[quote]heavythrower wrote:
^^^
elaborate.[/quote]
I can’t man… same reason I’m not posting on the pendlay thread either, lol. I’ll get sucked into it like Jonty, but let’s just say I haven’t disagreed with anything he’s said so far.
I’ve also read a lot about how the US sporting bodies tend to have a mindset towards drugs that’s opposite to the one laid out here, in regards to sports such as track. Carl Lewis supposedly tested positive (can’t remember for what) at Seoul (the same competition where he won gold by default because Ben Johnson was stripped of the medal), but the whole thing was covered up by USA Track and Field. Ben Johnson also claims that he was using before the Seoul Olympics, but he was not using Stanazolol, which is what he popped for.
I get the impression that there is a lot of scapegoating in elite sport. Where the IOC knows that all the top athletes are on, but it has to make it look like it’s doing something to stop drug use, so it picks someone to be the scapegoat and says look at what a good job we’re doing to put an end to drug use in sport. Anyone who believes that every single world record in modern strength/power sports wasn’t accomplished by an individual using drugs is naive. You can’t truly remove drugs from the equation at this point because all of the records would regress.
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
[quote]heavythrower wrote:
^^^
elaborate.[/quote]
I can’t man… same reason I’m not posting on the pendlay thread either, lol. I’ll get sucked into it like Jonty, but let’s just say I haven’t disagreed with anything he’s said so far.[/quote]
Agreed. I had to say something though, so I came up with the most concise point I could lol.
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
[quote]heavythrower wrote:
^^^
elaborate.[/quote]
I can’t man… same reason I’m not posting on the pendlay thread either, lol. I’ll get sucked into it like Jonty, but let’s just say I haven’t disagreed with anything he’s said so far.[/quote]
K, I think get where you are coming from. getting sucked into arguments like this can be pointless, as the dogma is impregnable as far as some people go.
[quote]alexus wrote: if you want to set up your own sport of untested olympic weightlifting then be my guest. if you want to compete in the sport then you need to play by the rules, however.
[/quote]
All well and good on paper but NOT TRUE IN REALITY!
However as stated, the problem in the U.S. isn’t just drug testing: it is that weightlifting has long since fallen out of favour in the schools and gyms. It can be explained by the era of fitness during the 70s when ‘cardiovascular’ fitness came into fashion (running, etc). Several hugely successful books came out on the issue and a vast majority of Americans became sold on the idea of physical health and fitness being determined by cardiovascular (or endurance) capabilities. This trend pushed ‘strength’ sports (such as weightlifting) into obscurity. This didn’t happen in other countries.
But whatever, you sound very naive about the drug issue. I would be completely shocked if you could show me any modern day elite top 5 weightlifter who hasn’t used PEDs at some point. I just think you are being very idealistic here.
[quote]yarni wrote:
[quote]alexus wrote: if you want to set up your own sport of untested olympic weightlifting then be my guest. if you want to compete in the sport then you need to play by the rules, however.
[/quote]
All well and good on paper but NOT TRUE IN REALITY!
However as stated, the problem in the U.S. isn’t just drug testing: it is that weightlifting has long since fallen out of favour in the schools and gyms. It can be explained by the era of fitness during the 70s when ‘cardiovascular’ fitness came into fashion (running, etc). Several hugely successful books came out on the issue and a vast majority of Americans became sold on the idea of physical health and fitness being determined by cardiovascular (or endurance) capabilities. This trend pushed ‘strength’ sports (such as weightlifting) into obscurity. This didn’t happen in other countries.
But whatever, you sound very naive about the drug issue. I would be completely shocked if you could show me any modern day elite top 5 weightlifter who hasn’t used PEDs at some point. I just think you are being very idealistic here.
[/quote]
very true.
