Prior to watching this video, I used to have more of a realist perspective on doping in TF, not everyone does it but there's a few bad actors; after watching this, I feel much more pessimistic towards the doping issue. Thoughts??
That video is simultaneously super interesting and depressing. I’ve decided that I’m done watching track after the 2024 Olympics. It was Jessica Hull and Shane Cohen that broke the camel’s back for me. So blatant and will no doubt inspire a wave of future cheaters.
Doping is in all sports (at the highest level). If you ain’t cheating, you aren’t trying.
I disagree
Doping is prevalent in sports where it has significant and direct impact e.g. track, swimming, weightlifting, etc and also where opportunities to make money are scarce .
If you are a basketball player like Kevin Durant or Steph Curry and your success depends on your ability to shoot a basketball and you have guaranteed contracts, you would have to be dumb to dope. There is only a downside. These players are guaranteed to make money even 20 years after retirement. The only issue that could derail their earnings is being busted for doping. Now mind you even second tier basketball players make good money decades after retirement. You would have to be dumb to dope if you are an NBA player.
And if you are an aspiring NBA player, doping is still dumb. To make a roster spot as a role player, you need to certain things well like shooting or handling the ball under pressure or rebounding. Doping doesn't help any of those.
I use basketball as an example but the same applies to many other team sports. If you are a high level soccer player like Messi or Ronaldo, doping would also be dumb because you can still make good money by going to play at a lower level. Look at Messi and Ronaldo. As their abilities decline, instead of doping, they had the option of going to play in a lower league and still make good money. Messi is in Miami and Ronaldo is in Saudi Arabia.
That video is simultaneously super interesting and depressing. I’ve decided that I’m done watching track after the 2024 Olympics. It was Jessica Hull and Shane Cohen that broke the camel’s back for me. So blatant and will no doubt inspire a wave of future cheaters.
Doping is in all sports (at the highest level). If you ain’t cheating, you aren’t trying.
I disagree
Doping is prevalent in sports where it has significant and direct impact e.g. track, swimming, weightlifting, etc and also where opportunities to make money are scarce .
If you are a basketball player like Kevin Durant or Steph Curry and your success depends on your ability to shoot a basketball and you have guaranteed contracts, you would have to be dumb to dope. There is only a downside. These players are guaranteed to make money even 20 years after retirement. The only issue that could derail their earnings is being busted for doping. Now mind you even second tier basketball players make good money decades after retirement. You would have to be dumb to dope if you are an NBA player.
And if you are an aspiring NBA player, doping is still dumb. To make a roster spot as a role player, you need to certain things well like shooting or handling the ball under pressure or rebounding. Doping doesn't help any of those.
I use basketball as an example but the same applies to many other team sports. If you are a high level soccer player like Messi or Ronaldo, doping would also be dumb because you can still make good money by going to play at a lower level. Look at Messi and Ronaldo. As their abilities decline, instead of doping, they had the option of going to play in a lower league and still make good money. Messi is in Miami and Ronaldo is in Saudi Arabia.
You are wrong. Doping helps in every kind of sport and is found in every sport. It is in chess, championship darts, curling - anything that is a competition.
Doping is prevalent in sports where it has significant and direct impact e.g. track, swimming, weightlifting, etc and also where opportunities to make money are scarce .
If you are a basketball player like Kevin Durant or Steph Curry and your success depends on your ability to shoot a basketball and you have guaranteed contracts, you would have to be dumb to dope. There is only a downside. These players are guaranteed to make money even 20 years after retirement. The only issue that could derail their earnings is being busted for doping. Now mind you even second tier basketball players make good money decades after retirement. You would have to be dumb to dope if you are an NBA player.
And if you are an aspiring NBA player, doping is still dumb. To make a roster spot as a role player, you need to certain things well like shooting or handling the ball under pressure or rebounding. Doping doesn't help any of those.
