Comments on: Juice or No Juice? Who Decides?

By: Nosmo

Nosmo — Thu, 25 May 2006 01:31:34 +0000

Kevin:
By smaller teams I was specifically refering to pro-cycling teams. I believe several have expressed the desire to limit use of altitude tents. Different sports deal with technological inovation differently. The governing body get to make the rules.

1- There is a big difference between taking drugs, (which over the years has killed many atheletes and seriously harmed may others) and designing bobslead runners. Even simplistically one is within the rules and one is not.

2- a)there is more to winning then technology. Money plays a big part, but it is far from the only determining factor.
b)other countries also spend money, sometimes more and sometimes more intellegently.

By: kevin v

kevin v — Thu, 25 May 2006 00:41:43 +0000

“The smaller teams do not like having to spend a lot of money in order to be competitive. There have been a number of rules to designed to mitigate sports becoming technology races”

uh huh. and every four years when the winter Olys come on and they do a 15-minute segment on how NASA is helping design the latest in bobsled runners (or in the summer it’s about frictionless swimsuit design) I wonder two things:

1- what’s the point? isn’t this the same as doping?

2- why aren’t we winning every race?

By: Nosmo

Nosmo — Thu, 25 May 2006 00:05:19 +0000

There are long discussions on various athletic forums (some of the x-country sking & cycling forums I’m a little familiar with, but I’m sure there are many others). This is a big and complicated issue. I’d encourage those interested to search them for a wide variety of opinions, and people who are a lot more knowledgable then me.

EPO only increases hematicrit.
The tent and living at altitude also increases blood volume and has a few other physiological effects that I don’t remember.
They are fundamentally different.

“…monitor hematocrit so it doesn’t exceed a dangerous level.” Cycling does this now, as well as testing for EPO. Several weeks ago I read that at least for cycling the decision on altitude tents was postponed until the fall in order to get more imput from the professional teams.

There are other issues such the cost for the tents, which are very expensive. The smaller teams do not like having to spend a lot of money in order to be competitive. There have been a number of rules to designed to mitigate sports becoming technology races (e.g. cycling minimum weights for bikes and rowing shells, restrictions on bike frame design). Drugs use has been a technology race between the users and the enforcement agencies.

As for Juiced leagues it is not going to happen and is a really bad idea. Currently these drugs are illegal without a doctors prescription. Do you really want kids to idolize atheletes who every one knows is doing drugs?

By: kevin v

kevin v — Wed, 24 May 2006 18:18:46 +0000

since the JMLB would be much more interesting than the JFMLB, the JFMLB would quickly fold. Which raises a question you hinted at in the post: if the public isn’t clamoring for juice-free sports (obviously they aren’t, since the Sosa/Big Mac affair of 1998 brought back millions of fans disaffected by the strike — fans who were obviously willing to suspend reality and pretend that Big Mac was only on protein shakes and a bit of andro), why are unelected governing bodies taking up the mantle on behalf of an apathetic spectating body?

One answer is that they’re doing it not for fans but on behalf of athletes who don’t want to juice but still want to compete. In that case the athletes themselves should be able to tell WADA to backoff, but maybe it’s too late and has gone too far for them. Now that the bureaucratic structure is in place and staffed by overweight chubbos who have never *walked* a mile much less biked 2500, the rule-makers and enforcers have lost touch with their populace.

By: Alpiner

Alpiner — Wed, 24 May 2006 16:47:10 +0000

Sleeping in a tent is little different than injecting EPO, both are methods for increasing hematocrit. Living in Nederland and training in Boulder also yields exact same results. None of these is more dangerous than the other (well the tent and EPO are safer than driving Boulder Canyon year round). As far as the body is concerned, all three methods are natural. Only way to level the playing field is to make them all legit and to monitor hematocrit so it doesn’t exceed a dangerous level.

BTW none of this is new…the first ban of Olympic athletes for using performance enhancing drugs was in 300 BC.