Doping in the Olympics
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Doping in the Olympics
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I believe passionately that the ethos of the Olympic spirit is to do the very best one can and to be the best without 'doping' (using performance enhancing drugs). The World Anti Doping or
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Doping in the Olympics
posted at 26/7/2012 11:36 AM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 958
First: 15/7/2011 Last: 15/5/2013 |
I believe passionately that the ethos of the Olympic spirit is to do the very best one can and to be the best without 'doping' (using performance enhancing drugs). The World Anti Doping organisation say this will be the most complex and vast process ever seen before - At the GlaxoSmithKline testing laboratory, which stretches over an area equal to seven tennis courts on a Harlow industrial estate in Essex, the samples will be tested for the presence of more than 240 prohibited substances in less than 24 hours. More than 150 scientists will analyse 6,250 samples during the Games – more than at any other in history. Every medal winner and half of all competitors, chosen at random, will be tested. Positive results will be returned in 48 hours, with the exception of the endurance boosting drug erythropoietin (EPO), which will take 72 hours. The laboratory will operate around the clock. Samples are stored for at least eight years so they can be re-tested if new techniques become available. Professor David Cowan of King's College, who will lead the team, has promised that his team will be "fast, sensitive, efficient and right". The World Anti-Doping Agency warned on Wednesday night that because Britain is the host nation, its athletes would face "indignity and humiliation if they tested positive. "You have to carry that with you, that stigma against your name, for the rest of your life. You become an outcast," said Wada president, John Fahey. |
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Re: Doping in the Olympics
posted at 26/7/2012 12:27 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
The very fact that doping exists shows that sport has reached a new nadir. The Olympic virtues and ideals as exhibited at the religious meeting at Olympia is a mere attavistic memory in today's games where Mammon rules and the most gold goes to those with the most gold. The competitors have become pawns (viz prawns) and the spectators mere krill to the whales of Das Kapital and the Golden Rings fed by the Golden Arches. Yes, light the torch which is fueled by some natural gas company and let the MIckey Mouse Band play on. Yes, who are the dopes but we. |
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Re: Doping in the Olympics
posted at 26/7/2012 1:17 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1258
First: 13/4/2010 Last: 18/5/2013 |
You said it Odysseus - or to put it another way: "it is a tale. Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing" As for the specific question ultimate sanctions require ultimate proof - so if no test is 100% accurate it would not be fair to impose an ultimate sanction. Of course, the alternative is to create a level playing field by allowing unhindered "doping" and may the best cheat win. |
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Re: Doping in the Olympics
posted at 26/7/2012 2:32 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 958
First: 15/7/2011 Last: 15/5/2013 |
Come on Odyyseus and skysteve - lets at least aim to foster guiding principles that youngsters can believe are of real value. Money taints everything it touches but just look at paralympians who also are drug tested. They are seeking to achieve personal goals and victories that are hard won and come with a price - wheelchair basketball players however successful will never walk again (subject to prevailing medicine). I have very little interest in the Olympics but let us expect that competitors try their best and do not cheat. Isnt that fair?. As for ultimate proof - if we required ultimate proof there would be no legal system that could function. It is either beyond reasonable doubt or on the balance of probabilities. Medicine does not operate on absolute certainty, it would not work. |
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Re: Doping in the Olympics
posted at 26/7/2012 3:25 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1258
First: 13/4/2010 Last: 18/5/2013 |
Okay - reasonable proof then. But I expect everyone in life to try their hardest and not cheat or deceive - I don't see Olympians or Paralympians as any different in that respect. We are all (well most of us anyway) trying hard to do the best we can in life and achieve our personal goals. Why are we so hung up on sportsmen and women whether disabled or not? What makes them more special than, say, the worker in my local supermarket with cerebral palsy trying to remain free of state dependence or the cashier in my local bank recenty wheelchair bound trying to show that they can still do the job and provide the customers with top notch service? Why do we offer gold medals and glory to one group but nothing to the others? |
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Re: Doping in the Olympics
posted at 26/7/2012 4:31 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 1280
First: 9/12/2011 Last: 14/5/2013 |
I follow Bike racing somewhat, and I have rode Hybrid Bikes for some years, and when I recently found out Lance Armstrong was probably guilty of Doping I was not happy about it. I used to think WOW, this guy is a fantastic Biker, but not anymore. This Doping is tearing at the fabric of society, and demeaning the olympics, The Olympics are not what they were in Ancient Greece. DuaneF |
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Re: Doping in the Olympics
posted at 26/7/2012 4:43 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 223
First: 15/5/2012 Last: 29/4/2013 |
In Response to Re: Doping in the Olympics: Okay - reasonable proof then. But I expect everyone in life to try their hardest and not cheat or deceive - I don't see Olympians or Paralympians as any different in that respect. We are all (well most of us anyway) trying hard to do the best we can in life and achieve our personal goals. Why are we so hung up on sportsmen and women whether disabled or not? What makes them more special than, say, the worker in my local supermarket with cerebral palsy trying to remain free of state dependence or the cashier in my local bank recenty wheelchair bound trying to show that they can still do the job and provide the customers with top notch service? Why do we offer gold medals and glory to one group but nothing to the others? Posted by skyesteve Wonderful post Skyesteve. To put it in a nut shell, it is all in our Limbic System ( greed, lust, avarice.....).. |
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Re: Doping in the Olympics
posted at 26/7/2012 6:22 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 958
First: 15/7/2011 Last: 15/5/2013 |
In Response to Re: Doping in the Olympics: Okay - reasonable proof then. But I expect everyone in life to try their hardest and not cheat or deceive - I don't see Olympians or Paralympians as any different in that respect. We are all (well most of us anyway) trying hard to do the best we can in life and achieve our personal goals. Why are we so hung up on sportsmen and women whether disabled or not? What makes them more special than, say, the worker in my local supermarket with cerebral palsy trying to remain free of state dependence or the cashier in my local bank recenty wheelchair bound trying to show that they can still do the job and provide the customers with top notch service? Why do we offer gold medals and glory to one group but nothing to the others? Posted by skyesteve But isnt that exactly the point. Everyone should try to live a life as honestly as possible, without doing harm or injury to others. As you say, why are Olympians any different?, You are right, they are not. They just undertake their 'profession' in a much more public way than most of us. Surely it is not unreasonable to expect athletes who are given charity money to pursue their sporting goals to ensure that they do not cheat and take drugs to cheat their fellow competitors. It is just a reasonable request/demand that they behave as ordinary people are expected to behave. |
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Re: Doping in the Olympics
posted at 26/7/2012 9:22 PM BST
on bmj.com
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Posts: 2947
First: 10/3/2009 Last: 29/4/2013 |
The Olympics were religious manifestations. As we have largely replaced the gods and their ideals and standards with mammon and SELF, ethical ideals are now on shifting sands. Why not cheat, dope, mug, be greedy, self-seeking, do a GFC again etc etc. There are no absolutes anymore in the West. The Enlightenment euthanased God and His Judeo-Christian laws and ideals. What we now have in the West are the ethical remnants of the ethical Big Bang of Mt Sinai. Yes, I agree. Let's all have laissez-faire in the games; ethical free market forces. Let Nietzsche's Superman win. For the times, they are achanging. The idea of ethical behaviour once was an inner contract/relationship with self, God and one's neighbour. Self has become God, and to hell with thy neighbour. |
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