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Michael Phelps Becomes Most Decorated Olympian of All Time

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too bad the Chinese list is almost hilariously incomplete

I'm not even an expert on the subject and I can probably add a dozen more entries to the list. the one survey in the 90s showed 32 cases alone in a short period of time.

Nobody is endorsing cheating of any kind; American individuals cheat all the time. It's simply not systemic. The American government clearly doesn't endorse it and has wide ranging rules against it. The Chinese government, on the other hand, has pretty much sponsored the cheating for thirty years.
It is systemic in America, although the difference may be that in China it is state-sponsored (possibly) while in America the system is sustained by a series of underground pharmaceutical labs (or legit companies that do the illegal doping secretly). The outcome is virtually identical: top athletes have access to ever advancing PEDs. As long as the games are politicized and commercialized to the extent they are, doping is going to be endemic in all sports and governments will be involved (even if we can never trace it back directly to them).

e: If Lance Armstrong does go down in flames, is the US government responsible since USPS sponsored him?
 
It is systemic in America, although the difference may be that in China it is state-sponsored (possibly) while in America the system is sustained by a series of underground pharmaceutical labs (or legit companies that do the illegal doping secretly). The outcome is virtually identical: top athletes have access to ever advancing PEDs. As long as the games are politicized and commercialized to the extent they are, doping is going to be endemic in all sports and governments will be involved (even if we can never trace it back directly to them).

Evidence? Don't believe it for a second. I have no doubt athletes could dope if they wanted to....I doubt many do though. Very little to gain and everything to lose for them AND the companies providing the drugs. The same cannot be said for a state run system.

(also don't think you understand the meaning of systemic. Systemic is east Germany in the 80's. Where all athletes were doping whether they knew it or not.)
 

Big-E

Member
It is systemic in America, although the difference may be that in China it is state-sponsored (possibly) while in America the system is sustained by a series of underground pharmaceutical labs (or legit companies that do the illegal doping secretly). The outcome is virtually identical: top athletes have access to ever advancing PEDs. As long as the games are politicized and commercialized to the extent they are, doping is going to be endemic in all sports and governments will be involved (even if we can never trace it back directly to them).

Exactly.


Evidence? Don't believe it for a second. I have no doubt athletes could dope if they wanted to....I doubt many do though. Very little to gain and everything to lose for them AND the companies providing the drugs. The same cannot be said for a state run system.

Marion Jones never tested positive IIRC. Came out through different means.
 
I read that more than 40 chinese swimmers got caught doping in the 90s

Shhhhhh remember China is pure and innocent while USA is the big bad wolf of this story.

Next you will have a thread about how much more China respects human rights and the USA has an underground network censoring media:p



But yeah this thread has wondered to far into paranoid insanity for me. i am out.
 

Big-E

Member
Shhhhhh remember China is pure and innocent while USA is the big bad wolf of this story.

Next you will have a thread about how much more China respects human rights and the USA has an underground racism network keeping it alive :p

No one is saying that but some people are dismissing the accomplishments of a young swimmer with no evidence other than being Chinese.
 
Evidence? Don't believe it for a second. I have no doubt athletes could dope if they wanted to....I doubt many do though. Very little to gain and everything to lose for them AND the companies providing the drugs. The same cannot be said for a state run system.

(also don't think you understand the meaning of systemic. Systemic is east Germany in the 80's. Where all athletes were doping whether they knew it or not.)
Most sports only do drug testing at competitions, and testing is done to minimize false positives. Let's imagine an athlete only takes steroids to aid recover and only does so a couple times a year. That athlete is cheating but will never be caught because he or she will not be on steroids when tested

e: even if the athlete were tested while he/she was on a cycle, it is very likely he/she would not be caught because we attempt to minimize false positives.

I used the word to mean it innervates all disciplines, affecting and support all athletes.
 
No one is saying that but some people are dismissing the accomplishments of a young swimmer with no evidence other than being Chinese.

Yeah but debunking that claim by the delusional idea that all Americans are systemically doping as well is laughable.

Now leaving thread before I get too involved lol.
 

