BoxRec

yip agreed. much carpet sweeping on this issue.
and yes it does tarnish his legacy in my view.
mind you im biased never liked him tho I can appreciate what an awesome boxer he has been so Im probs not the best person to comment, Ive always been in the ante hero's corner Nard!!!!

Surely in cycling, if everyone is at it, then the fighters with the best genetics are going to win anyway?

no matter what anyone says about the drugs in the sport, those men are still remarkable atheltes, probably the fittest atheletes in the world.

They are actually freakish physical specimens. I was reading about Graham Obree the other day, the weird scottish bloke who broke the world hour cycling record on a home made bike made from scrap parts and an old washing machine bearing.

Apparently he tried to hang himself with ziplock tags, and was saved by the fact that he had 7 litre capacity lungs. So what you might say, save for the fact that the average person has a lung capacity of 2-3 litres!

jamesmcdonnell wrote:Surely in cycling, if everyone is at it, then the fighters with the best genetics are going to win anyway?

no matter what anyone says about the drugs in the sport, those men are still remarkable atheltes, probably the fittest atheletes in the world.

They are actually freakish physical specimens. I was reading about Graham Obree the other day, the weird scottish bloke who broke the world hour cycling record on a home made bike made from scrap parts and an old washing machine bearing.

Apparently he tried to hang himself with ziplock tags, and was saved by the fact that he had 7 litre capacity lungs. So what you might say, save for the fact that the average person has a lung capacity of 2-3 litres!

fornicating hell, that is a quality anecdote. When Lance's lungs were riddled with cancer, he still recorded one of the highest ever VO2 ratings during hospital tests. Apparently, one of the many keys to his success, is that he has lungs that are naturally 30% bigger than most people.

Miguel Indurain (five times Tour winner) had a resting pulse of 29. Just like Homicide Hank. There's a good little pub stat for you!

kinell that is low, the lowest i had come accross was Neil Back (the england openside)who was in his upper 30's i believe, this explains why he played in a postion that you have to be super fit and at such a high level for such a long time.
but 29 thats nearly dead!

Another thing about Hank. He had an abnormally large heart, which was able to beat much faster than normal people's, which allowed him to fight at such a furious pace for 15 rounds. Rather unfair really, he was basically a superman. I think his heard could safely beat up to something like 240 bpm while he was fighting, they did a battery of tests on him at one point.

Blimey I never knew all that about cycling, haven't really paid much attention to the sport at any time of my life.

Does that mean that the Iron Man athletes might be at it as well? That always looks like a nightmare of an event. I'd be knackered after the swimming, never mind the 60 mile bike ride and the half-marathon.

I read about one former Tour De France winner who went on a hunting trip and was mistakenly shot in the chest with a shotgun (I don't know from what kind of range) apparently he had so much muscle around his heart he survived when almost anyone else would have been killed.

steve ovett, 1980 double olympic medallist also had a 30ish BPM resting heart beat.
he went for an operation once and when they gave him the anaestetic and checked his heart rate they assumed he was asleep and were just about to cut him open and he was like "hey hey, i am still awake".

The heart is a muscle. Most people's hearts are the size of their fist, usually in proportion to their size. However professional atheletes, especially endurance atheltes have a heart which is 2-3 times the size.

jamesmcdonnell wrote:The heart is a muscle

Good point

Kilburn wrote:Blimey I never knew all that about cycling, haven't really paid much attention to the sport at any time of my life.

Does that mean that the Iron Man athletes might be at it as well? That always looks like a nightmare of an event. I'd be knackered after the swimming, never mind the 60 mile bike ride and the half-marathon.

Believe it or not, you are thinking of the 'Half Ironman'. The true Ironman triathlon is a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bike then topped off with running a marathon!

Of course, some of these lot will be at it but I would hope not many. No money in it yet!

Crikey. You've got to have some serious drive to swim and pedal all that way knowing you've got 26.5 effing miles to run on jelly legs.

