Doping In Sport

You'll note I called this doping in sport, and not doping in cycling. Sports, in general, have had this issue thrust in their face recently, but it's not a new problem. The solutions are not going to be quick, and they are not going to be cheap.

Recently I had a discussion on bikejournal where one particular poster posted the idea of "who care? Let 'em dope. It doesn't affect me." I'd like to first address that issue.

What drives us to watch sport? In my own life I've found that it's the possibility of of seeing a human being lift themselves up to overcome. One of my all-time favorite movies, Vision Quest, has a scene where the wrestling hero, Louden, is wondering why his friend, a short-order cook, would take time off of work to come watch him - after all, it's just a wrestling match, and it's only 5 minutes! His friends reply says it all. He tells him that it's not the time, but what happens in that time. That sometimes an athlete lifts himself above a challenge and excels, and when he does that it lifts everybody that's watching it. Doping cheapens that. Suddenly it's not the human spirit over-coming, it's drugs.

Additionally, younger athletes look to those at higher levels for inspiration and direction in sport. If they're using it influences younger kids to use.

Who cares? I do.

Doping, and other forms of cheating, is not some recent discovery. In the late 70's and early 1980's it became a joke that the women competing for the Soviet Union could beat most of the men competing because they LOOKED like men. EVERYBODY knew that the Soviet's were using. This created the thought that anybody who could beat them must also be using. Evelyn Ashford ran into this when she beat the Soviet women (and later won the gold medal in the 100m sprint at the 1984 Olympics). The saying went, if she was able to beat the "shemales" she must be using herself.

It's common knowledge in cycling, especially the Tour de France, that there have been cheats. Everything from hitching a ride, to using amphetamines. Although it was well known there were cheats, there was a general belief amongst competitors that you could win clean. That all began to change in the mid 1980's. And, not just in the cycling world.

The Soviets dominated almost every sport at the Olympics. Women's sports, especially, were made a joke. I remember watching women's swimming events and being amazed at the masculine features of these swimmers. Initially Soviet dominance was credited with the fact that these athletes were able to train full-time - they were basically professionals but still credited as being amatuers. That story didn't last long.

Soon it became policy for everybody else to use some form of doping. Until just after the 1984 Olympics the practice of blood doping (removing your own blood and later tranfusing it back to you) was NOT illegal. It was policy within the USCF that you blood doped. I find it incredulous that a single cyclist on the 1984 team would even attempt to try and convince the public that he didn't blood dope.

The real problem that developed was that athletes started to believe that the only way to win was to dope. If everybody else is doing it, you're only levelling the playing field, right? I recently read the story of two Olympians in the 1970's. They were friends, one from the Soviet Bloc, the other from the US. They traded victories and records. Before they competed at the Olympics they got together to discuss their training. One told the other what drugs he was using. "Sounds like the program I'm on." was his reply. One won gold, the other silver.

One of the best articles I've read on doping in sport is a recent article (from which I pulled the above story) in RUNNING TIMES - a running magazine. It's in the Jan/Feb 2008 issue and is called "Protect The Innocent."

The bottom line to busting doping in sport is to create the biological passports that cycling teams like Slipstream and Team High Road are putting together, and that now the UCI is promoting. There is no way that testing is ever going to catch all the cheats. There will always be a new drug that can't be identified. (To this day there is not a test that can realiabley detect transfusing your own blood, though one is in the works.) Testing, by it's very nature, will always be one step behind the dopers. However, by creating a profile of an athlete it is possible to detect changes in their physiology that are sudden and enexplainable. The kinds of results that doping creates. Now you're not testing for a specific drug, but the physiological changes a drug is creating.

It also eliminates the ability of an athlete to challenge a test. The fact is the equipment used to run these tests is VERY complicated, and very sensitive. To get accurate readings it requires exact protocols to be followed. I've spoken with people who work on these things and all that I've spoken to say clearly that if the protocols aren't followed exactly the results can't be trusted. Guilty athletes rely on this to create doubt. Innocent athletes could get rail-roaded if these protocols aren't followed. A passport provides an avenue for an athlete to prove his innocence. In an ideal world he shouldn't have to. Everyone should be competing for the love of sport and honor - in the real world we know there are cheats, and the only way to catch them and level the playing field for those who are competing clean is to use the passport.

Doping is a complex problem. It's going to require complex solutions to get rid of it. The only solution I've seen that I would have any faith in is the passport. Is it perfect? Not a chance. There will be some who slip through the cracks - but combined with testing (note: I'm not advocating eliminating testing.) it will make it more difficult for athletes to dope.

The fact is: we KNOW of dopers who were NEVER caught by testing. I'm absolutely convinced that the only people who get caught doping are those who are stupid or who make mistakes. (The case of Tyler Hamilton and Perriero come to mind.)

Dopers suck. Let's get rid of them and return sport to that place where we can all be inspired by amazing performances.

Friday sufferring

Well, it looks like computrainer problems are completely resolved. GREAT! Friday is my scheduled T-max interval day. wooohooo!

I had a few problems at the beginning - but they weren't the same kind of troubles. Looks like someone was messing around with me bike and the cadence magnet and pickup were moved. One of my kids is gonna be in trouble. A little frustrating to have to mess around with that, but it's done and off I went for my T-max.

