Ostapchuk stripped of gold

[poths]

I wonder if WADA are finally on top of their game instead of one step behind the dopers, so that it won't be worth the risk anymore!

One can always dream!

Jeter, Makhlouifi, Cakir, Bullut, Lysenko, Wells and a fist full of others are still wallowing in their medal wins....so WADA have done fck all IMO other than encourage others to follow suit. Ostapchuk was just too desperate for the win that she timed her cycle later for more effect. This is not a WADA win, it's an Ostapchuk fck up. If they did their jobs right in the first place, this blatant and chronic drug cheat would have been caught a decade ago!

[Garden Kitty]

This blog is getting linked a lot on cycling sites today.

[millyskate]

This blog is getting linked a lot on cycling sites today.

Thanks for posting, that was an interesting read.

[Tesla]

This blog is getting linked a lot on cycling sites today.

Very interesting. I've thought the same thing since Beijing.

[Mayra]

The article above is one of the reasons why I simply can't get excited about track and field. There are simply too many questions and red flags raised with each win and world record broken.

I simply don't think it's humanly possible for an athlete to compete "clean." Not when you are competing against the biggest and sometimes smartest dopers in the world.

My mother had a spanish saying she liked to lecture me with whenever she thought I was hanging with the wrong crowd. "Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres." I can't help but apply it with the likes of Jeter and Bolt.

[poths]

Cowherd's rant is referencing this article by Dan Bernstein:

Bernstein: Usain Bolt Is Probably Doping (And You Know It)

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2012/08/...d-you-know-it/

The article and Cowherd are sloppy as they both talk a lot about Bolt's ties to Angel Hernedia of BALCO- which was/is 100% not fact and just sloppy reporting as that never existed. Someone used the word "Bolt" for sprinter and was being lazy/purposely incriminating within their paperwork.

Of course there is every possibility that Bolt is on some amazing undetectable drug, I'm not totally naive, but he has no ties to this twat. If Bolt is on drugs, he has been on them since he was 15 when he first broke a WJR and won the world junior 200m title by a good 10 metres. And we all know that's VERY unlikely!

Read more: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_re...#ixzz23T79nm4S

[poths]

The article above is one of the reasons why I simply can't get excited about track and field. There are simply too many questions and red flags raised with each win and world record broken.

I simply don't think it's humanly possible for an athlete to compete "clean." Not when you are competing against the biggest and sometimes smartest dopers in the world.

My mother had a spanish saying she liked to lecture me with whenever she thought I was hanging with the wrong crowd. "Dime con quien andas y te dire quien eres." I can't help but apply it with the likes of Jeter and Bolt.

There is no such thing as clean sport, they are all riddled. Swimming, rowing, cycling...anything that involves speed/stamina strength.

Pretty great reason to like figure skating, all the drugs in the world won;t help you land a quad toe in competition.

[Garden Kitty]

Thanks, Poths. I hope it's not true, but I guess being a cycling fan makes you a bit cynical. I don't know who Peter Wilson is who wrote that blog, but he has some other interesting entries (many not related to doping at all.)

[millyskate]

I have to confess that I couldn't really rejoice over the performance of the British track cycling team.... the dominance was just a little worrying.

[gingercrush]

Hmm British dominance in track cycling didn't worry me or concern me at all. Athens was a very good games for them and it was obvious they made huge strides to get their track cycling team into a dominant position. The only possible cheating wouldn't be drugs but in terms of the technology used on the wheels and bike frame.

Cheating surely does occur in every sport whether that is through drugs or corrupt judging or something else. But at the same time technological advances and better coaching can make huge differences as well. In rowing the work New Zealand has put in for a long time finally paid off in London. Same with the British team.

[Michalle]

Cowherd's rant is referencing this article by Dan Bernstein:



Of course there is every possibility that Bolt is on some amazing undetectable drug, I'm not totally naive, but he has no ties to this twat. If Bolt is on drugs, he has been on them since he was 15 when he first broke a WJR and won the world junior 200m title by a good 10 metres. And we all know that's VERY unlikely!

Read more: http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_re...#ixzz23T79nm4S

I think there are issues with doping (steroids, especially) in high school sports as well, actually, and a 15 year old who is competing at the world-level may not be doping, but it's not necessarily unlikely.

[jeffisjeff]

I think there are issues with doping (steroids, especially) in high school sports as well, actually, and a 15 year old who is competing at the world-level may not be doping, but it's not necessarily unlikely.

Yeah, I don't put much weight on the blog post linking Bolt to Angel WhateverHisLastNameIsNow because it was completely unsourced. And, I do appreciate the links to alternative sources that poths provided. However, steroid use isn't unheard of (or even unlikely) among US high school football players, particularly in parts of the US where high school football is super important. And these are just high school players, not athletes competing on the world stage. So an athlete being only 15 or 16 certainly doesn't rule out doping.

[Jimena]

Yeah, I don't put much weight on the blog post linking Bolt to Angel WhateverHisLastNameIsNow because it was completely unsourced. And, I do appreciate the links to alternative sources that poths provided. However, steroid use isn't unheard of (or even unlikely) among US high school football players, particularly in parts of the US where high school football is super important. And these are just high school players, not athletes competing on the world stage. So an athlete being only 15 or 16 certainly doesn't rule out doping.

