Tokyo Olympics

[Corpsey]

Because I'm very clever presumably?

And not thick, as has been suggested.

 

[linebaugh]

Luka still rides a BMX.

It's the only size he can reach the pedals with

 

[version]

Not watching this anymore.

I find it as hard to sit down and watch sport as others to sit down and read the complete works of WB Yeats.

I haven't watched any of it.

 

[catalog]

Just watching a bit of the mens highjump. Really funny, they're all way off.

 

[version]

It's the only size he can reach the pedals with

 

[wild greens]

I am convinced these relay swimmers are on the gas

So fast

 

[version]

I just assume everyone's on something at this point. It's like bodybuilding. I reckon nobody actually knows what "natty" looks like as there's nobody in the public eye who is.

 

[wild greens]

Mate of mine growing up was on the injections and then transitioned to tablets after the first 2/3 months. He did get really big but we were all confused by the real lack of stamina - you'd play five a side and he was completely busted within 20 minutes. We didnt know anything about it then, neither did he probably

But i guess it was a big frame and not really made for your day to day running

If you look at MMA it is clear about the EPO cycles i think, dead obvious which fighters will gas especially from welterweight up.

Maybe e.g. Olympic judo is on the up and up but all the same who knows; yeah i agree with you tbh

 

[craner]

That was probably the lowest quality Men’s 100m final line up I have ever seen, but still…Italy!

 

[IdleRich]

I'm fairly cynical about the drugs in sports.... but now when they can keep the sample and test it years later with new techniques that become available.... I would never be able to cheat in that way, knowing that I could still retroactively be disqualified at any time. I guess you need a certain type of temperament for that and it's not mine.

 

[version]

I'm fairly cynical about the drugs in sports.... but now when they can keep the sample and test it years later with new techniques that become available.... I would never be able to cheat in that way, knowing that I could still retroactively be disqualified at any time. I guess you need a certain type of temperament for that and it's not mine.

I don't think it's as clear cut as that. There was a bit in one of the articles @wild greens posted about a footballer who was pressured into having injections and whatnot by the medical staff and management at their club and how it wasn't presented as cheating, just what's done. The author even went as far as to say it isn't possible to compete at the highest level without doping.

The other thing with this stuff is that if everyone's doing it then you have to weigh up whether it's worth potentially tanking the entire sport to deal with it. That doctor who was involved in the cycling said if they properly investigated and were serious then they'd have to take the World Cup off the Spanish football team.

 

[wild greens]

Hurdles in the rain really is brutal

 

[Corpsey]

Why don't they let athletes juice? Is it cos it's dangerous or something? Or "unnatural"?

 

[Corpsey]

I read an article a while ago that pointed out that a lot of sports aren't "fair" anyway because some competitors are born with genetic advantages. Different muscle twitch fibers etc...

 

[Mr. Tea]

I read an article a while ago that pointed out that a lot of sports aren't "fair" anyway because some competitors are born with genetic advantages. Different muscle twitch fibers etc...

That's verging on saying professional athletics is unfair because it's biased towards very strong, fast or otherwise fit people, isn't it?

 

[Corpsey]

I think this might be the article - originally published in the New Yorker...

Do Genetic Advantages Make Sport Unfair? | Independent Coach Education

Toward the end of “The Sports Gene”, David Epstein

www.independentcoacheducation.co.uk

What we are watching when we watch élite sports, then, is a contest among wildly disparate groups of people, who approach the starting line with an uneven set of genetic endowments and natural advantages. There will be Donald Thomases who barely have to train, and there will be Eero Mäntyrantas, who carry around in their blood, by dumb genetic luck, the ability to finish forty seconds ahead of their competitors. Élite sports supply, as Epstein puts it, a “splendid stage for the fantastic menagerie that is human biological diversity.” The menagerie is what makes sports fascinating. But it has also burdened high-level competition with a contradiction. We want sports to be fair and we take elaborate measures to make sure that no one competitor has an advantage over any other. But how can a fantastic menagerie ever be a contest among equals?

Found this on the LRB looking for the article and found this intriguing and counterintuitive(?) argument...

Jon Day · Detecting the Duchess: Serious Doper · LRB 30 July 2021

The Russian state lab in Sochi was the official drug testing facility for the whole games. As head of the lab, Grigory...

www.lrb.co.uk

"It’s also not obvious that the advantages provided by doping should necessarily be thought of as unfair. ‘Some athletes,’ Rodchenkov writes,

are genetically gifted and can get to the top of their sport with natural training techniques; meanwhile, an athlete who seems unpromising can, after a modest doping regimen, show huge progress in developing skills and stamina, progressing to the point where he or she can challenge visibly stronger rivals. An average athlete might have more room for development and be more dedicated than the ‘natural’ competitor ... If sport was ‘clean’ that would be a reverse handicap, favouring naturally gifted athletes over their less advantaged rivals.​

Without drugs, only a few talented athletes can ever compete at the highest levels of sport; by using them, those with unrealised potential are given their chance. Rather than seeking to make sport ‘clean’, Rodchenkov proposes that sporting bodies should try to inculcate a culture of sporting ‘honesty’: encouraging athletes to be explicit about the methods they use to improve their performance. A centrally administered, comprehensive and open doping culture in sport would allow for greater equality of opportunity for athletes. It’s an interpretation of fairness in sport that might be worth revisiting."

 

[william_kent]

not really related, but I watched some documentary about when Space Invaders and Asteroids and those sorts of arcade games were a thing, and there was a guy in it who had worked out he could double-tap the controllers to fire faster and he won some competition, and all the other competitors complained that he was 'cheating' and had an 'unfair advantage' when in reality he was just better than them - of course you still get the same thing nowadays with being accused of having an aimbot when you're just faster and more accurate then the rest of the server

 

[luka]

I read an article a while ago that pointed out that a lot of sports aren't "fair" anyway because some competitors are born with genetic advantages. Different muscle twitch fibers etc...

In Tokyo they have already faced questions about whether they should be running at all, and indeed (again, aged 18) whether they should be classing themselves as women at all.

This stems from something with which both Masilingi and Mboma were born. Naturally occurring raised testosterone levels mean both have been classified as DSD, or athletes with Differences of Sexual Development, and placed – to their surprise – in a strange, indeterminate category of sporting womanhood.

 

[craner]

I don't know why, but I'm not into the athletics at all right now. Literally couldn't care less.

 

[Corpsey]

No crowd?