Would you consider taking PEDs to improve your cycling performance?

Shortfall wrote:

First of all we have to have rules in sport or else anything goes and to put it bluntly, if we abandon rules on the grounds that they're difficult to enforce then anarchy follows. Secondly, what is this obsession people have with a level playing field? Someone will always have better genetics, or more money, or better access to training facilities or a better coach etc. Allowing people to take drugs won't change that and by the way, if you want to see what a sport looks like when the authorities give up and it becomes a free for all take a look at professional bodybuilding - a freak show with rigged results and a staggering record of premature deaths and disease amongst it's competitors. Hell, pro cycling was headed that way at one point. Remember all those Belgians having heart attacks when the epo had turned their blood to jam? Remember when you couldn't look at the results without wondering if the winner was the best cyclist or the guy with the best doping doctor or who had the UCI in his pocket?

The thing that makes sport so compelling is watching people overcome their inherent weaknesses and disadvantages to become champions. Geoff Boycott didn't have a tenth of the natural cricketing ability of his peers and yet through hard work, determination, strength of character and sheer bloody mindedness he became one of the outstanding batsmen of the 20th Century. Sport is about using the rules to your advantage either by training smarter than your opponent, being more dedicated, being stronger mentally, devising better equipment or better ways to use it, or sometimes simply using your personality to whip up support from the crowd to your advantage. Sometimes it's all of these things. Drugs subvert all that and you wind up with results that no-one believes in anymore and what's the point of that? With regards to the question from the OP, if you're gonna cheat by using drugs, why not just strap a motor to your crank?

Yes but better access to PED's is really no different...(is it?)

The problem though seems to be a bit of having your cake and eating it....
So if you have a doctor say you need say Salbutamol because you're asthmatic that's OK because it's "levelling a playing field"

To take bodybuilding or weight lifting... people have a choice ..do they compete in the natural or not...

I'm not for one or the other ... I just think it should be one or the other.

It's really the same with pro vs am .... either you're paid to do it or you aren't...all the trust funds and such is just BS ....

Seb Coe (or his family) had enough money to fund him... Steve Ovett didn't.....

Shortfall wrote:

Steve-XcT wrote:

The TUE thing muddys the waters a bit and to be frank I don't know enough about the intricacies of it to give a fully informed opinion, particularly with this athletic induced asthma situation. What I would say is that sports governing bodies have a a real can of worms trying to manage TUEs and whatever system they come up with won't be perfect. Some athletes will find a way to cheat no matter what. I do find it odd that so many elite sportsmen and particularly cyclists seem to suffer from this condition which we'd never really heard of until recently and there has to be a rigourous regime in place to try and weed out people who are abusing the system. Back to the OPs point about amateurs using such medicines for a performance gain. Yes we've all wondered what effect taking peds would have for us as individuals and the answer is yes that some over the counter medicines may improve athletic performance. Using a motor also makes you faster. Both are cheating. It's not something I would do.

I doubt knowing more would help ....because as you say some are going to find a way to cheat anyway.

The problem is the wide range of substances classed as PED's....
Having been on prendisolone I'd really question if its performance enhancing at all .. unless you are recovering from an injury (or have other medical reasons) and are lucky on the side effects... my experience is quite the opposite...I hated being on it... I felt terrible...

Likewise I can't see salbutamol making any difference to me.... (I haven't tried so I'm guessing) but not only is my haeomoglobin O2 capture really high but when I blow the asthma tube I can easily take it past the end...

So it's only useful to someone "not like me" .... but then that's not half the population of Peru or Nepal... etc.

What I think I'm trying to say is it needs to be one or the other... because like you say the level playing field is just an obsession. Just plucking numbers from thin air (pun intended) but 95% of the population of the UK will never have the lung and oxygen capacity of the average Nepalese sherpa. (Even with Salbutamol)

It's just the way it is ... like must black people are going to have to try harder to be better swimmers but for many less hard to be better sprinters.... Inuit's can eat seal and polar bear and not die ... 99.9% of the UK can't.... and my mate with both parents pure bred Massai is always going to find basketball easier than me...

I think you hit it earlier with the obsession with level playing fields...

Incidentally I can't really race any more as I can't train due to another freakish genetic quirk... (and the reason for the prendisolone) I also need intramuscular B12 once a month or I can't get my own socks on, let alone ride a bike.... but lets say someone came up with a pharmacutical solution ... why would it specifically be cheating to take a drug that allows me normal mobility ?

Thinking about it... you're right its a freakin can of worms...

SloppySchleckonds wrote:

Shortfall wrote:

The TUE thing muddys the waters a bit and to be frank I don't know enough about the intricacies of it to give a fully informed opinion, particularly with this athletic induced asthma situation. What I would say is that sports governing bodies have a a real can of worms trying to manage TUEs and whatever system they come up with won't be perfect. Some athletes will find a way to cheat no matter what.

You mean like using a TUE as a masking agent?

I think they mean more simply ...
If you are asthmatic and are possibly about to die on a trail with an athletic induced asthma attack should you really be playing with your life and not taking a potentially life saving drug???..