Big-E

Member
Yeah but debunking that claim by the delusional idea that all Americans are systemically doping as well is laughable.

Who said all Americans dope? Some do but a sizeable percentage of the worlds athletes are doping. It is why they still catch people and why there are always controversies.
 

Amir0x

Banned
I have no opinion one way or the other on whether this girl doped, I am just saying that it's not sore losing that makes people skeptical at such an astonishing performance. It's the history behind Chinese olympic/global sport competition that makes it that way.

You may say that it's unfair that American competitors are not treated the same way, but I don't even think that's an entirely true assessment in of itself: I cannot tell you how many times I heard some commentator suggest an American might be doping. In American baseball, when these players were hitting worldrun record after worldrun record, all anybody could say anywhere was 'these guys are doping assholes.' And it was true!

This thing cuts both ways. I simply think China is worse since the state sponsors the cheating, and that's as awful an offensive I can think of for the spirit of such competition.
 
No one is saying that but some people are dismissing the accomplishments of a young swimmer with no evidence other than being Chinese.

Or the long history of world records being shattered due to performance enhancing, especially when it comes to women in authoritarian regimes known for systematically pushing Olympic athletes. This controversy started in large part because her performance treads of line of believability for a clean athlete.
 

Gray Man

Banned
I'm so proud to be in the USA, and even more proud to be a swimmer, well used to be. I need to get back in the pool.
 
you're guilty until proven innocent as far as i'm concerned :p, at this level of competition you'd be crazy not to. So many PEDs come out every year they're six steps ahead of any drug testing authority.
 
I have no opinion one way or the other on whether this girl doped, I am just saying that it's not sore losing that makes people skeptical at such an astonishing performance. It's the history behind Chinese olympic/global sport competition that makes it that way.

You may say that it's unfair that American competitors are not treated the same way, but I don't even think that's an entirely true assessment in of itself: I cannot tell you how many times I heard some commentator suggest an American might be doping. In American baseball, when these players were hitting worldrun record after worldrun record, all anybody could say anywhere was 'these guys are doping assholes.' And it was true!

This thing cuts both ways. I simply think China is worse since the state sponsors the cheating, and that's as awful an offensive I can think of for the spirit of such competition.
I think baseball is a bit different because nationlism isn't so much a factor. During the Olympics, different nations tend to point the finger at others while believing their own are clean (or not giving their athletes the benefit of the doubt, even if they secretly suspect something is amiss).

Yeah but debunking that claim by the delusional idea that all Americans are systemically doping as well is laughable.

Now leaving thread before I get too involved lol.
Unfortunately, the nature of the drugs, testing, and easy access does make doping systemic at the highest levels of most sports. There are a few ways to fight back. The blood passports in cycling is one way -- we may not be able to detect a drug, but we can tell that you are doping by examining your growth hormone levels, haematological values, etc. Random and frequent tests are also necessary. Very few sports have either blood passports or random testing during training, and I am fairly sure that swimming has neither of these... so I suspect all top swimmers are doping to various degrees.
 

Big-E

Member
you're guilty until proven innocent as far as i'm concerned :p, at this level of competition you'd be crazy not to. So many PEDs come out every year they're six steps ahead of any drug testing authority.

That reasoning is perhaps the right one to have but to only have it with Chinese athletes is baseless imo.
 
That reasoning is perhaps the right one to have but to only have it with Chinese athletes is baseless imo.

And it tends to diminish our enjoyment of the games. I operate on the assumption that nearly all athletes have cheated in some way, some far more than others, some with more advanced methods than others. But I try to keep that out of my mind... some of the women weightlifters make that very hard tho...
Here is an interesting article I just googled:

China's Ye Swien wins gold in the women's 200m individual medley final during at the London Olympic Games.

While the talk in London surrounding the superhuman performances of 16-year-old Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen centered on whether she might be benefitting from futuristic doping methods, one former master of performance enhancement doubts that is the case.

According to BALCO founder Victor Conte, whose Olympic clients included Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Dwain Chambers, if Ye or anyone else wants to cheat, they don’t have to turn to in vitro genetic manipulation, as U.S. swimming coach John Leonard suggested Ye might have done, or any other form of new-age doping.

