Drugs, Athletics and Lord Coe

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drdel

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So finally a report has surfaced that is going to be hard to ignore.

Lord Coe reckons he's the guy to clean up the IAAF because, even though he's worked under the discredited leader, he knew nothing about it.

There's little doubt that drugs have been the problem in may sports: how clean is golf clean I wonder?
 
I don't think golf is rife with performance enhancing drugs - it appears one of those sports that someone wouldn't get much from using them

Recreational drugs on the other hand - DJ clearly was caught and wouldn't surprise me to see others being caught in the future

I think it's rife in a few sports - athletes, some Olympics sports , swimming at once stage , cycling but a good deal majority I believe are pretty clean
 
Possibly - what sort of drugs keep someone calm and would they be on a banned list ?
 
Beta blockers would work wouldn't they, they have a calming effect as well as the lowered blood pressure/heart rate? And they're on the banned list.
 
a few snooker players were stopped using beta blockers as it kept their heart rate down ,would be pretty useful to a golfer i would have thought.
wasnt VJ caught using something ?
 
The poacher said:
a few snooker players were stopped using beta blockers as it kept their heart rate down ,would be pretty useful to a golfer i would have thought.
wasnt VJ caught using something ?
Click to expand...

Deer antler spray wasn't it ? No idea what it actually did
 
yeh it was deer antler ,but i thought that it was cleared of being anything enhancing.i believe he was caught using something else a few years before .
i might have it mixed up with his cheat scandal of a few years ago.
 
Didn't know he was involved in anything else ? What was the cheating scandal ?
 
when he was 22 he altered his scorecard to make the cut in an asian tournament.its followed him around ever since ,even today a ryder cupper has been quoted as saying ,"once a cheater always a cheater"
cant remember who the rc player was or is .
 
The poacher said:
when he was 22 he altered his scorecard to make the cut in an asian tournament.its followed him around ever since ,even today a ryder cupper has been quoted as saying ,"once a cheater always a cheater"
cant remember who the rc player was or is .
Click to expand...

Blimey I didn't know that and just did some research - seems it was a Yank RC player

There was also the Monty incident as well
 
drdel said:
So finally a report has surfaced that is going to be hard to ignore.

Lord Coe reckons he's the guy to clean up the IAAF because, even though he's worked under the discredited leader, he knew nothing about it.

There's little doubt that drugs have been the problem in may sports: how clean is golf clean I wonder?
Click to expand...

I think it is very naive to think that some professional golfers do not use performance enhancing drugs.

Look at the riches on offer nowadays, you can be playing for a million a lot of weeks in the US, and even if you are a journeyman pro bobbing around in the top 20 of tournaments you can make an extremely comfortable living. Also the equipment is virtually identical no matter whose clubs you have as the tolerances are so strictly governed. So how do you increase swing speed to get more distance? You beef up. Which involves a lot of time spent in the gym, or you could get a little artificial help.....

Also the sports governing bodies have not covered themselves in glory when it comes to drug testing. There is way too much protection of the image of the game going on, so they can ensure it is attractive to sponsors. Look at the farcical way they dealt with Dustin Johnson and how they went out of their way not to come out and say he'd been caught. And although these are a bit old, here's a few quotes from Tim Fincham who still runs the PGA.

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said he is comfortable with the tour's 13-year-old policy that makes no mention of performance-enhancing drugs. Not only has there been no evidence that steroids are an issue in golf, he said there has been nothing to indicate that the tour should waste time or money looking for such a drug.
"Some say we ought to test for drugs because all sports test and you want to know you're clean," Finchem said. "In a vacuum, I see how you can make that argument. But honestly ... I don't know what we'd be testing for."
And even if anyone discovered a steroid that would allow someone to hit the ball farther or make more putts, random testing would not be the first step.
Golf is built around honor, and that would apply to steroids.
Finchem said if research found there were performance-enhancing drugs for golf, the board would conduct research and decide whether to ban them. Even then, it would be up to the players not to use them.
"People talk about testing, but that's not the question. That might be a subsequent question," Finchem said. "The way you run golf is to pass a rule, and then you expect everyone to adhere to the rule. If we had reason to believe there was a violation, then we could resort to testing."