Wider, what if the GP prescribes a drug and then for no valid medical reason you refuse ???

and who decides what's a performance enhancing drug and who gets exemptions??? The whole thing has turned into a business for a few people....

I remember years ago a Canadian snowboarder got detected with some trace levels of cannabis ... he claimed he must have passively inhaled, I can't remember what happened but either way what PERFORMANCE enhancing was there ???

Lots of people have asthma inhalers ... many never need to use them... they are carried like an epi-pen... but should they be in a position of near death before they can use them ??

I can imagine a world where we have medi-alerts carrying not only things we are allergic to but medicines that are banned as PED's so we get hit by a bus and the ambulance arrives but our medi-alert has a list of hundreds of substances that can't be used to help keep us alive ...

HaydenM wrote:

Steve-XcT wrote:

Salbutamol is normal asthma inhaler .... the blue one. Should we ban everyone who has asthma ?
Asthmatics obviously go faster when they can breath.... so its performance enhancing.

I know it's not the main focus of discussion but is there a difference between performance normalising and performance enhancing? The line is muddied but there definitely is, and should remain to be. Salbutamol has no effect on non-asthmatics and a limited effect on asthmatics as it can only restore you to using your usual lung capacity and not more.

Say you had a regular vomiting problem for whatever reason, would you take a drug to stop it happening mid race (one with no other effects than to stop you vomiting)? Is that performance enhancing or performance normalising? Would it chance your answer to the OPs question?

The difference is that you are curing a diagnosed medical condition rather than the negative effects of exercise

Yes and no .... which is why its such a bag of worms...
I agree on Salbutamol but it's the same for many conditions ... many of which might not even be diagnosed.

By that I mean there are a whole load of conditions that no-one really understands... even things like Alzheimers and Parkinsons are not fully diagnosed... it's all subjective...

and what's normal for someone from the UK is not normal for someone from Nepal or Chili/Peru... generations of evolution can't be overcome by a PED. For someone who's ancestors lived at 10,000'+ they will always have an advantage, especially at 10,000'+ it's just the way it is... but then some 7' dutch guy who's ancestors haven't been more than 50m above seal level for generations is always going to be more natural at basketball...

It feels to me like we are trying to fix nature when we talk about performance levelling??
There are many cases of for example men (and women) with massive amounts of testosterone naturally...
Some people have faster or slower reactions or different muscle ratio's etc. When something has a recognised cause it becomes something we can diagnose.... then perhaps it can be issued an exemption but I feel like we are simply recognising some and not others...

To give an example ... take anti-nausea .. someone might suffer air sickness going to attend a race and someone else might not... this might be the reason for vomiting... but for someone else it might be a just as valid (or not) reason but one that isn't specifically diagnosed... so they are not permitted the anti-nausia....

HaydenM wrote:

Well, we are trying to fix nature by prescribing drugs to people who need them to get back to their normal level of health. I think it comes down to whether we think it gives someone an unfair advantage or not. It's up to anti doping agencies to decide where the line is and I don't really see a problem with that in theory.

I could try and race without my inhaler in my back pocket, I would mostly be fine but there is a small chance I might die. I have absolutely no moral qualms about taking it when I need it as all it can do is give me my lung capacity back in the event of an asthma attack, it's proven not to have performance enhancing effects among non asthmatics. I'd probably just not race if I wasn't allowed it and more importantly, why would you want to compete against someone who every now and then has to go home in an ambulance, it would be a hollow victory would it not? It's difference with more open ended drugs/health problems and that is where anti doping people need to do their job correctly and fairly

I agree.... I'm just saying it's way wider than asthmatics and at the same time could actually kill someone.

It's up to anti doping agencies to decide where the line is and I don't really see a problem with that in theory.

In theory but I would say if a doctor has prescribed a drug it's really up to the medical authorities ... not a self appointed body ...

Much as we might lament the actual athletes they are not (mostly qualified doctors) ... and it's more a problem if we have "bent doctors" IMHO ... the doctors are really the ones who should be being questioned by proper qualified medical experts on any prescription as opposed to the ones taking it. At least then some of the grey area becomes less grey..

As you say, what's the point in racing someone who now and then has to go home in an ambulance ???

Equally we could ban protection ensuring only those with harder than average heads or thicker than average necks survive ???
It's really not so different ....

[quote="bobmcstuff"

I would expect the anti-doping authorities to take adequate advice from medical professionals including reviewing appropriate literature when making the decision on what is allowed and what isn't... I don't think they're making decisions on what to ban on a whim.

Since plenty of doctors have been involved in doping (Fuentes, Ferrari...), there needs to be an independent body.[/quote]

But there is an independent body for doctors...

I don't disagree that plenty have been involved in doping but that is the problem with splitting the blame as it were to committees and each sport and sub-sport having its own... (It's not like there is a sport called "cycling" ... and the committee for time trials is probably not the same as for downhill racing or cyclocross etc.)

As to adequate advice from medical professionals ? This doesn't appear to be listened to or accurate ...at least in terms of "performance enhancing" .... as it's hard to see how many of the substances are performance enhancing... they might well be illegal but that doesn't make cannabis performance enhancing .... and salbutamol and prendisolone are very debatable...indeed most likely to actually be performance inhibiting unless you have a serious medical condition.