Age groupers and doping (Page 2)

I get that but the 60-70% of us not cheating would like a level playing field.  If I'm getting my butt kicked by someone I would like the reasons to be they're physically more talented than I am and/or worked harder than me.  I don't want it to be because they have loose ethics and morals and decide to cheat at amateur racing for whatever vain reason they're doing it.  I'm with you.  I get cheating at the professional ranks in any sport.  Don't condone it but I get it.  Money, fame, glory, and all that is a powerful incentive.  Cheating to podium the M45-49 AG at the Local Yocal Triathlon is just absurd.

Oh, I get your point as well, and I agree.  The problem is, USAT does not care about doping in the AG ranks......they probably can't afford to care.   (again, in no way is that comment a slap at USAT....I can't figure out why they would care either and they do a great job with their races, athlete development, customer service, etc.)

Here's a reason they should care:  Because one of their primary missions is to develop talent for the Olympics.  The more widespread doping is within the AG ranks, the more likely it is to be acceptable and accessible to the future Olympians who are the teenage children of many of those same AGers.

that's interesting.  doping in sports is more like a rule violation than illegal activity.  it's cheating, not criminal activity; that same reasoning could be extrapolated to require community service for course cutting or wearing headphones in the local 5k. 

If we want wide spread AG drug testing, then the AGers will have to pay for it.  I just don't see that happening across the board.

The only thing I can see is if the WTC stepped up and forced everyone who claimed a KQ spot to take and pay for a drug test as part of accepting the spot.  Roll the cost of their test into the price of entry.  This would go for lottery and legacy winners as well as technically they are eligible for the AG win/podium at Kona.  Maybe tack on another $50 per entry at Kona so that everyone on the podium at Kona can get re-tested.  I honestly don't think that many people will complain about a $1500 entry fee to Kona when most people are already dropping over $10k just to make the trip.

Maybe the USAT could also implement this for anyone claiming a spot at AG Nationals.

Other than those two cases...I just don't see why AGers would agree to pay for testing.  I don't think that MOP and BOP athletes should pay for it because they likely don't care.  If the people in the hunt for prestigious AG awards want testing, then they should pay for it.  If top AGers are going to cry bloody murder because testing is too expensive...well...then I guess you can't complain that dopers will continue to get away with it.

Quick......name a single AG champion above the age of 35 in the last AG world championship.  Nobody cares. 

I have no idea why anyone in the AG ranks would use potentially dangerous (long term health) performance enhancing drugs to improve a performance nobody cares about.  That's about as silly as it gets.

I totally agree with you in that AG champions is NOT worth the gamble with health and rules to use steroids.

BUT, I can actually understand why these athletes would do it. When you're competing whether it be for a podium spot, or all time personal PR, and training hard, you're often busting your tail 15+ hours per week, for very small gains. And you're also spending thousands of dollars on little things that gain you seconds, like racing wheels, or dieting for months to lose 3 pounds to get 6sec/mile on your run. 

I could see how once someone working this hard sees that a few injections of an illegal substance dwarf all the thousands of dollars AND hundreds if not thousands of sacrificed hours training quite easily, how they would get addicted to it, health be danged. 

 Health benefits are only a small reason of why most competitive athletes train as hard as they do. In fact, it's probably close to a nonfactor for most of them, whereas a few seconds here and there means everything to them in terms of their training. If I wanted to just train 'to be fit', I would require 30 minutes a day or less of easy running, and that would be it. 

What, exactly, is a "prestigious AG award?"  We have an AG National Gold and an AG World Bronze in our house.....we must have missed the prestige train.

Prestigious in the sense that you would be willing to pay for a drug test in order to claim such a reward.  Hence the reason why I don't think we will see wide spread AG testing.  There is not enough reward to justify the cost with a few exceptions such as Kona.  I'm not sure how much people value an AG national or world spot/title/podium...so I'm not sure if people are willing to pay for testing in those cases.

Either way, my point is simply that if you want clean racing, someone has to pay for it.

My wife takes both of these.  She finished her last 13.1 in 3:11.

She has asthma, thyroid/metabolism issues.

Now, if I could get my hands on some real PED's, I could podium at my local sprint triathlon.

I've kind of wondered how many AGers actually would fail a WADA drug test. I bet it is a pretty high amount. If you are taking pseuophed OOC, it can be allowed. If you are taking psedophed IC... then it's not allowed.

Some AGers knowingly take the stuff, like Pseudaphed, and know it's banned (in competition), others have no idea what is banned and would be horrified to learn they are breaking the rules.

testosterone, Cold remedies, and many more are banned, yet people rationalize for many reasons why it's ok for them to take the stuff AND compete.

I'm not naieve, but I care, because I am on the podium with some frequency and am a Kona-time kind of guy.

Yet, I know people rationalize in all aspects of life and that cheating is part of life for so many, whether it be work, school, taxes, etc. I don't do tri's for podiums, I do it because I like it. If I were only into podiums, I would be pretty depressed thinking about the cheating, etc.

So, I care... but I don't lose sleep over the issue.

I might be able to see your point if we are talking about a professional endeavor, or the Olympics, etc.  This is AG triathlon.....it's Wednesday night beer league softball for crying out loud.