It doesn't. But it does tell you that Bolt was a phenom from a very early age, which makes his current performances more believable in my eyes.

I doubt the steroid use is as prevalent in Jamaican high schools as it is in US high school football programs.

[jeffisjeff]

I doubt the steroid use is as prevalent in Jamaican high schools as it is in US high school football programs.

But we aren't talking about Bolt as an athlete on a high school team. We are talking about Bolt as a competitor on the world stage, at the World Junior Championships.

Steroid use happens among US high school football players because high school football is incredibly important in some parts the US and being good at football can make a kid a star and give him all kinds of benefits (scholarships, a better life, girls, etc.). I get the sense that track is a pretty big thing in Jamaica, so the same sorts of motivations for doping may exist? I am not trying to use this as evidence that Bolt dopes, but rather to argue that the fact that he was a phenom as a teenager can't really be used as convincing evidence against the accusation that Bolt dopes.

On the topic of Bolt and US football, during the coverage of the closing ceremony, Al Michaels suggested that Bolt should come to the US to play football in the NFL. Bob Costas pointed out what an idiotic idea that was. Bolt, he said, could continue doing what he is doing, making millions and millions, and being a worldwide star, without ever having to be tackled.

[Japanfan]

I do not understand where it could come from," she told internet news agency Noviny.by. "I'm looking like an idiot to take this in heading for the games and knowing that it is so easy to be tested. Nonsense. I'm being tested every month, every week.

Right. There was another athlete who tested positive for marijuana, I don't remember the details as to who and what sport - the athlete said it must was cooked into something he'd ate, and had known nothing about that.

[Jimena]

I am not trying to use this as evidence that Bolt dopes, but rather to argue that the fact that he was a phenom as a teenager can't really be used as convincing evidence against the accusation that Bolt dopes.

I don't think the comparison works.

Look, I'm not saying Bolt is not dirty. Who knows? But the fact is, he was better than anyone else when he was very young.

Frankly, Jamaica is not a rich country and I doubt they'd have the means to have a sophisticated doping program when their athletes are discovered as teens. As adults once they make money and can afford it? Sure.

[Skittl1321]

Right. There was another athlete who tested positive for marijuana, I don't remember the details as to who and what sport - the athlete said it must was cooked into something he'd ate, and had known nothing about that.

Maybe I read too much into it, but the way he said it made me think it wasn't an uncommon occurrence for him to be eating pot brownies... he just didn't intend to before the Olympics. (Like Phelps smoking pot between Olympics.)



As for the person who doesn't think doping will help you land a quad toe- that's just not true. You take drugs to increase your strength to help you gain the ability to do it, you take drugs to increase your stamina to help you get through the program, and you take beta-blockers to calm your nerves to help you with the performance anxiety and to steady yourself. These things are sure going the help you with your quad toe over competitors who haven't doped. Skating seems to be a very clean sport, but there are cheaters in every sport.

[Cachoo]

I wish there was a way to detect before all of the athletes leave and then give the true winners their medal ceremonies right before the start of closing ceremonies. And I would want to somehow put the cheaters front and center. With Jeter, seeing her teammates stripped of their relay medals would send a sad but powerful message.
I don't know if it is done but I would like to see all US athletes swear under oath that they are clean. Then if something turns up they have committed perjury and can go to prison for lying under oath.

[RFOS]

Jeter, Makhlouifi, Cakir, Bullut, Lysenko, Wells and a fist full of others are still wallowing in their medal wins....so WADA have done fck all IMO other than encourage others to follow suit. Ostapchuk was just too desperate for the win that she timed her cycle later for more effect. This is not a WADA win, it's an Ostapchuk fck up. If they did their jobs right in the first place, this blatant and chronic drug cheat would have been caught a decade ago!

I know you obviously follow the sport more closely than I do, but can you enlighten me as to how you are so confident that so many specific people are doping if they haven't been caught? Is it only because of sudden improvement? If you're going to dub someone "Pharmelita Cheater" I would hope you have some real knowledge, because that's a terrible thing to call someone based on speculation alone.

I have no inside info whatsoever and don't follow athletics/track & field or most other Summer Olympic sports outside of the Olympics, but I guess I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and believe in "innocent until proven guilty," naive though it may be. It makes me sad to think that cheating may be as rampant as some of the articles posted suggest.

[Prancer]

It doesn't. But it does tell you that Bolt was a phenom from a very early age, which makes his current performances more believable in my eyes.

People said the same thing about Marion Jones. That doesn't mean Bolt is a doper; it's just that the evidence always comes down the lab work, which isn't up to the task.

Doping won't make you a great athlete. It will make a great athlete a little faster and a little stronger. I think one of the reasons the athletes are so willing to do it is because they don't see it as something that does the work for them; they see it as something that helps. Sort of like they don't think of it as stealing an entire exam, but as copying just a couple of answers.

I read a long article about Lance Armstrong a while back and was surprised to see quotes admitting to doping from bikers who were champions when I was a kid (I don't follow cycling, so this was new to me). But the gist of it was that doping in cycling has been so prevalent for so long that you can safely assume that any top cyclist for any of the last five decades (and possibly more) was or is a doper.