It fascinates me how a sport so popular in so many countries is so dead in this country. not like soccer for instance, which is widely popular worldwide, it IS popular to some degree in this country, but not HUGE.
however, weightlifting draws huge crowds in China and Iran, with clubs from rival cities competing against each other in arenas, for example, but weightlifting is absolutely non existent in this country.
the average American, does not even know what it is. when laypeople ask me if I work out, and i tell them i used to compete in weightlifting, they think i mean bodybuilding. they have no idea what powerlifting or weightlifting is.
this says something about our culture, not sure what it is, but there is a message in their somewhere, lol
[quote]heavythrower wrote:
[quote]TheJonty wrote:
K, I’ve got a final exam in 5 hours, but this thread is really grinding at me at the moment so I’m going to try to make this quick.
The US is successful in a number of sports at the Olympic level because there is an incredible development system in place for those sports. If you look at sports they have success in (track and field, swimming, gymnastics) these sports are all pretty big at the collegiate/university level. Wrestling is an exception here (it’s huge in college/university, but that hasn’t translated to great international success, though there’s reasons for that I won’t get into here).
There’s kids on the track, in the pool, and tumbling around on the floor from the time they’re 5-6 years old, and that filters up into prominent athletes at the high school and collegiate/university level where they are groomed for Olympic success.
THERE IS NONE OF THIS FOR WEIGHTLIFTING. Everyone can talk til they’re blue in the face about how it’s so unfair that other countries get to dope and we don’t but until the sport of weightlifting starts to grow in North America it won’t make one whit of difference. Case in point, take a look at the results from the 2012 US University Nationals for weightlifting that wrapped up last weekend.
Some good numbers were put up, but the level of competition is not as high and the field is not as deep as it needs to be. Also 2 Canadians medalled there (77 gold and 105 silver), not that that really means anything. Just. Go Canada. Yeah.
Christ, this is getting long. Ok. I think looking at PEDs as the be-all end-all of Olympic success is the wrong way to look at it. With the way PEDs are demonized in North America that’ll be an ugly, long battle. Instead we need to look at everything else that’s holding us back, and try to improve in those areas first (funding, exposure, coaching, accessibility, etc etc etc).
Maybe when the sport’s done some serious growing on the domestic front and the field of competition has expanded by a few orders of magnitude we’ll start seeing those lifters capable of international medals start rising to the top.
Or maybe once there’s more money in it people will just start using the designer steroids that you can’t test for. Either way, I need to cut this off and get back to studying.[/quote]
there is a lot of truth in this post, but I would also say that the USA’s attitude toward PEDs is part of the equation as well.
anybody who thinks otherwise is just naive and uninformed. I apoplogize in advance if that offends anybody here, it is not my intent, but it is the truth. [/quote]
The thing with the PEDs for Americans is that in the absence some big money sponsorship to give a weightlifter tens of thousands of dollars to have an expert in doping who is up to date with the current tests, is they WILL fail tests at the international level, even if the national level decides to look away. So it isn’t just a matter of the US not cracking down on it but the ability to do it in a way that you can get away with it. There is no hope in hell of ever having a national drug plan for US athletes…
But you can just as easily say that it’s not the US’s attitude that is the problem, but it is Chinas etc. 
[quote]want2getlean wrote:
[quote]general_lfl wrote:
Well, a couple of our best guys just got popped for PED’s and we still don’t have a single male Olympian.[/quote]
The fuck is this supposed to mean?[/quote]
Translation>>We cheat and we still suck donkey schlong.
[quote]heavythrower wrote:
very true.
It fascinates me how a sport so popular in so many countries is so dead in this country. not like soccer for instance, which is widely popular worldwide, it IS popular to some degree in this country, but not HUGE.
however, weightlifting draws huge crowds in China and Iran, with clubs from rival cities competing against each other in arenas, for example, but weightlifting is absolutely non existent in this country.
the average American, does not even know what it is. when laypeople ask me if I work out, and i tell them i used to compete in weightlifting, they think i mean bodybuilding. they have no idea what powerlifting or weightlifting is.
this says something about our culture, not sure what it is, but there is a message in their somewhere, lol
[/quote]
The US needs more dictatorship and less democracy? 
