So is Sir Bradley guilty of doping?

Reemul said:
I don't agree, life and the real world is not made up of black and white but lots of shades of grey. It's the shades of grey we evaluate and try to decide if we need to make them black or white.

Are we saying that you have Asthma and your Doctor says that you need drugs due to your condition because you are unwell but really you don't but the rules say if your Doctor says you need them then it's ok to have them (also how much can you give them, say they only need a small amount but you give them a bigger amount as you know it has a side effect of improving performance) it is not cheating or is it cheating or is it a grey area that needs looking at? All in all it looks like a mess to me.

Personally if you aren't well then you can have the drugs but you don't get to compete because taking the drugs to make you feel better can also improve performance. Sure it's hard if you miss out but no harder than any other person missing out due to illness/sickness/injury.
Click to expand...

I agree with what you write above, yes, if you are unwell and go to see a doctor about you illness then the doctor will prescribe if appropriate the relevant drug you need.

If however you are a sports man or women and, you, as in my example have asthma and you're chosen sport is one which requires a lot of physical exertion that will get you out of breath, then why did you choose that sport? Why did you become professional? knowing in both cases that you will likely suffer because of your underlying illness and have to take drugs to alleviate the symptoms which is tantamount to cheating even if the sports governing body tells you it is legal within the given guidelines.
 
IanM said:
Item on TalkSport this morning... a doctor they had on said,

5% of general population have asthma

40% of cyclists on Pro Tour have asthma, so take whatever "medicine" they were talking about!

Didn't do stats at A Level, but I am surprised at the numbers
Click to expand...

What if they genuinely had asthma, did cycling because they felt excluded from a sport like football and then became good, because of the asthma medication before they reached elite levels?

Comparing a normal population to a sports population you wouldn't expect to have similar profiles, otherwise, you would be shocked to discover basketball players are taller than average, gymnasts are shorter than the average population.
 
Getting into different types of asthma.

Exercised induced asthma is what most of the cyclist claim to have, with that condition many dont have asthma any other time but when they exercise hard, they're not going to have an asthma attack when off the bike.

It does seem that 40% is taking the mickey and often done solely to get small gains in performance, all legal of course......for now.

If EIA is so common maybe it is just the bodies way to telling you to stop, like lactic acid in muscles. A natural repsonse to extreme physical exertions?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Dibby said:
Comparing a normal population to a sports population you wouldn't expect to have similar profiles, otherwise, you would be shocked to discover basketball players are taller than average, gymnasts are shorter than the average population.
Click to expand...

Well, being tall is a clear differentiator in basketball. If you were looking to source folk likely to be good cyclists, is having asthma the first criteria you'd look at?
 
Do other endurance athletes have similar levels of asthma? It would be interesting to see if one brings about the other or whether cycling is bending the rules to use asthma drugs to help other aspects.
 
IanM said:
Well, being tall is a clear differentiator in basketball. If you were looking to source folk likely to be good cyclists, is having asthma the first criteria you'd look at?
Click to expand...

Larger than normal lung capacity and rangy build I think (for distance cycling). Not asthma.
 
IanM said:
Well, being tall is a clear differentiator in basketball. If you were looking to source folk likely to be good cyclists, is having asthma the first criteria you'd look at?
Click to expand...

If true that 40% of elite cyclists have asthma, and there is nothing underhand going on, then clearly it is a good marker. Just because height and basketball are obvious to an outsider, doesn't mean less obvious indicators don't exist.

An interesting example is ice hockey, you are almost twice as likely to make it to the NHL if your birthday is in January, compared to December. There is a clear logic behind why, but to an outsider at a first glance, it's not an obvious indicator.

Then you get down to more controversial indicators, there is a gene common in East Asian populations that allow them to metabolise certain steroids faster than other ethnicities. If they choose to do so, this would allow them to take more drugs and stop their cycle closer to competition than other athletes. Perhaps having asthma has a similar effect?

Sadly, in modern sport, ability to do the task may not be the only factor, ability to respond to performance-enhancing substances may be just as important or more so. As a natural athlete Rider A may beat Rider B by 10 seconds, but if Rider B is a better responder to PEDs he may then beat Rider A even though they are both taking the same substances in the same doses.
 
Dibby said:
An interesting example is ice hockey, you are almost twice as likely to make it to the NHL if your birthday is in January, compared to December. There is a clear logic behind why, but to an outsider at a first glance, it's not an obvious indicator.
Click to expand...

You can't dangle that one and then not give us the answer. What is the reasoning behind it?
 
Lord Tyrion said:
You can't dangle that one and then not give us the answer. What is the reasoning behind it?
Click to expand...

Think he means the December of the same year (rather than a month earlier) so the January born kids have an 11 month start in physical development and are therefore bigger and stronger on average so will get selected ahead of the younger ones for that same years team, by the time it evens out physically when they're adults its too late to catch up with all the coaching/training missed.

Just means those born early in the year have a slight advantage to making it in pro hockey.
 
maxfli65 said:
Think he means the December of the same year (rather than a month earlier) so the January born kids have an 11 month start in physical development and are therefore bigger and stronger on average so will get selected ahead of the younger ones for that same years team, by the time it evens out physically when they're adults its too late to catch up with all the coaching/training missed.

Just means those born early in the year have a slight advantage to making it in pro hockey.
Click to expand...

They will be in different school years by that logic won’t they?
 
I think that there are similar trends in the UK but based on academic years rather than calendar years. Kids born September are more likely to excel, in terms of physical sports, than those born in August, again due to the 11 month gap in terms of development.
 
Exactly, Canadian age group hockey has cut off dates based on the calendar year. So in some cases, a kid is chronologically a year older than some opponents. This is a big physical advantage, and so gets a coach's attention, and now the player has a skill advantage through more coaching as well as a physical advantage, compounding the problem. By the time kids are late teens and equalling out, it's too late.

If you look at NHL stats, just over 10% of the league's players are born in January, but only about 6% in December, with a drop off throughout the year.

It's just one example, but just making a point, obvious variables are not the only ones that make good indicators of athletic potential.
 
I understand the issue in junior sport. As someone who played decent level junior level hockey, birthday mid December, qualifying date Jan 1st, I know all too well the physical differences that occur that can prevent you from playing at certain regional levels. By the time you reach adulthood that all evens itself out and stops being relevant though. I'm surprised it still impacts at senior pro level. Interesting stuff.
 
Beezerk said:
They will be in different school years by that logic won’t they?
Click to expand...

Not sure, for my older kid's football team (Scottish FA affiliated and not school based) it's based on the year of birth, nothing to do with the class you're in at school.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The other interesting part of this is that we often see a selection bias.

A good example of this is Weightlifting. During the 80's and 90's, the Bulgarian team were massively successful, and since then everyone has become obsessed with the "Bulgarian System", which basically involves high volume and maxing out every day. People look at it on an individual level and see all the success, they don't look at it from a system level and see how it was a meat grinder for athletes, the weak literally did not survive unscathed, so at the end you are left with only the athletes who survived, and so no doubt they excel.

So whilst this approach is a great system for a nation, it's not good for individual recreational weightlifters to follow, yet they do. That's before you even consider the pharmaceutical support needed to survive the program.

Potentially cycling could have a similar effect, the training to be elite is so gruelling that it induces asthma in most athletes, of which many drops out, but you are still left with an unusual percentage of asthmatics at the end.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top