http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/othe...ng/5221122.stm

And here I had been hoping that after the clean up just before the race it would at least be clean...

Hey dplax how have you been?

Anything special going on for summer?

..I think I'm spamming?

shouldn't it be: gives positive drug test?

I've been doing fine, apart from suffering from the heat like everyone else. [img]smile.gif[/img]

I'm still around on IW, just don't come out often from the roleplay section.

For the grammar...I went with the way BBC wrote it. I'm happy to be wrong, if they are also wrong. [img]tongue.gif[/img]

How've you been?

These people should just bribe some officials and all the drug issues would be done with.

Cycling's not like football... [img]tongue.gif[/img]

I did see it spelled that way in the article. It just sounds funny.

Where are you for the summer re:heat?

I've been doing well. I've been working from homew for the last 3 months. Still with Staples but I don't need to go in anymore.

I've doing a lot of home renovations which have fun.

We're actually doing a little bit of Star Wars role playing on Wednesday evenings. It's pretty good.

I don't get it, why do they dope them self? I mean, many times they get caught! and how fun is it to win when you cheat? bah! idiots!

I have to admit i found Landis' comeback in day 17 rather amazing and a little suspicious after being blown away the day before, but according to the experts, the stuff they found in the test doesn't work over one night, so he must have taken it way before his great comeback. Perhaps he had a vision he was going to collapse somewhere in the Alps ?

All i can say is that nothing surprises me anymore in the world of professional cycling. It's a shame that such a great sport is being corrupted by so many people. If it's true, Landis should be banned for life, and the same applies to the cheaters that got caught before the Tour even began. Cheating in sports, in ANY sports, really disgusts the crap out of me. How can you stand there with a medal around your neck, knowing that you willingly cheated on your employer, your teammates, your fans, and everyone with an interest in the game ?

[ 07-27-2006, 02:48 PM: Message edited by: johnny ]

I can only fully agree with that johnny. That comeback was unexpected to say the least, and the fact that it is the day when he failed the doping test only adds to the suspicion.

I'm not going to call him guilty yet, because there is still the second test, but if he is guilty I'm pretty sure that he would deserve to be stripped of his Tour title, which would then go to Pereiro, who I must say is a most unlikely winner...the peleton doesn't always allow you to get half an hour back.

What I find strange about the whole thing isn't that it's happening, it's that you only (and always) hear about it in cycling. It's not like that's the sport where the big money is, nor are the other branches of sport remotely clean.

As for the testosterone, the guy won, is it any wonder he makes more?

You're misinformed, i hear that if you win the Tour once, you'll never have to work another day in your life. There's also good money to be made in the classics like Liege-Bastogne-Liege.

The reason we hear so much about positive tests from cyclists, is that the frequency of testing for drugabuse is much more intense than in any other sport, but just for the record....the world of track and field is just as rotten as the world of cycling. A lot of gold medallists have been caught later, like Johnson and Marion Jones. Florence griffith's early death raises questions too. There have been cases in football, especially players competing in the Spanish and Italian leagues, but football has other issues to worry about, such as bribery.

Baseball is another sport where people get caught on a regular basis. Even Tennis pops up every now and then. Weightlifting, full contact fightingsports, wrestling, swimming...they all are under suspicion. We only get to see the tip of the iceberg i'm afraid.

We had a funny case here in Holland the other day, when a goalkeeper tested positive on.....marihuana. Now trust me when i say that this stuff does everything BUT improve your goalkeepingskills. There's a good chance you'll be seeing several balls at the same time, or none at all. This can hardly be qualified as a case of dope abuse if you ask me. the guy is only fooling himself if he smokes weed the night before a match, and he's also a hazzard to his teammates. :D

It all depends on how much that more actually is.

Edit: johnny seems to have beat me to posting, I was referring to the more in Legolas's post.

[ 07-27-2006, 03:28 PM: Message edited by: dplax ]

Yeah, i was faster than you, and i didn't even dope myself up. :D

Btw...does beer count as dope ?

Apparently the yellow jersey winner gets 450,000 euro, it's 25,000 euro for green, same for spotted, 20,000 for white, then there's a 20,000 euro combativity prize and a best by team time of 50,000 (to be split). Then there are other small prizes like 8,000 for winning a day's stage and 350 euro for winning the yellow jersey for one day.
Sure, it adds up to a bit more, but this is one of the worst paying professional sporting events you can think of. Arguably a good thing. There's more money in the concourses following the Tour, true, but you've to be a very good and active rider if you want to win enough to last you a lifetime.

