(Mod Post #61)The news we've all been waiting for....

dermCu

tunney wrote: »

But I am not hopelessly naive enough to think that football and hurling, at least at the inter-county and senior levels, are not tainted by doping.

Is cynicism your default setting or do you have specific reason not to give inter-county and senior level GAA players the benefit of the doubt?

Thats a genuine question. Do you know of GAA players that are doping - for a fact or even anecdotally? Or do you just have a feeling that current performance level are too high for some of them not to be doping?

MrCreosote

Rawhead wrote: »

I ****ing hate the term bog ball, it is purely derogatory and takes away from the fact that any inter county player would put a premiership footballer to shame fitness wise and they aren't on £200,000 per week.

What a totally over the top statement. I don't have much time for the overpaid prima-donnas in the Premiership, but you can't argue that they aren't fit. I hate this my-sport-is-better-than-your-sport rubbish.

Would love to see Lance in a junior B hurling match mind you.

TheRoadRunner

MrCreosote wrote: »

What a totally over the top statement. I don't have much time for the overpaid prima-donnas in the Premiership, but you can't argue that they aren't fit. I hate this my-sport-is-better-than-your-sport rubbish.

Would love to see Lance in a junior B hurling match mind you.

+1. Am a gaa fan but in reality they are way behind premiership soccer players fitness wise. Soccer players fitness has come on massively the last 15 years. I have no doubt PEDs are used by some teams. Sure just look at the dodgy Italian teams of recent years, juventus etc.

Regards drugs in gaa. It wouldn't surprise me although I had a few friends on different intercounty teams over the years and never heard any rumours.

mloc123

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

Regards drugs in gaa. It wouldn't surprise me although I had a few friends on different intercounty teams over the years and never heard any rumours.

How many GAA players suffer from asthma? How many have asthma inhalers...

tunney

dermCu wrote: »

Is cynicism your default setting or do you have specific reason not to give inter-county and senior level GAA players the benefit of the doubt?

Thats a genuine question. Do you know of GAA players that are doping - for a fact or even anecdotally? Or do you just have a feeling that current performance level are too high for some of them not to be doping?

Cynicism is not my default setting.
Anecdoatal, rumour, second hand.

TheRoadRunner

mloc123 wrote: »

How many GAA players suffer from asthma? How many have asthma inhalers...

Good point, same can be said for rugby!

tunney

MrCreosote wrote: »

What a totally over the top statement. I don't have much time for the overpaid prima-donnas in the Premiership, but you can't argue that they aren't fit. I hate this my-sport-is-better-than-your-sport rubbish.

Would love to see Lance in a junior B hurling match mind you.

"you won seven WHAT? Whats a TdF when its at home?"
"Hear john joe, this lad's job used to work as a bike courier in France."
"Man the fvck up Yank, are you missing your balls?!?!? Step INTO the challenge."

Rawhead

TheRoadRunner wrote: »

+1. Am a gaa fan but in reality they are way behind premiership soccer players fitness wise. Soccer players fitness has come on massively the last 15 years. I have no doubt PEDs are used by some teams. Sure just look at the dodgy Italian teams of recent years, juventus etc.

Regards drugs in gaa. It wouldn't surprise me although I had a few friends on different intercounty teams over the years and never heard any rumours.

Not a expert on fitness measurement but I know that inter county teams regularly match or exceed premiership players on bleep testing. I'd say the majority of people would be surprised at the amount of science behind most county outfits now. They use GPS and heart rate trackers during challenge games and training. Even if they only match the fitness of premiership players then it's still a mighty achievement considering they all hold full time jobs.
I am not having a pissing contest about which sports are better, I follow all sport, just don't like people talking down our national sports and the thing that separates us from becoming a homogenised version of Suffolk or Norfolk.

tunney

http://www.irishpeloton.com/2012/02/drugs-in-football-pull-the-other-one/

Good article.

BennyMul

tunney wrote: »

http://www.irishpeloton.com/2012/02/drugs-in-football-pull-the-other-one/

Good article.

very good article

these is also a big difference, between Football and other sports, they have $$$$$. If Jonny for example (just a comparison to LA) were rumored to be on the gear, there is not a hope of it been reported for fear of legal action. however take a cyclist, athletics etc and its no holds barred.

the proof here is off all the sport involved in the Puerto case, outside cycling how many names were mentioned.

KentuckyPete

tunney wrote: »

http://www.irishpeloton.com/2012/02/drugs-in-football-pull-the-other-one/

Good article.

Yep - spot on.

