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Is it likely that Usain Bolt is doping?

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Tldr; I don't think he's doping and if you believe not only believe not only winners but everyone else is doping, why are you even watching the sport?

Because the goal is simply to be entertained, and dopers entertain me. Barry Bonds was the most entertaining baseball players i've ever seen.
 

Showaddy

Member
Bolt wins the big races but he really hasn't been THAT fast of late, people are more inclined to believe he's clean because he's been consistently declining since his highs of 08/09. Unlike Gatlin who's at the peak of his career well past his natural prime.
 

UFO

Banned
It's such a grey area I don't even know what doping means anymore. Is taking supplemental vitamins doping? Taking vaccines? Using shoes made out of carbon nano-tubes that cost $500,000 each? When so much money is at stake athletes will do whatever they need to do. It's inevitable.
 

Snorlocs

Member
Listen. When your main staples are yam and banana and you have to be perpetually running from tief and gunman there is a good chance that you will learn to run fast. Also dude is 6 foot 5 and 230 pounds of pure muscle with years of training (he's been running since he was a teen). Dude just has all the right attributes. No drugs needed.
 

Parch

Member
Olympic testing is also pretty terrible. In the cat and mouse game of testing versus PEDs. PEDs won a long time ago.
The designer drugs win because it takes so long before accurate testing is found.

What I don't like are the hypocrite athletes that finger wag those who get caught. Better to just STFU because it always sounds like... you got caught and I didn't. Ha ha.
 

THRILLH0

Banned
Stop using Lance as a comparison. There were rumours and allegations about him for years that Americans chose to ignore.

Not remotely the same as Bolt.
 

Africanus

Member
While I don't naturally assume he is doping as many here are, I would not be at all surprised if a "scandal" were to break that he had been using drugs in Beijing.
Regardless, he still trained quite hard, so the win belongs in his favor against a "former" doper.
 

danwarb

Member
No dubious tests, so not a hint through hundreds of tests. That would be unusual for a doper, even a clever one, or even many clean athletes. Other Jamaican athletes are still failing tests.

Maybe he is, but I doubt it. I think he's just got a freak build. Tall guy sprinter.


That, according to the leaked IAAF doping files: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/athletics/33749208

•A third of medals (146, including 55 golds) in endurance events at the Olympics and World Championships between 2001 and 2012 were won by athletes who have recorded suspicious tests. It is claimed none of these athletes have been stripped of their medals.
•More than 800 athletes - one in seven of those named in the files - have recorded blood tests described by one of the experts as "highly suggestive of doping or at the very least abnormal".
•A top UK athlete is among seven Britons with suspicious blood scores.
•British athletes - including Olympic champion heptathlete Jessica Ennis-Hill - have lost out in major events to competitors who were under suspicion.
•Ten medals at London 2012 were won by athletes who have dubious test results.
•In some finals, every athlete in the three medal positions had recorded a suspicious blood test.
•Russia emerges as "the blood testing epicentre of the world" with more than 80% of the country's medals won by suspicious athletes, while Kenya had 18 medals won by suspicious athletes.
•Stars such as Britain's Mo Farah and Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt recorded no abnormal results.
•Athletes are increasingly using blood transfusions and EPO micro-doses to boost the red cell count.
 
You have to invoke the Lance Armstrong rule. If your sport is completely filled with cheaters and you are routinely crushing them, you are most likely a cheater too and will be shown to be at some point in the future.
 

D4Danger

Unconfirmed Member
Lance Armstrong was a known drugs cheat for years but the politics of cycling allowed him to continue

if Bolt was cheating we'd know by now. He's been dominant for too long unlike most drugs cheats that rise and fall.
 

industrian

will gently cradle you as time slowly ticks away.
A year or so after Bolt dies then it'll be safe to reveal that he was a cheat.

Right now he's too mainstream an icon. He's protected.
 

ApharmdX

Banned
Yes. But he is the fastest in a field of dopers so there is that.

