Dwain Chambers

IdleRich

IdleRich
Where do we stand on his shameless attempts to get back into a sport where no-one wants him? Despite the fact that he brought the sport (further) into disrepute and has done all his rivals and colleagues a huge disservice, I have to confess a slight amount of grudging respect for his sheer determination and unwillingness to be dissuaded by the small fact that nobody wants him there and they're trying everything they can to block him from competing. On the other hand, what else is he going to do - play American Football? - maybe it's actually easier to be hated and do the thing you can do than spend the rest of your life as a mediocrity, owing loads of money.......and still being hated.
 

crackerjack

Well-known member
Used to love watching top-level athletics but the whole shebang is now so discredited I find it hard to give a fuck.

That said I admire DC's dogged determination and wonder how many of those calling for him to be booed are guilty of the same thing themselves.
 

swears

preppy-kei
He was banned for two years, not for life. So what if he's arrogant? If he's up to the standard required to compete, he should be allowed to, he's done his time.
 

jenks

thread death
I admit to being conflicted on this one. My gut reaction is that he is a cheat and the sport should have nothing to do with him. I don't really want him representing GB at the Olympics.

But... I am a huge cycling fan and have seen the bloody mess that the sport has got itself into - currently the Yellow Jersey from last year will not be in either the Giro or Le Tour because his team are considered dodgy, this despite the fact that all teams will have blood passports an dthere is no proof that he as ever cheated!

David Millar served his two years and has now reintegrated himself into the peloton and could well take a timetrial stage and we would (nearly) all cheer but Dwain is persona non grata. Maybe it's because he ahsn't slunk back and worn the hairshirt or maybe it's something to do with a puritanical streak in athletics in contrast to cycling where there is feeling that so many are (or have been) doing it.

I'm waiting for the shit to hit in football, because I am certain that a number are doing it - Operation Puerto ,which led to the downfall of a number of high profile cyclists, apparently found blood from many other sports, football included. I would imagine we will have a high profile football player before too long - hopefully not by one of them failing to wake in the night because their blood is like sludge in their veins:eek:
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
From a Times interview with Victor Conte:

"Conte’s allegation of hypocrisy is hard to discount if UKA is making a moral issue out of Chambers. The selection of Carl Myerscough, the shot-putter who served a two-year doping ban, for the World Indoor Championships team was validated by the nebulous defence of him having remained committed to the sport."
Seems like a reasonable point (although Conte was the guy who got him into the mess in the first place).
 

baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
Ah, just read that Times piece myself. Good article.

Conte seems right that there is a hell of a lot of hand-wringing piety surrounding the whole Chambers thing, on the part of British athletics and the media. He alleges that almost all top-class athletes do similarly, and makes the point that doping tests are hopelessly absent in the off-season, when drug regimes can be followed with impunity.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
I agree completely with the 'he's done his time' camp.

Athletics is beyond saving already, given that competitors can already undetectably boost their performances.

Realistically tho': you dedicate the majority of your life to something of no real benefit to anything but your own ego and find out that you're getting beaten to the finishing post by people who get a little extra help. What would you do - resign yourself to being a loser or take a chance? The risk of getting caught is low enough to make it more than worth it, I'm sure.

There is illegal performance-enhancing drug-taking in the decidedly unlucrative world of international table-football - why wouldn't athletics be swimming in the stuff?!
 
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mixed_biscuits

_________________________
But... I am a huge cycling fan and have seen the bloody mess that the sport has got itself into

Cycling is stuffed because it is so physically demanding - absurdly so. It is little wonder that drugs play a major part. The sport should be shut down and the cyclists redistributed and given suitable employ (cf. German brothels).

Football would not really lose much face from a drugs scandal, as it would be patently obvious that the drugs are only there to maintain peak performance (combat wear and tear) and can't add anything to players' skill.
 
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craner

Beast of Burden
Hang on. Wait there. Dwain Chambers was an alumni of Victor Conte's BALCO drugs farm. It was a big bust! You should compare him to Kelli White - busted for the same drug from the same place after the same World Champs - it is illuminating. Chambers went to America to learn how to win. He got doped up. He got caught. When caught, he said, "in this sport, it's impossible to win unless you cheat." Not true.

If you actually remember the race (Paris 2003) the motherfucker flunked it! Despite the gruesome BALCO diet he came fourth - behind Darren Campbell.

The reason he's so desperate to get back into sprinting is because 1. no decent American football team would have him because he can't catch or kick and 2. he can't do anything else anyway.