I have a solution to the drug cheat issue. Athletes found guilty of drug cheating should be taken to a square in the city that their federation is based in and publicly flogged on their bare buttocks with a big stick, in front of TV cameras worldwide. The worse the offence, the more floggings they get. Singapore does this for people who vandalise things and they have the cleanest city in the world.

Just think - you could punish the drug cheats and make money off them via TV rights in the meantime. Who wouldn't enjoy watching Ben Johnson, Lars Ulrich or any of the other cheaters get whipped in the arse?

/* Assuming you meant this seriously and not as a joke */

Problem with your solution is these issues are not always 100% clear. Some medications can produce same effects as the doping substance. The athlete could be taking the medication in good faith not knowing it contains some doping substance.

[ 07-27-2006, 04:26 PM: Message edited by: ZFR ]

The problem is that players are punished for the use of drugs, can't take part for a year and that's about that. Take it out on the team and the sponsors and it becomes a much less interesting risk to take.

That I agree with. I was just pointing out a problem in Memnoch's solution.

Apparently the yellow jersey winner gets 450,000 euro, it's 25,000 euro for green, same for spotted, 20,000 for white, then there's a 20,000 euro combativity prize and a best by team time of 50,000 (to be split). Then there are other small prizes like 8,000 for winning a day's stage and 350 euro for winning the yellow jersey for one day.
Sure, it adds up to a bit more, but this is one of the worst paying professional sporting events you can think of. Arguably a good thing. There's more money in the concourses following the Tour, true, but you've to be a very good and active rider if you want to win enough to last you a lifetime. </font>[/QUOTE]Bah, it's that blasted Euro that messed it up again. If we'd still have the almighty Guilder, it would have been a cool mil. :D It just sounds so much better. :D

On a serious note, it's probably about time cycling joins the other sham sports (pro-wrestling, bodybuilding, hotdog eating etc) and fully embrace and encourage the union of sports and drugs. Hell why stop there? Why not pre-select the winner, choreograph crashes, stage brawls at the handing out of the yellow jersey and whatnot. :D

I just cant understand how they think they wont get snapped - especially if you win.
even if the guy is a great cyclist - he is dumb as a post!

My understanding of the test is that they found a high ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone (or vice versa), where the ratio is normally 1:1. So from that, they deduce that performance enhancers have been taked. They haven't determined a specific drug, so there's no way (yet) of knowing how long "it" took to affect him, assuming there was an "it".

So they're taking a symptom (or effect) and deducing a cause. It then falls on the cyclist to demonstrate another possible cause that could lead to that sympton... and apparently, he had clearance for a couple of medications.

If he did dope, he's just plain stupid... and don't forget that stupid and high-level athletes do sometimes go together. Witness head-butting an opponent, head-butting your horse, carrying a whizzinator on a plane... the list goes on.

It is interesting that it keeps popping up in the Tour de France. Perhaps there are some folks getting upset in the wrong way...

Apparently the yellow jersey winner gets 450,000 euro, it's 25,000 euro for green, same for spotted, 20,000 for white, then there's a 20,000 euro combativity prize and a best by team time of 50,000 (to be split). Then there are other small prizes like 8,000 for winning a day's stage and 350 euro for winning the yellow jersey for one day.
Sure, it adds up to a bit more, but this is one of the worst paying professional sporting events you can think of. Arguably a good thing. There's more money in the concourses following the Tour, true, but you've to be a very good and active rider if you want to win enough to last you a lifetime. </font>[/QUOTE]Like with most sports, the real money is in sponsorships. The better you do (and the better team you're on), the more money you get. Also, good performances have a large bearing on your financial viability when you retire - sponsorships, book deals, etc.

I think there is an overrepresentation of drug incidents in cycling, although I agree with Johnny that there are other sports that are similarly overrepresented, track and field being a major one. However, I think it's probably less surprising when you think about the nature of competitive road cycling. I think it is probably one of, if not the most difficult sport in terms of the toll on your body and the degree of fitness that is needed. I don't think it's that unusual that athletes in a sport requiring that level of strength, endurance, etc. find performance enhancing drugs more appealing than something like basketball or something where you play a match a week and a few hours of training a day. Like at the world cup - commentators were all, he played the FULL 90 minutes - like, whoopee ;)