Doping - How much does it enhance performance?

B20

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Looking at someone like Gatlin, who is now 30 and has been out of the game for four years, come back to win bronze at the olympics against such strong competition whilst almost certainly running clean now, it makes me wonder - is there even a point to doping for sprinters? The performance enhancement seem to be marginal at that level compared to the risks that come with it. How much do you realistically stand to gain if you are already one of the best in the world? Someone like Michael Johnson seems to have escaped the suspicions and he is one of the best of all time, at a time were designer drugs were in vogue.

OTOH, in cycling the difference is clearly much bigger. It was impossible to win without it in the 90s and probably often so for much of the 00s as well. And the sport is simply looking different as more clean cyclists are competing for top spots. We see more favourites simply running out of gas. In last year's tour de france, we saw a few times all of them running out of gas and the difference made was who could go fastest with nothing left in the tank.
 
B19 said:
Looking at someone like Gatlin, who is now 30 and has been out of the game for four years, come back to win bronze at the olympics against such strong competition whilst almost certainly running clean now, it makes me wonder - is there even a point to doping for sprinters? The performance enhancement seem to be marginal at that level compared to the risks that come with it. How much do you realistically stand to gain if you are already one of the best in the world? Someone like Michael Johnson seems to have escaped the suspicions and he is one of the best of all time, at a time were designer drugs were in vogue.

OTOH, in cycling the difference is clearly much bigger. It was impossible to win without it in the 90s and probably often so for much of the 00s as well. And the sport is simply looking different as more clean cyclists are competing for top spots. We see more favourites simply running out of gas. In last year's tour de france, we saw a few times all of them running out of gas and the difference made was who could go fastest with nothing left in the tank.
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At the highest level in most sports, it's the smallest of margins that tend to decide the winner.
 
B19 said:
Looking at someone like Gatlin, who is now 30 and has been out of the game for four years, come back to win bronze at the olympics against such strong competition whilst almost certainly running clean now
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Either the drugs made little difference or he's not getting detected this time.

It's a little concerning that the only positive drugs tests we've had so far have been a couple of Eastern European / North African nobodies, which is classic "look our testing system is working but we're not touching any of the bigger athletes."
 
Maybe doping is the difference between finishing with a bronze, like he did last night, and finishing with a gold? Nobody said he's a poor athlete and sprinter without the aid of performance enhancing drugs, but I'd guess he took that route in the past to give himself the push he needed to bridge the gap between himself and the likes of Bolt. Without it, he's good, but not good enough.
 
Usually the dopers use steriods to train before the tournament, and thats when they see the real "fast" times, but start to come off it as the competition starts and end up getting a bit slower, but still faster than they should be.
 
There is the real possiblity that most of them are at it. Marion Jones never failed a drugs test but was doping for most of her career. She was essentially grassed up by the doping messiah Victor Conte along with a long list of other mostly American elite athletes (and Dwayne Chambers). The athletes that Conte was doping contained some of the cream of American sports. It was akin to Britain finding out that Jessica Ennis, David Beckham, Freddie Flintoff, Amir Khan and Bradley Wiggins amongst others were drugs cheats.

Carl Lewis was also accused of failing a drugs test that was covered up by the American Olympic commitee back in his prime.

There have only been a few positive tests in these games so far but I would attribute that to the dopers winning the game of cat and mouse at this point in time.

Ben Johnson is as much proof as you need on what doping can do for you. This quote is from former world record holder and Olympic champion Tim Montgomery, another doper who never failed a test but was caught up in the BALCO - Conte scandal.

"I have a gold medal that I'm sitting on that I didn't get with my own ability," "I'm not here to take away from anybody else's accomplishments, only my own. And I must say, I apologize to the other people that was on the relay team if that was to happen."
 
B19 said:
OTOH, in cycling the difference is clearly much bigger. It was impossible to win without it in the 90s and probably often so for much of the 00s as well. And the sport is simply looking different as more clean cyclists are competing for top spots. We see more favourites simply running out of gas. In last year's tour de france, we saw a few times all of them running out of gas and the difference made was who could go fastest with nothing left in the tank.
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Indeed. Especially the last 20 years. In the 60s and 70s the riders were already taking doping, but the kind that only makes a marginal difference. A lot of them were taking amphetamines for example to create some sort of daze that took away some of the pain. But in the end, the best cylists still won the race.

But in the 90s, EPO came into the peleton and really changed things. Mediocre riders could suddenly win the Tour de France (Bjarne Riis for example) and some top riders quit cycling because they suddenly couldn't ride top 20 anymore without taking doping. So as far as endurance sports are concerned, this kind of doping can have a huge influence.

But then there are other kinds of doping (fat burning products, testosterone, other hormonal compounds, etc) that have a far lesser influence as well yet every now and then there's still some cyclist that gets caught for this.
 
A couple of interesting interviews with Victor Conte, the 'reformed' evil doping genius, on the state of doping at the Olympics.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i...ration-2012-london-olympics-article-1.1134190

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/o...immer-ye-shiwen-doping-kick-article-1.1126198

60% of top 20 athletes in every Olympic sport is a high end estimate.

Interesting that he identified six athletes to WADA that he believed are doping but was ignored.