It's what's at stake that determines the level of focus on drugs in a sport. If you build your life around football or rugby - either by owning or working for a media outlet or by referring to an English commercial soccer outfit in the first person plural or by buying into this whole 24 hour football focus on Sky then you have a lot to lose by facing up to drugs in your sport. It's way easier to pin it on the usual suspects - running, cycling, weightlifting and other minority sports. That way you look like you care about drugs in sport but your cash cow or your bandwagon of fandom stays intact.

The smaller sports do not have such relentless media promotion or mindless support so they have to be seem to do something - even McQuaid. However even within these sports there are small groups with a lot to lose - e.g. LA. So unsurprisingly these groups put up the biggest resistance to dope testing.

If you've a lot to lose you resist dope testing and if you have little to lose (or something to gain) you support it. If Off The Ball (an excellent sports show) went after drugs in soccer in a meaningful way they'd end up being frozen out completely. They don't want to risk that.

Larry Brent

tunney wrote: »

http://www.irishpeloton.com/2012/02/drugs-in-football-pull-the-other-one/

Good article.

Interesting that it labels Mueller-Wolfhart as the Fuentes of soccer. You have to be suspicious when one doctor or therapist becomes the must see person for top athletes. Wouldn't that expert share his expertise and teach others so they could do similar - but when the expert becomes the only one who can look after the sports person you have to wonder.... Interesting to see how even other professionals fawn to such experts, see below:

http://bjsportmed.com/content/42/3/158.extract

This brought together many of UK Sport’s top sports medicine clinicians along with three invited international experts. Many issues of muscle strains were discussed over the three days, but the aspect that attracted the most attention was the early management of strains in the elite athlete. A consensus summary of conclusions on this specific topic from the think tank is presented here.

The international experts were chosen by request of the UK clinicians for different reasons. Drs Best (basic science) and Orchard (epidemiology) are recognised internationally by the peer-review system as experts in their fields. Dr Mueller-Wohlfahrt is also recognised internationally as Europe’s premier clinician in the early management of muscle strains. This recognition was initially bestowed on him by his patients, most notably from the thousands of professional football players he has managed over the past 30 years from every country in Europe. Increasingly this recognition has been accorded by the “mainstream” clinicians in the United Kingdom, hence his invitation to the think tank.

With the reserve typical of both the British and the scientific community, a common assessment of Dr Mueller-Wohlfahrt’s methods by delegates was “initially I had to be sceptical, but I have seen and heard of so many good results that I am now curious to know why these good outcomes are occurring”.






The rest of the article varies from amusing to vomit inducing as it is revealed how once he suggested something the rest all agreed 'yes, let's call that best practice'.

pgibbo

I see Michael Raelert will now race Lance in 70.3 Texas. Should be interesting. I can't imagine Lance will want to be beatten on his home turf.

Izoard

Nice to see Rasmus Henning delivering at Abu Dhabi after mouthing off at the Panama 70.3...

All brewing nicely....!

pgibbo

How do people see IM70.3 Texas going this weekend? Looks liek a pretty strong field. Will Lance be on the podium? If Raelert is any sort of shape he should hand Lance his a$$ on the run.

Izoard

pgibbo wrote: »

How do people see IM70.3 Texas going this weekend? Looks liek a pretty strong field. Will Lance be on the podium? If Raelert is any sort of shape he should hand Lance his a$$ on the run.

Should be a great one, but Lance's A race is Nice, where he'll expect a serious lead off the bike to see him through the run and a Kona slot (albeit with a relatively shallow field in France...).

I'd be amazed if he ends up being competitive in Kona - will be a poor reflection of the current pros if he is.

Fazz

Looking forward to this one.

Raelart, Vanhoenacker & Co vs Lance.

Be interesting to compare... You'd expect Lance to go harder on bike at his home race, second 70.3 and he'll also know he will need to this time if he's to hold out any chance of a podium I'd say.

Kienle, Amey... pretty impressive field so he'll have his work cut out that's for sure.

Texas is 6 hours behind us... so presume that'll be a race kick off around 2pm, and all done by 6pm our time...

couerdelion

Izoard wrote: »

I'd be amazed if he ends up being competitive in Kona - will be a poor reflection of the current pros if he is.

Just because of his age? Is it a bad reflection on the current crop of youngsters that Paul Scholes is still a great footballer, or that Leinster have signed a 38 year old ex Rugby League player?

I dunno, he's been at the top of an endurance sport for years so has the pedigree regardless of how it was achieved. He'll be top 10 in Kona.

Izoard

couerdelion wrote: »

Just because of his age? Is it a bad reflection on the current crop of youngsters that Paul Scholes is still a great footballer, or that Leinster have signed a 38 year old ex Rugby League player?