RELATED: ANOTHER GOLD - AND WORLD RECORD - FOR SHIWEN IN 200 IM

“You could do all this with old-fashioned blood doping, or EPO,” Conte told the Daily News on Tuesday.

“It’s like taking candy from a baby.”

PHOTOS: LONDON OLYMPICS DAY 4

Conte stresses that he has no idea if Ye is doping but says it would not be difficult for any athlete to pull off an EPO regimen without getting caught.

“If you use EPO by IV injections, like the cyclists do, it clears within about 19 hours,” Conte said of the blood booster that cranks up red blood cell count and increases oxygen transport. “Forget all the new-age doping. This is what they can still do that’s old-school.”

Conte describes a training program in which an athlete uses EPO three times in a week in the “corrective phase” of the first two weeks of a doping cycle.

“Typically, it’s used on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays,” Conte said. “Then during the ‘maintenance phase,’ you use it once a week, typically on Wednesdays. The dosage is about 4,000 IUs per injection. This increases the red blood cell count and enhances oxygen uptake and utilization.”

Conte also described the regimen in a letter to British anti-doping authorities in 2008 when Chambers, his former client, applied for reinstatement following a doping ban for testing positive for banned substances in 2003.

“EPO becomes undetectable within 19 hours after an intravenous injection and 43 hours after a subcutaneous injection,” Conte said. “As you get close to competition, instead of doing a seven-day regimen, you do it every 10 days, or you don’t do it at all during the competition. You would do the corrective phase somewhere in your country before you got to the Olympics and kick up your hematocrit.”

Conte says EPO “delivers more oxygen to muscles and picks up metabolic waste and gets rid of it quicker as well. Every time you take a breath, you’re increasing your oxygen transport.”

What that means, says Conte, is that EPO, which is often associated with endurance events, is equally as effective in training for sprints.

Ye came under suspicion after she swam the last leg of the freestyle in 28.93 seconds, compared with the 29.1 seconds that Ryan Lochte posted in the men’s event minutes earlier, prompting Leonard to call the feat “unbelievable.”

Leonard then compared Ye’s performance to the East German swimmers of the 1970s who were famously exposed as massive dopers.

“It clears so quickly,” Conte says. “It just increases oxygen capacity and gives you a kick at the end.”
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/o...immer-ye-shiwen-doping-kick-article-1.1126198
 

Gray Man

Banned
Agreed completely.

China isn't like the United States though, the government picks you up at a very young age and you don't get a choice, you swim/run/dive/etc. Dominating the Olympics has become a very recent goal for the country and I wouldn't be shocked if this was the case.

Did you see this girls flip turns? They were TERRIBLE. I'm still unsure how she did it.
 
I remember when the female Chinese swimmers got busted drug cheating here in Austalia in the early 90's. The media was all over it, as the women had these huge roid-monster backs.
 
China isn't like the United States though, the government picks you up at a very young age and you don't get a choice, you swim/run/dive/etc. Dominating the Olympics has become a very recent goal for the country and I wouldn't be shocked if this was the case.

Did you see this girls flip turns? They were TERRIBLE. I'm still unsure how she did it.
Her MJ-like paws probably had something to do with it.

e: and they activated her alternate power supply for a turbo boost near the end

I remember when the female Chinese swimmers got busted drug cheating here in Austalia in the early 90's. The media was all over it, as the women had these huge roid-monster backs.

You should see some of the women weightlifters -- crazy amounts of bacne, bizarre man-like fat distribution, insanely vascular, etc. Others look relatively normal (just exceptionally strong looking). hell, the chick in the lightest weight class who set a WR looks like a damn 12-year-old:
p5x65.jpg
 
Her MJ-like paws probably had something to do with it.

e: and they activated her alternate power supply for a turbo boost near the end



You should see some of the women weightlifters -- crazy amounts of bacne, bizarre man-like fat distribution, insanely vascular, etc. Others look relatively normal (just exceptionally strong looking). hell, the chick in the lightest weight class who set a WR looks like a damn 12-year-old:
p5x65.jpg

Hey, you leave that Kazakhstan girl out of this!
 

tino

Banned
China isn't like the United States though, the government picks you up at a very young age and you don't get a choice, you swim/run/dive/etc. Dominating the Olympics has become a very recent goal for the country and I wouldn't be shocked if this was the case.

