joelsim

Russkies getting in on the act

https://twitter.com/RussianEmbassy/stat ... 0289986561

salsiccia1

Joelsim wrote:

Russkies getting in on the act

https://twitter.com/RussianEmbassy/stat ... 0289986561

My, my, what a surprise :roll:

Richmond Racer 2

stagehopper wrote:

In contrast to Ken Early, a story from Ian Herbert in the Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foot ... 66361.html

First journalist I've seen call out the Sunday Times on their "scoop".

Thanks for that, just RTd it after reading it via your link (tho Herbert may be a bit naive about effectiveness & thoroughness of footeie testing)

No_Ta_Doctor

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

stagehopper wrote:

In contrast to Ken Early, a story from Ian Herbert in the Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foot ... 66361.html

First journalist I've seen call out the Sunday Times on their "scoop".

Thanks for that, just RTd it after reading it via your link (tho Herbert may be a bit naive about effectiveness & thoroughness of footeie testing)

Yes, a few thousand tests a year isn't all that much when you have a couple of thousand athletes playing every weekend.

blazing_saddles

Joelsim wrote:

Russkies getting in on the act

https://twitter.com/RussianEmbassy/stat ... 0289986561

That's known as claiming diplomatic immunity.

Pross

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

stagehopper wrote:

In contrast to Ken Early, a story from Ian Herbert in the Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foot ... 66361.html

First journalist I've seen call out the Sunday Times on their "scoop".

Thanks for that, just RTd it after reading it via your link (tho Herbert may be a bit naive about effectiveness & thoroughness of footeie testing)

Yep, that was my immediate thought from what was otherwise a decent article. Sounded so much like the usual 'tested hundreds of times and never failed a test' spiel that convicted dopers come out with.

Lanterne_Rogue

No tA Doctor wrote:

Richmond Racer 2 wrote:

stagehopper wrote:

In contrast to Ken Early, a story from Ian Herbert in the Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/foot ... 66361.html

First journalist I've seen call out the Sunday Times on their "scoop".

Thanks for that, just RTd it after reading it via your link (tho Herbert may be a bit naive about effectiveness & thoroughness of footeie testing)

Yes, a few thousand tests a year isn't all that much when you have a couple of thousand athletes playing every weekend.

Interesting to actually crunch some numbers. 2286 tests between 92 professional clubs is 25 tests per club per season. Say a nine month season, so 2.76 tests per month, for a squad of 25. The chance of being tested at random - although I can't believe it's truly random - in a given month is roughly 11%, and there's a roughly 35% chance of not being tested at all in any given season (.88 ^9). Oh, and the rest of the article implies that the majority of these tests only take place after games, so no worries about guessing when the testers might show up. No wonder they're not finding much...

Anyone got comparable figures for cycling?

Edited to add that 25-man squads for 92 clubs is 2,300 footballers, so by their own figures they're unlikely to even test everyone once per season.

stagehopper

I think the point with Herbert's article (he's no football apologist in general) is the recent ramping up of the football testing and introduction of a Blood Passport. That and a journalist having the temerity to call out another paper for shouting from the rooftops over something which looks very slight.

RichN95.

As far as performance enhancement goes who ever does new Chelsea manager Antonio Conte's hair is a sodding genius. I saw him play for Juventus back in 1992 (man of the match) and he was going bald then.

tailwindhome

http://www.balls.ie/football/chelsea-ha ... ger/329525

dennisn

stagehopper wrote:

That and a journalist having the temerity to call out another paper for shouting from the rooftops over something which looks very slight.

Aren't you being a bit naive about journalists and newspapers? It's not like they are above exaggeration, half truths, outright lies, or anything, for that matter, that will sell print.

RichN95.

dennisn wrote:

stagehopper wrote:

That and a journalist having the temerity to call out another paper for shouting from the rooftops over something which looks very slight.

Aren't you being a bit naive about journalists and newspapers? It's not like they are above exaggeration, half truths, outright lies, or anything, for that matter, that will sell print.

Blimey, I assumed you were dead. Nice to hear from you.

I think stagehopper is actually saying the same thing you are.

arnuf

RichN95 wrote:

As far as performance enhancement goes who ever does new Chelsea manager Antonio Conte's hair is a sodding genius. I saw him play for Juventus back in 1992 (man of the match) and he was going bald then.

So what, these things happen. Ask Museeuw.

redvision

I took this report with a pinch of salt. The fact that the The Times have had the claims for months but failed to deliver any significant proof is telling in my opinion.

With regards to football, I have said for a long time that there are not enough tests. I played to a reasonable standard and was only tested twice in 8 years. Since then the tests have increased in number but are still too low.

I guess the reason cyclists are tested far more than football or rugby etc is because it is very much an individual sport where doping really can make a significant difference. In a football team if a player was doping his fitness and perhaps speed would improve but that may not improve his actual performance with the ball.
Rugby is a different kettle of fish and I for one am predicting a huge story/doping scandal to break soon. I hope not, but I suspect it may.

I do think cycling suffers from past events but at the same time it's great to see the sport taking the lead with the battle with doping whilst other sports seemingly turn a blind eye to the issue.