When you consider the difference between what a top flight athelete is capable of and the average slob, it is quite amazing. Someone who is in reasonable shape but doesn't exercise regularly, will be out of breath running for a bus, and yet you get people who can do a triathlon.

It just shows what an amazing capacity to adapt the human body has, you wouldn't think an organism was capable of having such variance in it's abilities. I guess the thing is, we are designed to be in fairly regular motion and if we weren't all so fecking lazy, there would be less difference between us and atheletes.

Agree James, it's a point I consider every single day.

you are quite right and with that im off to play five a side. No one dominates that centre circle like old chopper wilson

jamesmcdonnell wrote:EPO is the substance you are referring too, it increases the bodies ability to produce haemaglobin I think, or more blood cells.

The other one is blood doping, you take a pint of blood out, keep it in cold storage and then transfuse it back in, hey presto, an extra pint of blood.

This is old as the hills. Apparently Lase Viren was up to this. Blood packing. Not sure if it was illegal, but this was a guy who won the 5k and 10k in the 72 AND 76 Olympics and nearly got a rostrum place in the 76 marathon. That's some hellish recovery.

James, your point about normal folk being slobs is spot on. Ever see a social gym user hit a bag for a minute?

Miguel Indurain had a phenomenally low heart rate (and huge lung capacity). And there was some awesome Aussie racehorse in the 30s that died, was opened up, and they found his heart was twice the size of a normal horse heart.

Ian 'Mr' McNeilly wrote:But in its purest form, it is fantastic.

My only query (and I admit all i know is what I have gleaned from a few articles) with that is that from what I can gather it has NEVER existed in a pure form - since it began, competitive cyclists have routinely consumed whatever were considered to be the most useful drugs of the day.

Anyway - now I am tying MYSELF up in knots!

My final word on the matter is that (IMO) ONLY the most draconian penalties will ever curb drug use in sport - because the cheats are ahead of the testers, therefore the only way to stop people continuing to seek out loopholes is to (attempt to) make it clear that ANYONE found guilty at ANY LEVEL will never compete again.

Someone earlier pointed out that every athlete seems to have taken this supplement or that and "didn't know" about something - my opinion is that those athletes who take NO FORM of supplements will always come out clean.

Apologies if I've already asked this and forgotten, but what is the situation with sprint star Kelli White? Did she officially have her gold medals from last year taken away? I presume she won't be going to Athens, which is a bit of a blow for the USA seeing as Marion Jones didn't qualify.

Kilburn wrote:Apologies if I've already asked this and forgotten, but what is the situation with sprint star Kelli White? Did she officially have her gold medals from last year taken away? I presume she won't be going to Athens, which is a bit of a blow for the USA seeing as Marion Jones didn't qualify.

yes she did. The gold medal was then given to Tori Edwardsm who has just failed a drugs test and may be stripped also. I used to be a big athletics fan, but the sport is a joke. It's impossible not to be cynical when you see an athlete you never heard of suddenly turn up in world class, or if you see a dramatic improvement in an athlete.

Shit, Jones didn't qualify? Probably cos she had to clean up. I always thought she looked like she juiced.

She's made it into the long jump but no sprint events, I believe.

If you look through the list of names & sports, just from this thread, you could easily believe that ALL sportsfolk are on something!

How depressing.

all three medallists from that 200m final

White Kelli USA
Kapachinskaya Anastasiya RUS
Edwards Torri USA

have since failed drugs tests.....absolutely SHOCKING!!!!

knockout wrote:all three medallists from that 200m final

White Kelli USA
Kapachinskaya Anastasiya RUS
Edwards Torri USA

have since failed drugs tests.....absolutely SHOCKING!!!!

damn, didn't know about the Russian. There's so much going on it just takes the excitement away from athletics.

knockout wrote:all three medallists from that 200m final

White Kelli USA
Kapachinskaya Anastasiya RUS
Edwards Torri USA

have since failed drugs tests.....absolutely SHOCKING!!!!

Which could be interpreted as "If you aren't taking drugs - you can't compete!"

Ah the high & noble ideals of an Olympian!

It really does embody the true representation of sportsmanship, doesn't it?