Pretty much this. Yes, he's doped to the gills, but the entire field is. So he's the best on a level playing field (that is cheating to the limits of human endurance).
 

Onemic

Member
Of course he's doping. Most athletes are doping. Anyone that really thinks everyone is clean unless they get caught is delusional

So do people think doping is going on in all pro sports? For example, do you think NBA payers dope?

Yup. Dat HGH
 

ODDI

Member
No.

yellow-yam.jpg

I should be eating more yams.
 
He may be cheating but so are the guys competing against him. So if you took away his cheating, you have to take away all the other guys too, and that means he probably still wins, just with a slower time.

#Shrugs
 

B!TCH

how are you, B!TCH? How is your day going, B!ITCH?
It's just a sport. It's just a game.

Yeah, sports shouldn't matter that much.

Sports should just be for recreation and exercise. When people start gambling and getting overly competitive about who is the best is when it gets stupid.
 

duckroll

Member
"Fuck the integrity of the sport" smh

There is no integrity to athletic sports of this kind. Hasn't been for a long time. Anyone who wants to believe there is, is just fooling themselves. That's not to say lying about doping is something we should condone, but it is what it is, and everyone is in on it. It's like trying to say that politics is clean, with a straight face.
 

Joni

Member
She won so she must be doping. That's apparently how it works.

No doubt she risked her pregnancy, career, sponsorship deals.
Every doper risks sponsorship deals and career. The problem is, not doping would probably have cost them the same. Pre-doping (let's be generous and say he took less/no doping before his cancer) Lance Armstrong doesn't have the career or sponsorships of doping Lance Armstrong. A lot of athletes get sponsorship deals because of the results they get on doping.
 

Africanus

Member
There is no integrity to athletic sports of this kind. Hasn't been for a long time. Anyone who wants to believe there is, is just fooling themselves. That's not to say lying about doping is something we should condone, but it is what it is, and everyone is in on it. It's like trying to say that politics is clean, with a straight face.

Politics is clean :I
 

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
Even if he is,he still has to have the skill and work ethic to do what he does.

It's like steroids and someone like Clemens. The guy might have doped but he still had to make the throws at fast speeds on a limited fov.

Armstrong is a different thing for me and the way he handled his doping really made people not like him.

Bolt doping would not shock and would take little away from me acknowledging the work he out into his body to run so fast.
 

LayLa

Member
If they're all doping and he's the best of them then it's an even playing field. Who cares.

This doesn't work as an argument as it would never be an "even playing field".
Leaving aside the costs of the most expensive drugs you also have to take into account people's physiology.
Performance enhancing drugs affect people differently, one person taking EPO might get a 5% boost while another person taking the same dose might only get a 2% increase.
So if everyone was doping the winner might not be the best athlete, but the one whose body adapts to taking the drugs the best. Which isn't a great basis for a sport.
 

kmag

Member
A PB of 10.03 to an unbelievable 9.69 WR in a year is a lot of smoke.

Did you see the difference in technique before and after that year? Bolt was an absurdly quick 200m runner who occasionally ran 100m, and even as a 200m he still was technically raw.

Bolt was pretty quick as a kid despite of himself. He's so tall that he had almost no lateral stability, which is still a problem for him especially during the transition from the start phase. Whether he was on drugs or not in that year, his technique came on leaps and bounds. He still rocks and rolls but he's far more stable that he used to be, allowing him to fully extend his stride when driving.

I'll try to dig out the video, it used to be on youtube.

I'm normally the biggest cynic when it comes to dopers, but Bolt is so atypical in terms of body size, shape and composition that I'm willing to consider he just won the genetic lottery.

Carl Lewis was considered 'too tall' for a sprinter (normally between 5'9 and at a push 6'3) at 6'2 and 13 stone, Bolt is 6'5 and 12 stone. Doping or not, he's pretty unique in terms of technique etc.
 

milanbaros

Member?
If you are the best out of a field of dopers, then the simplest explanation is you're doping.

If your country of 2m people if the most dominant in a global sport then the simplest explanation is you're doping the most.
 
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