Now to me that seems very naive in the extreme, it's not as if golfers are some master race of sportspeople that never look to get an advantage through fair means or foul. http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/survey-finds-more-half-pga-tour-caddies-have-witnessed-cheating

With the inclusion in the Olympics it is good to see that the guardians of golf has finally been dragged into the 21st century (how often do we say that....) with regards to drug testing. I do not expect there to be anything like the levels that go on in athletics or cycling in the past. But to just sweep it under the carpet as finding out that a golfer takes drugs may sully the image of the sport in the eyes of sponsors is very poor. IMHO
 
What is performance enhancing in one sport may be performance limiting in another. There are a lot of bigger stronger players coming out now, and some pf them probably supplement their strength, but does it really make a difference? Beta blockers have a reputation for calming but that is often not the case and some people confuse a slowed heart rate with being calmer. It is not necessarily so, and even if, the same effect means that you have also limited your ability to use adrenaline to raise your game.

The stuff about DJ and coke is nothing to do with performance, it is to do with the clean image Finches wants to project to advertisers and sponsors.
 
Unfortunately you now have to cast an element of doubt over all Athletics championships since the day performance enhancing drugs came into being.
I'm sure the majority are clean but now you just don't know.

As for Golf, I'm struggling to see how PED are going to help.
There are 2 very different "modes" in golf - the Power mode, where you want ultimate power for distance, and the Feel mode, where you have a delicate chip or tricky putt.
A drug that enhances one mode will be detrimental to the other. Beta blockers won't allow that explosion of power to make the 300 yard carry, steroids, or whatever, won't allow the calmness needed for a flopshot over a bunker to a downhill sloping green running out to a lake...
It wouldn't surprise me if some do use them but I doubt its widespread enough to be an issue.
 
Hacker Khan said:
I think it is very naive to think that some professional golfers do not use performance enhancing drugs.

Look at the riches on offer nowadays, you can be playing for a million a lot of weeks in the US, and even if you are a journeyman pro bobbing around in the top 20 of tournaments you can make an extremely comfortable living. Also the equipment is virtually identical no matter whose clubs you have as the tolerances are so strictly governed. So how do you increase swing speed to get more distance? You beef up. Which involves a lot of time spent in the gym, or you could get a little artificial help.....

Also the sports governing bodies have not covered themselves in glory when it comes to drug testing. There is way too much protection of the image of the game going on, so they can ensure it is attractive to sponsors. Look at the farcical way they dealt with Dustin Johnson and how they went out of their way not to come out and say he'd been caught. And although these are a bit old, here's a few quotes from Tim Fincham who still runs the PGA.

PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem said he is comfortable with the tour's 13-year-old policy that makes no mention of performance-enhancing drugs. Not only has there been no evidence that steroids are an issue in golf, he said there has been nothing to indicate that the tour should waste time or money looking for such a drug.
"Some say we ought to test for drugs because all sports test and you want to know you're clean," Finchem said. "In a vacuum, I see how you can make that argument. But honestly ... I don't know what we'd be testing for."
And even if anyone discovered a steroid that would allow someone to hit the ball farther or make more putts, random testing would not be the first step.
Golf is built around honor, and that would apply to steroids.
Finchem said if research found there were performance-enhancing drugs for golf, the board would conduct research and decide whether to ban them. Even then, it would be up to the players not to use them.
"People talk about testing, but that's not the question. That might be a subsequent question," Finchem said. "The way you run golf is to pass a rule, and then you expect everyone to adhere to the rule. If we had reason to believe there was a violation, then we could resort to testing."

Now to me that seems very naive in the extreme, it's not as if golfers are some master race of sportspeople that never look to get an advantage through fair means or foul. http://www.golf.com/tour-and-news/survey-finds-more-half-pga-tour-caddies-have-witnessed-cheating

With the inclusion in the Olympics it is good to see that the guardians of golf has finally been dragged into the 21st century (how often do we say that....) with regards to drug testing. I do not expect there to be anything like the levels that go on in athletics or cycling in the past. But to just sweep it under the carpet as finding out that a golfer takes drugs may sully the image of the sport in the eyes of sponsors is very poor. IMHO
Click to expand...

So what type of Performance Enhancing Drugs can be used to help golfers ?

Beefing up as you say isnt always the answer to a quicker swing speed.

Maybe its right to believe people are innocent until proven guilty and the commissioner is right - there is no evidence of performance enhancing drugs being used.
 
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