Doping...cheating?

ddraver

An interesting article by that Malcom Gladwell about genetics in sport (a book review of The Sporting Gene)

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/a ... e_gladwell

worth a read on a train home...

(edit - you can stop when it gets to Hamilton/Armstrong, point has been made)

Richmond Racer

Surprise - Gladwell coming out with this as a counter to Epstein's The Sports Gene, which turns Gladwell's theory on its head that we could all be fantastic athletes in the discipline of our choice if we trained for the magic number of 10,000 hours?

markhewitt1978

Wasn't it that you could become competitive or an expert in a subject? There is a big difference between that and being a champion.

Richmond Racer

markhewitt1978 wrote:

Wasn't it that you could become competitive or an expert in a subject? There is a big difference between that and being a champion.

Alright alright, I might have over-egged it with 'champion'

iainf72

Richmond Racer wrote:

Surprise - Gladwell coming out with this as a counter to Epstein's The Sports Gene, which turns Gladwell's theory on its head that we could all be fantastic athletes in the discipline of our choice if we trained for the magic number of 10,000 hours?

I know you're being flippant, but that isn't what Gladwell said at all

Anyone who read Outliers would know that.

Richmond Racer

yes, Iain

Le Commentateur

ddraver wrote:

(edit - you can stop when it gets to Hamilton/Armstrong, point has been made)

But that's where it gets interesting because he makes the point that, freed from genetic advantages, drugs allow those with good work ethic to prosper, which is a cornerstone philosophy in the Land of the Free, where apparently anyone can become President or otherwise prosper if only they strive hard enough.

ddraver

Le Commentateur wrote:

ddraver wrote:

(edit - you can stop when it gets to Hamilton/Armstrong, point has been made)

But that's where it gets interesting because he makes the point that, freed from genetic advantages, drugs allow those with good work ethic to prosper, which is a cornerstone philosophy in the Land of the Free, where apparently anyone can become President or otherwise prosper if only they strive hard enough.

Ok, fair point. I think it's an interesting viewpoint. (99% of what Gladwell does is to just raise interesting questions to be fair...). I thought it was interesting how people jumped all over it as "excusing cheating" (a certain TdF winner's fiance for example) as I don't think that's what he was saying at all.

If there is an equivalent of a Baseballer transplanting a tendon from a corpse to get a better Pitch (totally legal), then blood transfusing is probably it...

It's a purely philosophical discussion obviously but an interesting one...

timoid.

Interesting article, obviously written to provoke debate rather than back up a stance.

It ignores the fact that some people are genetically pre-disposed to responding to doping (Armstrong) and others aren't (Mancebo), so you still have an unfair genetic lottery despite the doping.