IAAF Bans Nine in Crackdown - Six nabbed in Biological Passport Tests !!!

See link at: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20120726/sports/sports2.html

Contrary to what some may believe, I still believe that athletics is one of the cleaner sport out there. It is certainly the most regulated in terms of PED testing.

How effective is the biological passport test when compare to previous methods?

Athletics is unfortunately one of the least clean sports out there!

What really worries me is that most of these caught are relative small fry.
To a cynic (like me) that suggests that although these world class athletes are definately taking peds they are still relatively miles behind the top (apparently clean) stars of their respective events.

Logical? Don't seem that way to me.

I would also suggest that those athletes caught would be the inexperienced, ie miss-timing, wrong dosage, no medical back up etc. But as I mentioned I am cynical.

I think the bio-passport could be a good thing, but I think it's being used to target a few people, always from countries that everything thinks are dirty anyway, and then announce them just before a major games to show the world they're doing something about it.

It's pretty funny that a lot of these positives have been known about for ages, but everytime they announce another name they write the headline and story as if it's 6 new people.

I they catch someone again next week, they'll write 7 athletes caught and it'll look like it's another 7 athletes.

To suggest that athletics is even on the same planet as cycling when it comes to anti-doping is a joke. It's miles behind, which is worrying given the benefits of doping between the two sports are pretty even.

dj

Did you see that programme about the Seoul 100m final?

The gist of it was that of the 8 finalists 5 were subsequently done for ped abuse and 1 (lewis) shouldn't have been there according to the programme.

That would leave Calvin Smith as the winner and Robson da Silva second. Third? God knows, some poor guy knocked out of the semi unjustly I imagine.

What was interesting though was that the interviewed one of the drug testers who had saved the specimens from the Games and then tested them at a later date when improved techniques were available.
His findings? The inference was that he had so many positives that he gave it up as a bad job and left it well alone.

I agree with your cycling point as well. They are way in front of us. I also believe the entire Sky team has too much at stake to do peds. Assuming they are clean that's a major boost for cycling as a sport.

Yeah, it was very interesting. I think we all knew about the doping situation in that race already, but it was good to hear it from the perspective of the athletes too.

Didn't really show Christie in a very good light, but that was his own fault.

I couldn't quite make out what he was saying.

Was it something like he didn't do it but anyway if he did he didn't care and we should all move on? Or something

I would not go so far as to say that cycling is miles ahead. Who would have thought that Lance the 7 time tour winner would have been implicated?

I see your point about Sky - having much to lose. But not that much like Lance.

For now , i prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt.

Like Sky the top sprinters Bolt et al have even more to lose.

We're talking about now - not 10 years ago when Lance was winning. Cycling went through a stage that athletics is currently going through.

Lots of big names doping but with very little effort from the relevant authorities to catch them.

Cycling is on a different planet when it comes to anti-doping. Both in terms of amount/effectiveness of testing and in desire to catch cheats regardless of standing within the sport.

The sport needs a watershed in order to tip the balance in favour of catching cheats no matter what from the situation it is in now, which is catch the small-fry and protect the big names. Cycling had its watershed when it went through the Festina affair and into Operacion Puerto. They realised that the damage was done and they might as well actually fight doping in the sport rather than simply telling everyone they were like athletics.

The problem is, it'll most likely take a Bolt like figure to somehow test positive or more likely be implicated beyond reasonable doubt to do enough damage for the IAAF to actually think that proper anti-doping measures are the way forward. (That wasn't accusing Bolt of anything before anyone starts.)

"We're talking about now - not 10 years ago when Lance was winning. Cycling went through a stage that athletics is currently going through2

Tim montgomery, marion Jones anyone?

I was listening to Michael Johnson and Roger Black on 5live two nights ago , and they seems to think that athletics has already been through the stage you highlighted above - with the marion jones, tim montegmery a decade or so back.

Marion Jones was the face of atheltics about a decade ago - she got busted!

Those guys didn't get busted through anti-doping, that was a federal investigation.

It was still spun that these were isolated cases and guys like Maurice Greene got protection from the IAAF despite being an obvious case.

Big name 'pundits' are hardly going to say that the sport is tainted in public - they're being paid good money to promote the sport. Talking about doping in an open manner is still very much taboo in athletics - it's hardly even acceptable to look at returning dopers with any degree of scepticism.

Dj: the IAAF is on fire despite what you think.

Two more athletes get the boot:

See the link:


""Greek high jumper Dimitrios Chondrokoukis has pulled out of London 2012 after testing positive for the banned substance stanozolol.

The 2012 world indoor champion was one of Greece's best hopes of a medal.

The 24-year-old Chondrokoukis jumped a personal best of 2.33 metres when he took gold in Istanbul in March.

Hungarian discus thrower Zoltan Kovago will also miss the Games after being handed a two-year doping ban.

Stanozolol is the same substance taken by Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson in 1988. ""

Source: http://jamaica-gleaner.com/latest/article.php?id=38825


So far athletics have been leading the way in 2012.

A few Greek, Russian, Ukrainian also rans?

Everyone thinks those countries are doping anyway, so catching them does the sport no damage.

Athletics anti-doping is miniscule compared to cycling. Like it or not, it's a fact.