quote:

Originally posted by Perception:
.... the line that bans certain substances but not others is completely arbitrary and silly.

Seriously ?
One of the most effective drugs for endurance sports is a drug that stimulates the body to produce more red blood cells. There was a rash of young cyclists dying in their sleep because their blood got so thick it was blocking their capillaries.
I would call that a "real danger" and "negative".

They've gone beyond that. Computer gaming is now considered a "sport", complete with big audiences and big money.

quote:

Originally posted by oldbill123:
Robotics. Only a matter of time until a sprinter with robotic legs appears. Transgender is already cheating.

An otherwise interesting thread is devolving into craziness about engines, AI, and computer gaming

quote:

Originally posted by Crom:

quote:

Originally posted by Perception:
.... the line that bans certain substances but not others is completely arbitrary and silly.

Seriously ?
One of the most effective drugs for endurance sports is a drug that stimulates the body to produce more red blood cells. There was a rash of young cyclists dying in their sleep because their blood got so thick it was blocking their capillaries.
I would call that a "real danger" and "negative".

And there are plenty of perfectly harmless substances on the ban lists for any given sport as well. Each athlete should be able to draw their own line.

quote:

Originally posted by Perception:
And there are plenty of perfectly harmless substances on the ban lists for any given sport as well. Each athlete should be able to draw their own line.

D1 teams allow their student atheletes whatever suppliments they want as long as it comes from the athletic department. The AD assures it’s purity. Quite often when an athelete gets popped he’ll claim that’s impossible, he took nothing banned, etc. And quite often it’s true, however, the source of the supplement has not been authorized and is contaminated. GNC had their commercial pulled from the Super Bowl last year because they sold products containing synephrine and DHEA. Both are on the list for banned substances in the NFL and has cost players suspensions because they decided to go shopping alone. Innocent but still costly. Supplements are not regulated and no one knows what’s in these products. Labeling means nothing.

quote:

Originally posted by Spiff_P239:
As such, each athlete should have to succeed solely as a result of their natural talent, not who can cheat the best.

Isn't this circular?

If the rules didn't ban doping, it wouldn't be cheating to dope. QED.

The question is really, why should doping be illegal? Are sports better without doping?

I agree with Timdogg6. The main argument against doping in my view is to discourage doping by children and younger athletes who may do themselves harm by doping, only to do better in what is not going to be a career in pro sports.

If it weren't for that, I'd probably allow doping in pro sports, and even high level amateur sports.

quote:

Originally posted by Perception:

You could probably live for a long time on a diet of Slim Jims and powdered sugar,

I've made it to 56 . . . but the blow is probably going to get me.

Hitler's army ran on meth. As long as only short term results are needed....let the use anything

Supposedly, there was a survey done with High School athletes:

They asked them: "If there was a drug that would guarantee that you would win every competition for your entire High School career, but you would drop dead, after 4 years, would you take it?"

Something like 90% said "Yes".

Anecdotal and unconfirmed, but it has the ring of truth.

Youth believes they are immortal and invincible.
Young athletes, doubly so.

Keep it away from the kids.

Bruce

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
As for level fields, how many young archers have parents with the money (or inclination) to spend $40+(!) for one arrow, much less to buy the best bows and other gear? We can argue whether most competitors would ever need the best gear to reach their maximum potential, but level fields? Hardly.

As far as how many have parents with the means to buy the best equipment, a lot.

Keep in mind I am talking about national level tournaments like Vegas, USA Archery Indoor Nationals and USA Archery JOAD National Target. At this year's JOAD Outdoor Target Nationals there was approx. 800 competitors, this is "youth archery" under 20 years old. No, not all of them had, "The best bows", but if one walked the lines in the upper age divisions, almost all of them are shooting high quality equipment.

Our daughter at JOAD Outdoor Nationals for example. She had both her primary and her backup bows, PSE Perform-X 3D - $1699.00ea. list, a dozen Carbon Express Nano Pro RZ arrow shafts - $389.00 list, a dozen tool steel points - $159.00 list, primary and backup Scott Halo releases - $199.99ea. list, plus a few hundred dollars in other things such as nocks, fletching, quiver, jersey etc. It adds up in the neighborhood of $4k - $5k.

The equipment costs don't freak me out as much. They've been bought over time, are used for multiple tournaments, coaching sessions and practice. Like others, our daughter also has staff shooter support and substantial discounts on equipment. But the cost to travel to Raleigh, NC to be at Nationals for me, my wife and my daughter with airfare, hotel, rental car and meals was probably $3,500 and we were one family of 800. So if a family is going to support their kid being competitive on a national level, equipment costs are a lot less than travel costs when one considers that it is 2 national championships and 4 USAT tournaments to travel to every year.

At JOAD Nationals this year, in the first qualifying round Cooper French shot a 352/360. At this level, every single point counts. Cooper was the highest qualifier at 1394 out of 1440, second place as a 1393. So yes, the competitive archers are going to use the best equipment that they have the means to acquire.

