posted
The Norwegian shooting league, the Volunteer Rifles, is introducing an "open class" in which you can compete even if you're taking beta blockers, which are considered performance-enhancing drugs in the context of shooting. (I could only find a Norwegian link, sorry.) Apparently the open class is a sort of ghetto, where the prizes are not considered as prestigious as those in the un-drugged classes, but it's a first step. I've often thought that sports would be better off saying "Use whatever drugs you like" and saving on the vast enforcement protocols; perhaps we're seeing the first cracks in that wall now?
As an aside of historical interest, the Volunteer Rifles started out as just what they sound like: A private citizen militia. In the late 1800s Norway was dirt poor, and planned its defense accordingly; the regular army was tiny, and it was intended that it should be backed up by rifle clubs, which were therefore encouraged by the government. This also accounts for some of the historical Norwegian interest in outdoor sports, especially cross-country skiing and orienteering; these sports were given high status on the national-romantic grounds that they would be useful in a defensive war. (It is, of course, no joke to fight in Norway in winter.) The development of heavy, mobile field artillery made these defensive arrangements effectively obsolete, as we found to our cost in 1940; a unit with heavy-weapons support will defeat one without it no matter how good the individual riflemen are. But the sports continue to thrive.
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Blayne Bradley
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posted
Your catch phrase probably won't be picked up on here by anyone except me
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posted
I disagree that allowing people to take performance enhancing drugs makes for better competition. I understand the costs involved, and some of the problems with the testing protocols, but I still feel it provides a level playing field.
I can understand why beta blockers are considered performance enhanching for a shooting competition. They block epinephrine like chemicals, and reduce your heart rate. That would be a huge advantage......it takes nerves out of the shot, or at least reduces shake when you pull the trigger.
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quote:I disagree that allowing people to take performance enhancing drugs makes for better competition. I understand the costs involved, and some of the problems with the testing protocols, but I still feel it provides a level playing field.
Well, that's just the point: You still get a level playing field if everyone is allowed to use drugs. It's just not the same level you had before.
quote:Your catch phrase probably won't be picked up on here by anyone except me.
As long as someone gets it. Anyway, I found it amusing when I wrote it, and that's worth something.
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posted
I do believe it's fine to have a separate category wherein drugs are allowed, but I absolutely do not think the category in which they are not allowed should eventually go away.
The "drug-free" category shows us how far humans can get through pure physical conditioning. The drug category shows us how advanced our medical technology has gotten. Both are interesting, entertaining and valuable.
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posted
Nope. It isn't level that way at all. It becomes more about the science than the sport. Countries that are poor already suffer disadvantages in training facilities...adding cutting age drugs to the mix increases the dangers, decreases the ability of other, poorer areas to compete, and damages the sports involved as well as the athletes.
It is very, very unsafe to take these drugs for non-medical reasons, and I don't want to encourage people to abuse them more than they already do.
I have no issue with an open class existing, but I doubt it will ever be the norm.
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quote:Nope. It isn't level that way at all. It becomes more about the science than the sport. Countries that are poor already suffer disadvantages in training facilities...
Not to mention access to the very most modern materials; remember what happened when Michael Phelps competed without his cutting-edge swimsuit? It's already about the science; drugs are just a different part of science, one which has low status.
I don't object to having both kinds of classes, of course, although it does mean that you need a bit of enforcement to ensure that nobody is getting drug advantages in the undrugged class.
The Norwegian article I read mentions that the open class already existed, for "people with handicaps that give them an advantage in shooting". I'm not sure what sort of handicap that would be, but if extended to running it would presumably include people like that guy with the artificial legs.
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posted
Yep. I am not saying anything BAD about the competition you posted about. In fact there are a lot of people who have a real medical NEED for some of these treatments, such as steroid therapy for breathing problems (just one simple example, there are literally HUNDREDS of other conditions/treatment combos than can cause testing difficulties)), and this would allow them to compete without stopping their prescribed course of treatment.
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quote:I disagree that allowing people to take performance enhancing drugs makes for better competition. I understand the costs involved, and some of the problems with the testing protocols, but I still feel it provides a level playing field.
Well, that's just the point: You still get a level playing field if everyone is allowed to use drugs. It's just not the same level you had before.
It creates pressure to take the drugs. Might be ok if it's a relatively harmless beta blocker. It's another story if it's steroids, methamphetamine, GHB, or opiates. The whole athletic tradition has more or less to do with the natural limits of the human body, not the natural limits of human pharmacology.
But practically speaking, I don't care one way or the other about sportsmanship- I'm not into pro sports. What I am against is pressure to be chemically enhanced, especially when you're talking about a lot of pretty young people. You're talking about this being "just part of the science," but it's not on a level with wearing a new type of swimsuit. The message should not be: "pop this pill and you'll be a better competitor." That's just a crappy message, and it can and does feed the raging western obsession with dangerous but scientifically "approved" pharmacology. How many people do you know who think tylenol is safer than marijuana, for instance, when tylenol kills thousands of people a year. I'm not advocating marijuana here, I'm saying western ideas about prescription medications are pretty stupid.
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posted
It's not really a test of medicine for a lot of these, it's a test of how close to destroying their lives people are, or how far they're willing to go destroying them in order to win. To my mind it would turn, say, skiing into ultimate death match on snow. The fact that people would be willing to compete in such a contest doesn't make it any better, it just makes me depressed.
posted
I've thought for a while we should have a two tier system, drugs and no drugs. You would have no testing in the drugs league, so people could pretty much take whatever they wanted. The no-drugs league there's testing and if you get caught taking performance enhancing drugs at any point in your sports career, you are banned from the no drugs league.
Posts: 10177 | Registered: Apr 2001
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posted
Professional athletics is already a gladiatorial deathmatch. NFL players, for example, lose about two to three years of life expectancy for each season they play. That's roughly equivalent to one of them dying per match! (Which, incidentally, would make for much better television. Even I would watch that.)
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Anyway, I found it amusing when I wrote it, and that's worth something.