I use basketball as an example but the same applies to many other team sports. If you are a high level soccer player like Messi or Ronaldo, doping would also be dumb because you can still make good money by going to play at a lower level. Look at Messi and Ronaldo. As their abilities decline, instead of doping, they had the option of going to play in a lower league and still make good money. Messi is in Miami and Ronaldo is in Saudi Arabia.
You are wrong. Doping helps in every kind of sport and is found in every sport. It is in chess, championship darts, curling - anything that is a competition.
You missed the point. Yes doping can help in any sport however for some sports, doping is just dumb. The downside is too high.
There is a famous soccer player called Paul Pogba who has been banned for 4 years effectively ending his career. His decision to use dope was dumb. He was playing for the top team in Italy. If he was unable to maintain that level, he could have simply joined a lower team with lower expectations and still made good money. Instead he chose to dope and has now lost everything including future endorsements. Again a really dumb decision.
You are wrong. Doping helps in every kind of sport and is found in every sport. It is in chess, championship darts, curling - anything that is a competition.
You missed the point. Yes doping can help in any sport however for some sports, doping is just dumb. The downside is too high.
There is a famous soccer player called Paul Pogba who has been banned for 4 years effectively ending his career. His decision to use dope was dumb. He was playing for the top team in Italy. If he was unable to maintain that level, he could have simply joined a lower team with lower expectations and still made good money. Instead he chose to dope and has now lost everything including future endorsements. Again a really dumb decision.
Yes I agree, I certainly would never use steroids in say MLB.
You missed the point. Yes doping can help in any sport however for some sports, doping is just dumb. The downside is too high.
There is a famous soccer player called Paul Pogba who has been banned for 4 years effectively ending his career. His decision to use dope was dumb. He was playing for the top team in Italy. If he was unable to maintain that level, he could have simply joined a lower team with lower expectations and still made good money. Instead he chose to dope and has now lost everything including future endorsements. Again a really dumb decision.
Yes I agree, I certainly would never use steroids in say MLB.
I never mentioned MLB . I guess your reading and comprehension skills are as deficient as the other person
I said doping is effective in some sports. It is useless in certain sports and in some sports the downside is too high
The reason doping is prevalent in sports like track and swimming is two fold:
1. It has a direct impact on your performance. 2. Track athletes only get paid if they win big races. Unlike soccer, you don't have the option of dropping to a lower level and still making money.
In baseball also doping has a direct impact on how fast you can throw the ball or how hard you can hit it.
No one on this thread has explained how doping would help a basketball player. The only reason I can think of is recovery. But the NBA has guaranteed contracts which means a player can miss an entire season or seasons and still get paid . That further reduces the need to dope for recovery. Why would you dope if you can sit at home and still get paid ? And if you are busted for doping, you lose your guaranteed money. That would be dumb.
Doping is prevalent in sports where it has significant and direct impact e.g. track, swimming, weightlifting, etc and also where opportunities to make money are scarce .
If you are a basketball player like Kevin Durant or Steph Curry and your success depends on your ability to shoot a basketball and you have guaranteed contracts, you would have to be dumb to dope. There is only a downside. These players are guaranteed to make money even 20 years after retirement. The only issue that could derail their earnings is being busted for doping. Now mind you even second tier basketball players make good money decades after retirement. You would have to be dumb to dope if you are an NBA player.
And if you are an aspiring NBA player, doping is still dumb. To make a roster spot as a role player, you need to certain things well like shooting or handling the ball under pressure or rebounding. Doping doesn't help any of those.
I use basketball as an example but the same applies to many other team sports. If you are a high level soccer player like Messi or Ronaldo, doping would also be dumb because you can still make good money by going to play at a lower level. Look at Messi and Ronaldo. As their abilities decline, instead of doping, they had the option of going to play in a lower league and still make good money. Messi is in Miami and Ronaldo is in Saudi Arabia.