Chambers deserves the same twilight as Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Justin Gatlin, and the rest. Maybe there should be special hGH freak trials, just for the spectacle. In the meantime, fuck them. They're easy to spot anyway. People know. For example: Kim Collins, Asafa Powell - no way. But: Gatlin, Jones, Montgomery, White - that was obvious.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
The hypocrisy rap Conte peddles is self-serving garbage - the kind of verbiage he tutored his clients in, from providing a list of 'legal' explanations for his athletes to deliver in press conferences if they got caught, to the whine Chambers spewed when he was finally convicted. It's not pretty, and easily torn apart. For example, Carl Lewis, who was certainly on something during the late glory years: but watch clean Mike Powell destroy him in the amazing 91 Tokyo long jump final. Or, take the mutually tragic careers of Florence Griffith Joyner and (my personal heroine) Merlene Ottey. Drugged-up Flo Jo died young; Ottey, the greatest female sprinter of her age never got the Olympic gold or world record she deserved, is now practically forgotten, because she didn't cheat, she just ran.

Some of my feelings on it here.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Arrogance isn't even a saving grace - prime example, Michael Johnson, a clean, morally upright, phenomenal athlete, who ran with breathtaking arrogance, and rightly so. Chambers has no reason to be arrogant. What did he actually win? (I doff my hat to his recent indoor times, I really do, but it's no longer the point with him. I say compare to Kelli White, who realised her dire mistake, felt approriate shame, and redeemed herself through education. She talked about it, on a lecture circuit. Sure, what else could she do? I just say, compare. Even when she was doped, at least she clinched the 100m and 200m title, the first woman to ever do so.)
 

mister matthew

Active member
Football would not really lose much face from a drugs scandal, as it would be patently obvious that the drugs are only there to maintain peak performance (combat wear and tear) and can't add anything to players' skill.

Tell that to Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds, and the last x amount of years of MLB.
 

mixed_biscuits

_________________________
Tell that to Roger Clemens, and Barry Bonds, and the last x amount of years of MLB.

Heh...but baseball takes more explosive power than football - steroids and the like affect peak performance.

As for track and field, there is no way to conclusively prove that someone performed unaided and so, given that taking drugs can influence how well one performs to such an extent, the sport as a whole is shafted.
 
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mister matthew

Active member
Heh...but baseball takes more explosive power than football - steroids and the like affect peak performance.

i really don't buy that. Sure PEDs can help you throw harder and hit harder, but most of the benefit in baseball is exactly what you said... "to maintain peak performance (combat wear and tear) and can't add anything to players' skill". HGH cant teach Cronaldo a step-over, but it didnt teach Bonds the mechanics of his swing or pitch recognition, or Clemens control etc either.

Most top footballers are total brick shit houses now. Frank Lampard is what passes for fat these days, and when you see him with his shirt off he's RIPPED. Explosive power, speed and physical endurance are a huge element of the modern game surely, and expecially as it's a sport where people are in direct physical competition with each other.

:)
 
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mixed_biscuits

_________________________
i really don't buy that. Sure PEDs can help you throw harder and hit harder, but most of the benefit in baseball is exactly what you said... "to maintain peak performance (combat wear and tear) and can't add anything to players' skill". HGH cant teach Cronaldo a step-over, but it didnt teach Bonds the mechanics of his swing or pitch recognition, or Clemens control etc either.

Most top footballers are total brick shit houses now. Frank Lampard is what passes for fat these days, and when you see him with his shirt off he's RIPPED. Explosive power, speed and physical endurance are a huge element of the modern game surely, and expecially as it's a sport where people are in direct physical competition with each other.

:)

Point taken: football's broken too - thanks for that. :(

;)
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Ok now I feel slighlty sorry for him. If he's thrown into Rugby League this soon he'll be murdered. It would be dangerous. No pro coach would throw a novice in that soon. If they did, Chambers would have to refuse, surely? What a ludicrous, desperate situation.
 

luka

Well-known member
he'll be fine, it's the most basic sport there is, all you need to do is know how to throw and how to catch. he's a big lad. it's a great move for him!
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Well, looks like he couldn't play Rugby League either. At least he's still alive, although Victor Conte is piping up again:

Conte served four months in prison for his role in supplying illegal drugs to sporting stars. But he has remained friends with Chambers and has often talked about the British sprinter being given "the full enchilada" of drugs...

In the letter, in which Conte addresses UK Sport, he explains not only the cocktail of drugs the sprinter used but how athletes still try to dodge the system. In reference to Chambers' drugs schedule he writes: "Your performance enhancing drug program included the following seven prohibited substances: THG, testosterone/epitestosterone cream, EPO (Procrit), HGH (Serostim), insulin (Humalog), modafinil (Provigil) and liothryonine, which is a synthetic form of the T3 thyroid hormone (Cytomel)." He explains not only how much Chambers took but when and how the THG was used.
 
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