Did you see this girls flip turns? They were TERRIBLE. I'm still unsure how she did it.

So do the Koreas.

Not saying this is right or wrong, but the far east countries see the Olympic as a way to establish national pride. Therefore they are more willing to spend money on *long term programs* to build Olympic athelics.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with it. The Asians don't have big ass carriers group or F22 to show off the big dick, Olympic is a much healthier way to show off the big dick.
 
So do the Koreas.

Not saying this is right or wrong, but the far east countries see the Olympic as a way to establish national pride. Therefore they are more willing to spend money on *long term programs* to build Olympic athelics.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with it. The Asians don't have big ass carriers group or F22 to show off the big dick, Olympic is a much healthier way to show off the big dick.

i'd rather have awesome super carriers and freedom to do what I want with my life
diff'rent strokes
 

tino

Banned
I think she is awesome! No disrespect intendeded. Looking like a child is part of what makes her great. Both Kazakhstan women have been really charismatic.


She was actually born and started her training in China. Supposedly she say minority didn't get as much a chance to go to Olympic.
 
Jim Thorpe is mentioned only THREE TIMES in this thread.

What a goddamn shame. He was truly the greatest Olympian, except that the Olympic committee couldn't stand a Native American wreaking their shit.

essentially making the greatest athlete in the history of the universe an American.

Jim Thorpe went to the Olympics for fun and beat the shit out of everyone in a ton of different, varied events. He was 5'10'' and jumped 5'11''. Some of the events he hadn't even started practicing for until about a month before the events, or something close to that. For the running events he ran in mismatched shoes because someone stole his.

Didn't matter. Set records that took FIFTY FUCKIN' YEARS to beat. In most every event he was the clear winner; no close contests.

When the Olympic committee took him out because of a technicality (he participated in minor league events, which a lot of other athletes did), he gave no fucks. He knew he had won, and that was good enough for him. He went back, had a family, and took care of them as best he could as a farmhand.
 
She was actually born and started her training in China. Supposedly she say minority didn't get as much a chance to go to Olympic.

Bizarre. Her official London profile says she was born in Almaty: http://www.london2012.com/athlete/chinshanlo-zulfiya-1136190/. But nearly all sources say she was born in China (ex: http://news.xinhuanet.com/sports/2012-07/30/c_123490125.htm). And she wasn't even born in a far flung western province of China like I would've guessed. China should've kept her and the other Kazakh gold winner (who also emigrated to Kazakhstan around the same time).

Apparently, she is a Dungan: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungan_people. There are 110k total Dungans... the other kazakh weightlifter is also a Dungan... a population of 110k producing weightlifters who are absurdly dominating and who don't look roided as fuck. interesting
 

Laughing Banana

Weeping Pickle
It feels like this thread is the Independence Day of GAF thread, or the Armageddon of GAF thread.

Congratulations to Phelp, though. Although no one in my mind can top Federer as the greatest athlete in the world of sport.
 

Valnen

Member
So do the Koreas.

Not saying this is right or wrong, but the far east countries see the Olympic as a way to establish national pride. Therefore they are more willing to spend money on *long term programs* to build Olympic athelics.

Personally I don't see anything wrong with it. The Asians don't have big ass carriers group or F22 to show off the big dick, Olympic is a much healthier way to show off the big dick.

You're saying there's nothing wrong with taking someone against their will and telling them they HAVE to do this with their life?

WOW.

That is straight up morally wrong, period.
 

Kogepan

Member
Evidence? Don't believe it for a second. I have no doubt athletes could dope if they wanted to....I doubt many do though. Very little to gain and everything to lose for them AND the companies providing the drugs. The same cannot be said for a state run system.

(also don't think you understand the meaning of systemic. Systemic is east Germany in the 80's. Where all athletes were doping whether they knew it or not.)