I dunno, he's been at the top of an endurance sport for years so has the pedigree regardless of how it was achieved. He'll be top 10 in Kona.

Lance first retired from "his" sport in '06, coming back again to do the Tour twice - once to finish 3rd, once to finish nowhere.

So, he retires, for the 2nd time, once his time is fully up.

Now he's taken up a pursuit that is 1/3 related to his previous professional life, which is primarily about promoting Livestrong (and himself...).

I was watching Ian Thorpe the other day, attempting to make it back (in his natural event) to world level, and he was miles off.

I think the Lance thing would be similar to Thorpe trying to switch to the backstroke today- great story if he makes it, but a poor reflection on the current batch of backstrokers...

To address your analogies - if SAF or JoeS had youngesters capable of doing the job - both Scholes and Thorn would not be a factor.

MrCreosote

Izoard wrote: »

Now he's taken up a pursuit that is 1/3 related to his previous professional life, which is primarily about promoting Livestrong (and himself...).

I was watching Ian Thorpe the other day, attempting to make it back (in his natural event) to world level, and he was miles off.

I think the Lance thing would be similar to Thorpe trying to switch to the backstroke today- great story if he makes it, but a poor reflection on the current batch of backstrokers...

I'm not a fanboy, and I can't believe I'm going to defend Lance but I think you're off with your own analogies. He was after all a top u-20 triathlete in his time- shows he's got some swim and run predigree anyway. And he's going into a sport where the recent Kona winners have all been in their late 30s.

It'd be more like Thorpe entering the backstroke when he was a decent youth backstroke swimmer already.

And it's better anyway to leave the cycling behind- the doping history of the sport means even clean warriors like Lance get tarred. Far better in the dope-free world of Ironman Triathlon (tm).

ThisRegard

MrCreosote wrote: »

the doping history of the sport means even clean warriors like Lance get tarred. Far better in the dope-free world of Ironman Triathlon (tm).

I certainly hope this is a sarcastic comment

bryangiggsy

MrCreosote wrote: »

And it's better anyway to leave the cycling behind- the doping history of the sport means even clean warriors like Lance get tarred. Far better in the dope-free world of Ironman Triathlon (tm).

Please tell me you are joking

Izoard

ThisRegard wrote: »

I certainly hope this is a sarcastic comment

bryangiggsy wrote: »

Please tell me you are joking

Ahh, lads...I think it is fairly clear what he is saying here!

As to Mr.C's main point - I'm really enjoying Lance's presence in the WTC world, but I think he should come up short in Kona, if the depth of the pro field is to be validated.

MrCreosote

bryangiggsy wrote: »

Please tell me you are joking

Absence of positive tests in the "world's most tested athlete" and WTC races mean sarcasm is necessary.

Amz

7th for Lance, seemed to be blamed on his nutrition?

Only caught the end of his post race interview, as was on a train from Mayo.

MrCreosote

Lance is at it again on twitter, bagging the Olympic distance triathlons. "A shampoo, blow-dry and 10k foot-race" was his comment.

A valiant and noble warrior battling against the changing of focus from IM to ITU racing, or a bitter has-been who can't run fast enough to take part in the best triathlon circuit around?

tunney

MrCreosote wrote: »

Lance is at it again on twitter, bagging the Olympic distance triathlons. "A shampoo, blow-dry and 10k foot-race" was his comment.

A valiant and noble warrior battling against the changing of focus from IM to ITU racing, or a bitter has-been who can't run fast enough to take part in the best triathlon circuit around?

Ah now Jordan Rapp's & Macca's comments make sense.

Not that many people can run a sub 30 10km, never mind off the bike.

couerdelion

MrCreosote wrote: »

Lance is at it again on twitter, bagging the Olympic distance triathlons. "A shampoo, blow-dry and 10k foot-race" was his comment.

A valiant and noble warrior battling against the changing of focus from IM to ITU racing, or a bitter has-been who can't run fast enough to take part in the best triathlon circuit around?

He's not really wrong though is he when he's talking about the ITU races? It's rare there's a decisive break made on the bike and a significant lead taken into the run. 8/10 times it comes down to a foot race and who the fastest 10k runner is.

mloc123

Hah, now I know what Noble meant by his 'Shampoo Swim' tweet this morning.

kennyb3

couerdelion wrote: »

He's not really wrong though is he when he's talking about the ITU races? It's rare there's a decisive break made on the bike and a significant lead taken into the run. 8/10 times it comes down to a foot race and who the fastest 10k runner is.

Well then he better do some decent run training or HTFU and stop whining like a little girl. Does he want the sport to change to suit him?