I had changed the interval session slightly - increased the wattage on the recovery space by 25 watts, and decreased the interval wattage by 20 watts. My reasoning was that I haven't been able to keep the cadence up during the intervals, and that's one of the areas that I'm working on - so, I figured a slightly lower interval wattage would lead to higher cadence. I was right.

I was only able to do 3 of the intervals instead of the scheduled 6 due to some time issues (amazing how much having to mess around with equipment before a ride can eat into available time!)

I was able to keep my average cadence at 95 and kept the interval cadence over 90. That's a huge improvement. So, my intervals wattage was 300 watts even. 2.5 minutes at 300 watts. I was definitely working, but even at that, my max HR only got to 175, so I know I had more to go.

Later today Steve and I are hoping to be able to get a T-max test in for him.

TO THE PAIN!!

Computrainer frustrations

A short post this go round - I'm getting really frustrated with my computrainer - well, not really my computrainer, but my computer.

For the last few rides - for about a week - every time I get to 30 minutes or so the computer loses the connection with the computrainer and my ride program is effectively over. I've been chatting with Computrainer about (their customer service is fantastic!) but as far as we can tell, something, somewhere, has been changed on my computer and it's making the program do wacko things.

Hopefully the changes I made tonight will allow me to go for a full ride tomorrow morning. As it is, I've just been getting warmed up when it goes Kapute!

Friday Night Thoughts

My son and two of his friends are currently downstairs watching Mr. Bean. This means that I will be awake, upstairs, waiting for the show to end (it's not cool for Dad to be down there watching it with them, ya know.) and then driving 'em all home. So, I decided I'd blog a little.

The last couple of days I've done something I wasn't going to do - I've posted a few times to Bikejournal. I guess I really can't keep my mouth shut!

A few things that I've seen re-emphasized to me lately. I'm seeing more and more intolerance. Especially in the anonymous world of the internet - but not just there.

Yesterday morning Mitt Romney was basically forced to give a speech on religous tolerance and freedom. Being a bit of a student of politics I found his thoughts and comments especially uplifting. He didn't get into trying to defend his faith in terms of doctrine. He simply emphasized the founding fathers conviction that freedom of religion, faith, and values contribute to freedom in a general sense. I've recorded his speech so I can make my kids watch it - though I know that's not going to help any. Anyway, here's some links to the speech:

Part I


Part II


Part III


Part IV


Back to my original train of thought. I posted on the low carb weight loss thread at bikejournal because I was getting tired of the intolerant expressions that were creaping up there. As much as I try to stay out of the way of some of this stuff, I really do believe the saying of "all that's needed for evil to triumph is for good men to sit idly by." - so I posted.

Time Trialing

Tomorrow my TT bike will be ready to go. I probably won't actually get it picked up until Tuesday - so pics will be a few more days - but here's what I've got.

I have been riding a GURU trilite bike, but last year at a Provincial ITT 40km race my bike didn't pass inspection - I couldn't get the seat moved far enough back to meet UCI regulations. I made some adjustments, and I can now make it work, but I decided that eventually I was going to do something different.

Then one day last month, as I was doing my usual searches on ebay I found a Specialized Transition from 2006 that was for sale and coming up in a couple of hours, and at only $150. No, it's not the unbelievable machine that the 2008 Transition is, but the 2008 runs $8500. I decided to follow this bike, and if it went cheap enough I was gonna jump on it. I ended up getting the frame for $400.05 plus $70 shipping.

I then picked up a Renn 575 disc clincher wheel with rubber, cassette and skewer for $400.

As I started swapping components over I decided that I wanted more adjustability than what my Oval Concept A700 bars allowed, so I picked up a T2 base bar and mounted my T2+ clip ons onto it.

As I started putting things together I realized I really didn't want to have to fish the cables through the internal routing - so I took the bike into Ascent Cycle and asked them to put it together for me. I picked up a new chain and cables from them, too.

So, the finished bike will have: Dura Ace 7700 Front der and rear der, Dura Ace 7800 bar end shifters, Ultegra 6600 cassette, Ultegra 6500 brake calipers, and some inexpensive Tektro brake levers. I'll be running my Roval Rapide Star front wheel (the stuff I've been reading says that it's faster than the Specialized 3 spoke wheel is) and my Renn disc. I'll need to pick up some new rubber - as I want to put 20 mm tires on 'em.

I've also picked up a new TT helmet - a Giro Advantage 2.

One of the best articles I've ever read on aerodynamics and equipment can be found at http://home.hia.no/~stephens/aero.htm It's written in every day language and allows you to make some good predictions of what kinds of times your equipment will save you.

One of the big surprises I found was that slower riders actually benefit more in time saved than a faster rider does from some equipment changes. However, the biggest single factor is rider position, specifically, getting the back flat.

This year I really want to break one hour for 40km. An "excellent" body position with my current wattage output should be able to get me there. Of course, I'm going to be working on increasing my wattage output. Right now I'm able to hold about 225watts for an hour. (That's average wattage for an hour - with the hills there's points where I jump up well over 300 for brief periods.)

Me and my computrainer begin our December program tomorrow morning. In the words of Monty Python... TO THE PAIN!