Drugs. Performance enhancing drugs are the cancer of all sports and the demons of high performance athletes.
The 95th Tour de France starts today. The race has struggled with rider drug use since its inception. Phil Liggett called drug use in cycling “the cancer of all sports” during the opening commentary today on Versus. He is 100% correct.
Cycling isn’t the only sport struggling with performance enhancing drugs. Cycling is the sport that is most aggressively testing and moving towards a zero tolerance policy. I would put track and field right up there with cycling.
As a father, I can only hope that my kids will grow up pushing themselves via sport. But, I also hope they realize very early in life that taking banned substances does not make you a winner. Marion Jones is a sad example of an athlete’s destruction.
I don’t think that seeing and hearing about athletes testing positive is a bad thing. It means the system is working. Anymore, if I am not hearing about positive tests in professional level sports, I am worried the governing bodies are not testing hard enough. The cheaters won’t go away. The cheaters don’t make the world a better place. The cheaters don’t provide good role models for kids. But, I am convinced we have to vigilantly pursuing the cheaters so clean athletes can excel and the athletes of tomorrow can believe in fair competition.
6 Comments
July 6, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Due to excessive caffeine consumption I was UCI-illegal yesterday. However, it got me through the day and enabled me to complete all of my deliveries. Yay for doping!
July 6, 2008 at 9:11 pm
I love my caffeine too (coffee for me). Caffeine is probably the one that enters into the shades of grey REAL fast depending on how much you consume and the fact that it is in so many drinks we can buy today.
I guess the operative word is “banned” substances. The UCI has a range of substances that can be in the body to a “limit” (as you pointed out). I am just mentioning this because some readers may think that since something like caffeine is on the list it is banned at all levels which is not true.
When I tried to look up the list of substances and limits I ran across a listing for the top 100 substances banned for international chess competition. WOW! Never thought about that.
July 6, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Fixup-
If I am reading the 2008 UCI list correctly, it looks like caffeine was removed. Is this possible? I haven’t competed in over 10 years so I don’t know how the list has evolved.
http://www.uci.ch/Modules/BUILTIN/getObject.asp?MenuId=MTkzNg&ObjTypeCode=FILE&type=FILE&id=34172&
July 7, 2008 at 10:13 am
The last time I looked at the UCI list was probably last year.
I can’t remember what the limit was but it was something like the equivalent of one or two cups of coffee.
Given that caffeine can cause heart rate irregularity (is it called arrhythmia or something?) it’s probably for the best.
I’m trying to cut down on my caffeine consumption… I usually have 1 cup in the morning, then one or two later on if I’m feeling drowsy. But a few days ago I was so tired that I took about 8 50mg caffeine pills while I was at work. Got to start going to bed earlier!
This is very vague but I remember reading about a fairly well-known UK athlete who got disqualified because they drank a certain sports drink (possibly Lucozade) all morning and didn’t realise it had so much caffeine in it…
July 7, 2008 at 12:43 pm
I think you are right on the limits for caffeine
On another note….the Tour is getting off to a great start. I love to see the early break away survive.
July 10, 2008 at 9:45 pm
[...] Cancer of Cycling–The Crack of Writing Jump to Comments After reading my husband’s recent post on drug doping being the cancer of all sports–an analogy made by Phil Liggit, himself, it got [...]