Mark McGuire and Barry Bonds are multi-multi millionaires for it. You're nuts if u think theres no monetary rewards for juicing.

And you know how much these drugs cost right? There's DEFINITELY huge incentive for the companies to develop them.
 

spootime

Member
I honestly just assume that 99% of athletes in the olympics are taking some sort of performance enhancing drug. I don't think it takes away from that chinese girls perfomance though.
 

EatChildren

Currently polling second in Australia's federal election (first in the Gold Coast), this feral may one day be your Bogan King.
while i don't know if she is doping, I think it's a little unfair to say this.

Oh I haven't really given the Chinese thing much thought. I just wanted to take a dig at yanks. Because the only thing more satisfying than an international sporting win is the sour American loss.

Plus Australia has a looong sports rivalry with the states :p.
 
You're saying there's nothing wrong with taking someone against their will and telling them they HAVE to do this with their life?

WOW.

That is straight up morally wrong, period.
Against their will? I was under the impression that the children chosen to attend these sports schools are recruited and sent with their parents' consent as the parents see it as a way out of poverty. I read a series of articles last year from a lifter who trained with the Chinese for a little while, and he described the system as being fairly flexible; his coach made the decision to go into weight lifting on his own. You can read it here: http://lifthard.com/part-1-my-experience-with-the-chinese-weightlifting-“system”-introduction/.
 

Steelrain

Member
Oh I haven't really given the Chinese thing much thought. I just wanted to take a dig at yanks. Because the only thing more satisfying than an international sporting win is the sour American loss.

Plus Australia has a looong sports rivalry with the states :p.

It must be totally one-sided. We forget you guys exist most days.
 

tino

Banned
You're saying there's nothing wrong with taking someone against their will and telling them they HAVE to do this with their life?

WOW.

That is straight up morally wrong, period.

China doesn't do it. They award Olympic gold medalist a whole apartment (and a bunch of other material awards). There are sufficient motivation for poor Chinese to train for Olympic. I guarantee the treatment is a lot better than what the MLB hopeful kids have to go through in latin American.

You concept of China is from 40? year ago.
 

Derrick01

Banned
It feels like this thread is the Independence Day of GAF thread, or the Armageddon of GAF thread.

Congratulations to Phelp, though. Although no one in my mind can top Federer as the greatest athlete in the world of sport.

Fed can't be the best athlete when he struggles against the 2 guys in his sport that are so much superior in terms of athleticism. His talent is skill, endurance and craftiness. Not to mention Tennis is pretty low on the list of sports if you're comparing all athletes.

Then again it's a better choice than the people who say Tiger Woods :lol
 

mantidor

Member
Not surprised at how this thread turned out.

My beef is more with the sport itself though. By no means I'm saying Phelps isn't amazing, he is, but winning so many medals only happens because swimming has so many different competitions under the same sport, I'm personally way more impressed by athletes in triathlons, who not only swim, but bike and run, and do it through basically a whole freaking day. Anyone who even just finishes the complete run is amazing and beyond us mere mortals in my book.
 

Laughing Banana

Weeping Pickle
Fed can't be the best athlete when he struggles against the 2 guys in his sport that are so much superior in terms of athleticism. His talent is skill, endurance and craftiness. Not to mention Tennis is pretty low on the list of sports if you're comparing all athletes.

Then again it's a better choice than the people who say Tiger Woods :lol

Well, he's 31 right now and despite his 'struggles', yet currently he is sitting again at the number 1 again in the world with the man considered as his greatest rival not even participating in the olympic due to injury. Many Tennis legends considers him as the greatest in Tennis and recently Tennis TV puts him on the top spot when polling opinions from tennis players of new and old on who is the greatest.

But like I said, "in my mind." :)

So yeah.

But this is off-topic.
 
Oh I haven't really given the Chinese thing much thought. I just wanted to take a dig at yanks. Because the only thing more satisfying than an international sporting win is the sour American loss.

Plus Australia has a looong sports rivalry with the states :p.

Austria is not even on our radar, man.
 
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