There's a lot of pressure on these kids to perform; competition to make the US National Team, staff shooter agreements, minimum qualifying scores for competitive teams, coaches and parents. I for one do not want to see kids turning to medication to try and gain an advantage.

So what does all this rambling mean? There's a lot of kids out there with families that have the means to support them and their gear. Do they all have the best? No, but most of them who are serious about it do. When you have first place in qualifying at a national event decided by a single point, having the best equipment available makes a difference.

Thanks for staying with us and continuing to post. You are appreciated and will be remembered here.

quote:

Originally posted by 2000Z-71:
As far as how many have parents with the means to buy the best equipment, a lot.

Thanks for helping make my point.

Out of a total US population of well over 300 million, 800 is hardly a “lot.” According to what I could find, 800 is only slightly more than the number of students in the average-sized American high school, and there are over 35,000 secondary schools in the country.

Your daughter is very fortunate to have parents who are willing to make the sacrifices in time, effort, and money to support her activities. There are countless young people who don’t have that advantage. The culture of the US has changed in almost every way since I was in high school, and that includes expectations and overall wealth. But to cite my own experience, the Army base where my father was stationed when I was in high school had a program for young shooters.

One year the group (we weren’t really much of a team) was given the opportunity to go to Camp Perry. I was more fortunate than most shooters because I had my father’s old shooting coat; I also had a few dollars spending money. Everything else, though, was supplied: The Army supplied the guns, the ammunition, spotting scopes and stands, the (bus) transportation, and through some program barracks and mess hall-like food and lodging were also provided. If most of the program hadn’t been free, there would have been no way for me to have participated. My family couldn’t have afforded to buy me the ammunition for my weekly training and practice sessions, much less a basic rifle and sights.

Yes, I understand that not all of the 800 archery competitors had top of the line equipment, but the fact that some of them did demonstrates that there are advantages to having it. The “it’s not the arrow but the Indian” ignores the obvious fact that a certain level of arrow quality is necessary for any Indian, regardless of how skilled, to be successful. Regardless of the levels of the 800 competitors, I cannot imagine that any one of them used the type of bow I and my classmates used in my high school archery class.

I had similar thought about testosterone replacement therapy. Prescribed by a Dr. for a medical condition. Unlike illicit steroids that jack your T levels many time more than naturally possible, testosterone replacement just takes the back up to the level they were when you were in your 20s. Safe and for a 40-something definitely performance "enhancing." I guess it may not apply to young athletes...unless your T is 1 point lower than average so you get a prescription to "fix" that.

"Cheating" is only not following the rules. If they change the rules it isn't cheating. Seems like a case by case basis, some banned substances are pretty silly, others very dangerous.

There are gray areas at the edge of any human construct. But if a substance really has only beneficial effects, it is called "nutrition" or "a vitamin" or "a supplement". I don't think there is any "perfectly harmless" item on the banned list for competition. Things like caffeine, ibuprofen, and tylenol; are not banned, even though there might be some slightly stronger variations that are banned.

Als, I don't think the "level playing field" issue is particularly relevant. We all know that no playing field is really level. The goal is just to insure that it does not become too heavily sloped. This probably ventures into the psychology of game theory, but if games become too biased for any reason, people refuse to play and spectators lose interest.

Let's say a major sport decided to allow it's athletes to use whatever PEDs they wanted (lets discount the legal implications of this for the moment.) Would that fact make you want to avoid watching/supporing the sport? Or if it improved the level / excitement of the play, would you be more inclined to watch it)?

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:

quote:

Originally posted by 2000Z-71:
As far as how many have parents with the means to buy the best equipment, a lot.

Thanks for helping make my point.

Out of a total US population of well over 300 million, 800 is hardly a “lot.” According to what I could find, 800 is only slightly more than the number of students in the average-sized American high school, and there are over 35,000 secondary schools in the country.

I think we're both kind of making each others points. Yes, archery is not one of the more popular sports. But I was using one single national tournament as an example. Yes, Nationals does attract some of the most talented archers from around the country. But you can also walk the line at a state tournament in AZ and seen a whole lot more kids with top end equipment.

And to think, archery is one of the cheaper youth sports now days. We have spent a lot supporting our daughter but it pales in comparison with what our neighbors have spent with their son who plays two separate travel leagues for baseball. But that leads off into a different discussion about the price of youth athletics now.

My original point is a lot of parents have the money to support their kid in whatever sport they compete in. There's a lot of pressure on kids now to perform. I don't want to see doping viewed as acceptable behavior in a sport. I don't coach my team, my students or my daughter with a win at all costs attitude. For me there are life lessons to be learned from competition, sportsmanship, how to win, how to lose, importance of work ethic and discipline. If doping were to be seen as acceptable, all those lessons become secondary to winning being everything.

Kind of an odd question...

If it were allowed you would have to use performance enhancing drugs to be competitive. Does anything think that we should make it so you have to take drugs if you want to compete in sports?

Sports are supposed to be about you and how hard you have worked and your ability to compete. Allowing performance enhancing drugs would make it a competition about who can come up with the best performance cocktail.