As a related point: I was also unaware the Yohan Blake had served a ban for doping and that Usian Bolt's conditioning coach has a doping past. If Bolt isn't using he is certainly around a doping culture.
 
Jimy_Hills_Chin said:
As a related point: I was also unaware the Yohan Blake had served a ban for doping and that Usian Bolt's conditioning coach has a doping past. If Bolt isn't using he is certainly around a doping culture.
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Prior to the 2009 World Championships, Blake (along with Marvin Anderson and Sheri-Ann Brooks) tested positive for the stimulant 4-Methyl-2-hexanamine.[16][17] A disciplinary panel organised by the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission (JADCO) cleared him of a doping infraction on the grounds that the drug was not on the World Anti-Doping Agency's banned list. However, JADCO appealed their own panel's ruling, stating that the athlete should be disciplined as the drug was similar in structure to the banned substance tuaminoheptane.[18] As the panel would resolve the issue after the World Championships, the Jamaica Amateur Athletic Association took the precaution of withdrawing Blake from the relay race.[19] The appeals tribunal decided that a ban would be appropriate, and Blake and the three other sprinters each received a three month ban from competition
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Wouldn't read too much in to it in all honesty.
 
Should be said that IAAF has started using the biological passport that is used in cycling, looking to detect changes in the blood values of an athlete. It's quite possible doping is becoming more sophisticated and harder to trace, but so does the detection methods.

Also, while any positive test is frowned upon, I do believe sometimes it's nothing more than an error or misjudgement rather than an attempt to cheat. Like LaShawn Merritt.
 
It's a performance-enhancing substance, they can't explicitly ban all of them.
 
Why are they allowed to get away with taking anything? Why shouldn't they make do with a good diet and good training regime, or am I being very naive?
 
B19 said:
OTOH, in cycling the difference is clearly much bigger. It was impossible to win without it in the 90s and probably often so for much of the 00s as well. And the sport is simply looking different as more clean cyclists are competing for top spots. We see more favourites simply running out of gas. In last year's tour de france, we saw a few times all of them running out of gas and the difference made was who could go fastest with nothing left in the tank.
Click to expand...

King_Eric said:
Indeed. Especially the last 20 years. In the 60s and 70s the riders were already taking doping, but the kind that only makes a marginal difference. A lot of them were taking amphetamines for example to create some sort of daze that took away some of the pain. But in the end, the best cylists still won the race.

But in the 90s, EPO came into the peleton and really changed things. Mediocre riders could suddenly win the Tour de France (Bjarne Riis for example) and some top riders quit cycling because they suddenly couldn't ride top 20 anymore without taking doping. So as far as endurance sports are concerned, this kind of doping can have a huge influence.

But then there are other kinds of doping (fat burning products, testosterone, other hormonal compounds, etc) that have a far lesser influence as well yet every now and then there's still some cyclist that gets caught for this.
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A few years ago I heard a doping expert say that EPO only increased the riders performance by as little as 3% or so. You have to factor in that these people are already top-trained, so the gain won't as big as if an average guy started using it. I've seen different studies showing how much reasonably fit athletes gain, but obviously you won't get any active cyclists to participate, so the percentage will merely be an educated guess, I'm assuming.

The 3% I mentioned above is clearly still a decent increase, but I think many people assume it's quite a bit higher than that. Once again, you have to factor in that those athletes do pretty much everything they can to max out their performance by legal means (height training, strict diet etc.) so doping will most likely not be a significant improvement, but of course even a smaller improvement might be the difference between finishing 1st and 5th.
 
Amir said:
Should be said that IAAF has started using the biological passport that is used in cycling, looking to detect changes in the blood values of an athlete. It's quite possible doping is becoming more sophisticated and harder to trace, but so does the detection methods.

Also, while any positive test is frowned upon, I do believe sometimes it's nothing more than an error or misjudgement rather than an attempt to cheat. Like LaShawn Merritt.
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So LaShawn Merritt needs penis enlargement pills?

cinc said:
It is, surely, but based on what I know, it's not baseless.
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Victor Conte, who used to be the worlds leading doper, estimates 60% of the top 20 athletes in each Olympic sport. What do you know?

Wowi said:
The 3% I mentioned above is clearly still a decent increase
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It would be a crucial increase in many swimming races.
 
Jimy_Hills_Chin said:
It would be a crucial increase in many swimming races.
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No doubt - likewise in many bike races, and other endurance sports for that matter. Also worth keeping in mind that a 3% increase is quite a bit when you're at your physical peak. My point of the post was just that many people (most likely none in this thread though) seem to think that the increase you gain from doping completely overshadows the training you do. This clearly isn't the case, as the effect from doping won't mean much if others are simply more fit. Doping in itself doesn't make you win - but coupled with incredibly hard training it can give you that extra edge.
 
Sharron Davies was competing against East German swimmers who were doping and their performances were increased by about 9% and they were winning by almost a full length of the pool in some of the longer races.
 
Isn't it the belief that only the 'dopey dopers' are getting caught? It's an arms race between the dopers and the testers. Something like blood doping used to be detected only by finding athletes in possession of paraphernalia. I'm sure there are undetectable methods of doping going on right now.

Even in the 100m sprint I imagine that a well tailored doping program can make a significant difference.
 
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