Cycling fourth-worst sport for positive doping tests

Spot on analysis.

As well it should be too. The unions and player reps do a very good job of protecting the athletes from massive over-regulation and absurd rules that are absolutely arbitrary enforced. Which are, by in largely politically and financially motivated-driven by corrupted governing bodies and governments. Once in a while you hear about a player getting "caught" to appease the corporate controlled media and small minded muppets.

The stick & ball sports exist and thrive just fine with the amount of performance enhanced athletes, who are simply engineering their potential as in ANY other sport or situation. Whether it is a piece of equipment, machine or the body. The illogical perception that is any different reveals a severe lack of comprehension by most statist-minded muppets.

Although Walsh's anti-doping credentials are high up there. One does suspect that he is used to give credence to athletes. The embedding with Sky last was a clear example of this. I'm not sure about the story of the tainted supplement. Has anyone accounted for its presence? Quite often the story which is given means that there is an element of doubt, such that 'it could be in the supplement', which is not the same as it was in the supplement, or even it was found in the athletes body because of the supplement....which is why they got guilty, but small sentences. But I guess what I'm saying is reserve judgement on these stories: quite often the narrative is twisted to one which works for them - a well worn path by Armstrong and other dopers. The PR machines are wonderful things.

Check out Barry Bonds for what differences PEDs make in baseball

Speed and strength are valuable attributes

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/23/books/23kaku.html?n=Top%2FFeatures%2FB...

"Mr. Bonds would go on to ingest an astonishing array of substances over the years, including Winstrol, Deca-Durabolin, human growth hormone, insulin, testosterone decanoate, trenbolone ("a steroid created to improve the muscle quality of beef cattle"), Clomid (usually prescribed to women for infertility) and "two undetectable steroids" known as The Clear and The Cream."

p.s. There's also the recovery element. Those guys play a lot of games

notfastenough wrote:

Ok, so are there any figures for how tested a sport is, say tests per competitor per year at a given level, for in-competition and out-of-competition? I'd love to see a correlation, because I'm inclined to think that the number of positives probably tracks the number of tests - i.e. if you look for doping you'll find it.

I think this report contains what you're looking for (PDF):
https://wada-main-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/resources/files/WADA-2013-Anti-D...

Here's the main page:
https://www.wada-ama.org/en/questions-answers/2013-anti-doping-testing-f...

portec wrote:

notfastenough wrote:

Ok, so are there any figures for how tested a sport is, say tests per competitor per year at a given level, for in-competition and out-of-competition? I'd love to see a correlation, because I'm inclined to think that the number of positives probably tracks the number of tests - i.e. if you look for doping you'll find it.

I think this report contains what you're looking for (PDF):
https://wada-main-prod.s3.amazonaws.com/resources/files/WADA-2013-Anti-D...

Here's the main page:
https://www.wada-ama.org/en/questions-answers/2013-anti-doping-testing-f...

Sadly it doesn't give details of the levels at which they were testing. As I said in another post. If you are testing the over 85 sportive competitors and under 16s you'd expect that any adverse findings to be rare...but if you concentrated it on the pros you might find more as the ability to dope is higher - actually it's probably those that are striving for the top and don't have access to the best doctors....but anyway. I'm sure that 850 of the tests were done by Lance Armstrong....by his count and perspective only.

UKADA did release some results in an annual report (but this was for rugby). It was interesting in some ways and not in others. The numbers of positives were not large, and those busted were from almost all the different levels of the sport. They showed the testing numbers at sports events including the six nations, and also the in-competition and also out of competition testing.

The testing appeared to be extensive on the face of it. But when you looked at blood tests there were very few (hard to detect steroids in urine), and the out of competition was applied equally at all levels - this is a good and a bad thing, because it means that 'amateur' doping is targeted - something which is likely to be hazardous to an individual's health, but equally you'd expect the money and opportunity to dope happens the higher up, and that by picking individuals who are less likely to dope you massage any problems the sport may have.

I still think there is a lot of political expediency in how doping controls are done. For instance the number of pro-footballers caught doping is virtually nil. Rio Ferdinand is as close to that with his misses drugs test as anyone, but since Edgar David's and Jaap Stam I don't remember any except those caught doing recreational drugs. Yet EPO and testosterone would have a fairly magic effect on a team. With the money in football these days I think that a lot of this sort of stuff is going on under the table.