Seriously, your example is basketball? The Chicago Bulls in the early 90s were all about the steroids. Telling the media they were hitting the gym. Then the 92 Olympic dream team almost never happened until they could negotiate a short testing window that would allow the players to appear clean. Sorry to burst your bubble.
Doping is prevalent in sports where it has significant and direct impact e.g. track, swimming, weightlifting, etc and also where opportunities to make money are scarce .
If you are a basketball player like Kevin Durant or Steph Curry and your success depends on your ability to shoot a basketball and you have guaranteed contracts, you would have to be dumb to dope. There is only a downside. These players are guaranteed to make money even 20 years after retirement. The only issue that could derail their earnings is being busted for doping. Now mind you even second tier basketball players make good money decades after retirement. You would have to be dumb to dope if you are an NBA player.
And if you are an aspiring NBA player, doping is still dumb. To make a roster spot as a role player, you need to certain things well like shooting or handling the ball under pressure or rebounding. Doping doesn't help any of those.
I use basketball as an example but the same applies to many other team sports. If you are a high level soccer player like Messi or Ronaldo, doping would also be dumb because you can still make good money by going to play at a lower level. Look at Messi and Ronaldo. As their abilities decline, instead of doping, they had the option of going to play in a lower league and still make good money. Messi is in Miami and Ronaldo is in Saudi Arabia.
Seriously, your example is basketball? The Chicago Bulls in the early 90s were all about the steroids. Telling the media they were hitting the gym. Then the 92 Olympic dream team almost never happened until they could negotiate a short testing window that would allow the players to appear clean. Sorry to burst your bubble.
NBA players of that era were not using performance enhancing substances. They were on Crack Cocaine. Thats why they didn't wanna get tested. Jordan said as much in an interview recently. This discussion is about performance enhancing substances not Performance Inhibiting substances. You are off topic . Open a separate thread for your topic.
I should also mention that the crack era of the NBA was the 1980s not the 1990s.
And its laughable for you to associate the dream team with PEDS as if they needed it.
They were by far the best players on the planet during a period when the rest of the world didn't take basketball seriously so there were hardly any good international players. Why would the dream team need PEDs ?
Seriously, your example is basketball? The Chicago Bulls in the early 90s were all about the steroids. Telling the media they were hitting the gym. Then the 92 Olympic dream team almost never happened until they could negotiate a short testing window that would allow the players to appear clean. Sorry to burst your bubble.
NBA players of that era were not using performance enhancing substances. They were on Crack Cocaine. Thats why they didn't wanna get tested. Jordan said as much in an interview recently. This discussion is about performance enhancing substances not Performance Inhibiting substances. You are off topic . Open a separate thread for your topic.
lol. Steroid use was obvious to even a casual viewer.
You are wrong. Doping helps in every kind of sport and is found in every sport. It is in chess, championship darts, curling - anything that is a competition.
You missed the point. Yes doping can help in any sport however for some sports, doping is just dumb. The downside is too high.
There is a famous soccer player called Paul Pogba who has been banned for 4 years effectively ending his career. His decision to use dope was dumb. He was playing for the top team in Italy. If he was unable to maintain that level, he could have simply joined a lower team with lower expectations and still made good money. Instead he chose to dope and has now lost everything including future endorsements. Again a really dumb decision.
I wouldn't be so sure these are all individual decisions.
For the sake of the argmentation, just imagine that for some reason, it's the teams that have the players dope. In this hypothesis, your argument is completely reversed. Not doping would be what more likely ends the carreer of any clean and not willing to cheat young player.
Now I am not saying teams are full on doping their players. But I might have heard stories of certain teams wanting some of their younger rising players to engage in "legal" grey area stuff (TUEs for real reasons more linked to performance than linked to the athlete health, various semi-experimental supplementation, etc...) and putting quite a bit of pressure on the ones who where reluctant to take things they knew little about.
You will say that is libbel. Yes. I am anonymous, I will keep my sources anonymous and I even will not tell the name of the team. Just don't believe me if you don't want to, but ask yourself how your team sports argument goes if half of what I say is true.
