Throwdowns > Closed

Bigalke said 08/29, 09:28 PM
Recently Frank Deford penned this on the SI site:

"At base, we attend games and we become sports fans because we are enthralled that these young men and women are capable, with their bodies, of what we could never manage with ours. When athletes take performance-enhancing drugs they destroy that basic truth."

The reality is that, you weren't getting there WITH PEDs, Frank. To get to the point where an athlete can afford to cycle on and off expensive black-market PEDs, he must already to have exhibited a preternatural flair for physical execution to a level that would allow him to go professional and earn enough to expand that physiology.

Arguments like Deford's assume that there was some "golden era" in sport where the men were pure of body and spirit, a myth of amateurs playing for love of exercise and fraternal competition. A litany of names -- Pud Galvin, Choppy Warburton, Arthur Linton, Tom Hicks, the Pelissier brothers, Manfred Ewald, Dr. John Ziegler, Dr. Michele Ferrari, Ben Johnson, Victor Conte -- throughout history debunk this myth.

There is no pure era. Every era had its own best PEDs, and only the best athletes reached a point to afford them...

Bigalke said 08/30, 06:30 PM
"I just can't believe it" is hardly a defense. The line between simple recreation and performance enhancer is razor thin, and to merely assert that somebody did NOT use PEDs because "you can't believe it" is naive... at best.

The problem is that testing can never keep up with drugs... you have to have a sample of the drug before you can reverse-engineer a test for it. What I'm arguing here is not whether PEDs are good or bad, or who took them.

The fact is that athletes have used the best available pharmaceutical technology of their age -- Galvin with Brown-Sequard Elixir (containing monkey testosterone) in the 1880s, Tom Hicks with strychnine to win the 1904 Olympic marathon, the synthesis of amphetamines in the 1930s, anabolics in the 1950s and beyond. Before cocaine was recreational, it was used by cyclists to stay alert during hours in the saddle.

The reality is that every athlete takes SOMETHING. Any drug -- from aspirin to anabolics -- allow athletes to enhance their current abilities and play on. There are PEDs both legal and illegal, and the fact athletes take them does not diminish the fact that they're showcasing the pinnacle of performanc

Bigalke said 08/31, 02:51 PM
The premise here is not whether or not drugs are bad. The question is whether or not a doped athlete can be the source of sublime physical performances.

An athlete on amphetamines peps up his natural athleticism to keep going longer with less fatigue. An athlete on EPO can process more oxygen more efficiently. The problem in any case is quantification. There are no scientific studies to quantify that X drug has X% effect and Y drug has Y% effect. Which makes the point a wash for both parties.

When you're watching an athletic performance, especially in this era, it is possible to be both skeptical and spellbound. The debate is not whether drugs are good or bad, or which are good or bad. This isn't a value judgment.

Lance Armstrong can still have put in amazing performances on French roads even with EPO etc. in his system. Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire still captivated us in the moment, even knowing what we do in retrospect.

The argument isn't whether EVERY athlete who dopes is the pinnacle. The argument is whether or not ANY doped athlete can put on a sublime performance. And the truth is that they have, time and time again, throughout sports history.