As a side note: unlike Armstronglives I'm not even convinced every olympic medalist is dirty in solo sports. My point is just that teams sports (especially soccer in europe, MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL) are certainly not imune from doping.
NBA players of that era were not using performance enhancing substances. They were on Crack Cocaine. Thats why they didn't wanna get tested. Jordan said as much in an interview recently. This discussion is about performance enhancing substances not Performance Inhibiting substances. You are off topic . Open a separate thread for your topic.
lol. Steroid use was obvious to even a casual viewer.
You have no proof.
Did steroids help Larry Bird make those crazy shots from behind the backboard or help Magic make those crazy passes or help Tim Hardaway's crazy two step ?
Were steroids the reason why Dennis Rodman was so good at anticipating shots that he grabbed 15 rebounds per game.
You missed the point. Yes doping can help in any sport however for some sports, doping is just dumb. The downside is too high.
There is a famous soccer player called Paul Pogba who has been banned for 4 years effectively ending his career. His decision to use dope was dumb. He was playing for the top team in Italy. If he was unable to maintain that level, he could have simply joined a lower team with lower expectations and still made good money. Instead he chose to dope and has now lost everything including future endorsements. Again a really dumb decision.
I wouldn't be so sure these are all individual decisions.
For the sake of the argmentation, just imagine that for some reason, it's the teams that have the players dope. In this hypothesis, your argument is completely reversed. Not doping would be what more likely ends the carreer of any clean and not willing to cheat young player.
Now I am not saying teams are full on doping their players. But I might have heard stories of certain teams wanting some of their younger rising players to engage in "legal" grey area stuff (TUEs for real reasons more linked to performance than linked to the athlete health, various semi-experimental supplementation, etc...) and putting quite a bit of pressure on the ones who where reluctant to take things they knew little about.
You will say that is libbel. Yes. I am anonymous, I will keep my sources anonymous and I even will not tell the name of the team. Just don't believe me if you don't want to, but ask yourself how your team sports argument goes if half of what I say is true.
As a side note: unlike Armstronglives I'm not even convinced every olympic medalist is dirty in solo sports. My point is just that teams sports (especially soccer in europe, MLB, NBA, NFL or NHL) are certainly not imune from doping.
Doping exists in soccer, basketball and all sports. I have never said it doesn't exist. I have said it is less effective and in most cases just dumb. So the prevalence of doping is lower in these sports.
During the state sponsored doping era of the 1970s and 1980s, East German and Soviet soccer teams were doped to the gills. But they were useless. East Germany hardly ever qualified for the world cup and the USSR was sub par.
During this era, Eastern European nations that had state sponsored doping programs excelled in track and swimming. By contrast, the Eastern European teams that excelled in soccer and basketball were the likes of Yugoslavia which relied on skill development.
lol. Steroid use was obvious to even a casual viewer.
You have no proof.
Did steroids help Larry Bird make those crazy shots from behind the backboard or help Magic make those crazy passes or help Tim Hardaway's crazy two step ?
Were steroids the reason why Dennis Rodman was so good at anticipating shots that he grabbed 15 rebounds per game.
Steroids make you faster and jump higher. They help if your role is to be an aggressive enforcer like Rodman. They help recovery between games. This isn’t chess, basketball is a physical game. Go back and watch Jordan in college then watch as his body changes through his pro years. It is worth a laugh.
Prior to watching this video, I used to have more of a realist perspective on doping in TF, not everyone does it but there's a few bad actors; after watching this, I feel much more pessimistic towards the doping issue. Thoughts??
If doping was effective in soccer and basketball then I would expect East Germany to win the world cup in the 1970s and 80s and Russia would produce excellent soccer players and basketball players.
Interestingly, the best basketball players who played for the USSR in the 1980s were Lithuanians. Russia hardly produced players. Tiny Lithuania had 4 out of 5 starters when the USSR won gold in 1988.