[quote]debraD wrote:
[quote]heavythrower wrote:
[quote]TheJonty wrote:
K, I’ve got a final exam in 5 hours, but this thread is really grinding at me at the moment so I’m going to try to make this quick.
The US is successful in a number of sports at the Olympic level because there is an incredible development system in place for those sports. If you look at sports they have success in (track and field, swimming, gymnastics) these sports are all pretty big at the collegiate/university level. Wrestling is an exception here (it’s huge in college/university, but that hasn’t translated to great international success, though there’s reasons for that I won’t get into here).
There’s kids on the track, in the pool, and tumbling around on the floor from the time they’re 5-6 years old, and that filters up into prominent athletes at the high school and collegiate/university level where they are groomed for Olympic success.
THERE IS NONE OF THIS FOR WEIGHTLIFTING. Everyone can talk til they’re blue in the face about how it’s so unfair that other countries get to dope and we don’t but until the sport of weightlifting starts to grow in North America it won’t make one whit of difference. Case in point, take a look at the results from the 2012 US University Nationals for weightlifting that wrapped up last weekend.
Some good numbers were put up, but the level of competition is not as high and the field is not as deep as it needs to be. Also 2 Canadians medalled there (77 gold and 105 silver), not that that really means anything. Just. Go Canada. Yeah.
Christ, this is getting long. Ok. I think looking at PEDs as the be-all end-all of Olympic success is the wrong way to look at it. With the way PEDs are demonized in North America that’ll be an ugly, long battle. Instead we need to look at everything else that’s holding us back, and try to improve in those areas first (funding, exposure, coaching, accessibility, etc etc etc).
Maybe when the sport’s done some serious growing on the domestic front and the field of competition has expanded by a few orders of magnitude we’ll start seeing those lifters capable of international medals start rising to the top.
Or maybe once there’s more money in it people will just start using the designer steroids that you can’t test for. Either way, I need to cut this off and get back to studying.[/quote]
there is a lot of truth in this post, but I would also say that the USA’s attitude toward PEDs is part of the equation as well.
anybody who thinks otherwise is just naive and uninformed. I apoplogize in advance if that offends anybody here, it is not my intent, but it is the truth. [/quote]
The thing with the PEDs for Americans is that in the absence some big money sponsorship to give a weightlifter tens of thousands of dollars to have an expert in doping who is up to date with the current tests, is they WILL fail tests at the international level, even if the national level decides to look away. So it isn’t just a matter of the US not cracking down on it but the ability to do it in a way that you can get away with it. There is no hope in hell of ever having a national drug plan for US athletes…
But you can just as easily say that it’s not the US’s attitude that is the problem, but it is Chinas etc.
[/quote]
Not really. The problem with stringent testing in the U.S. is it doesn’t allow one to get on a a proper cycle of PEDs with a decent time-frame. I don’t know why you say they “WILL” fail tests at the int’l level, because they schedule a cycle AROUND an international competition.
Whereas in China/Russia/everywhere else, lifters can get crazy good gains almost year-round and don’t have to be worried about their national organizations asking for a test every two weeks. And then when the Worlds or Olympics or Euros come around, they back off the PEDs but are still able to retain some of their gains.
but like Jonty said, all of this talk about PEDs with U.S. lifters simply isn’t a big deal right now because we have to get our other shit in order, first. Other shit being, DEVELOPMENT CENTERS, and general popularity of the sport. Just look at the crazy huge training halls in China, Poland, Belarus, France, etc… yet all we have is the OTC, California Strength, and I guess Broz Gym if that counts. Let’s get that aspect on track before we even bring up the use of PEDs… because the sheer amount of lifters that a country has simply increases our chance of winning, even if they are all using. Some will get caught, some won’t.
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
[quote]debraD wrote:
[quote]heavythrower wrote:
[quote]TheJonty wrote:
K, I’ve got a final exam in 5 hours, but this thread is really grinding at me at the moment so I’m going to try to make this quick.
The US is successful in a number of sports at the Olympic level because there is an incredible development system in place for those sports. If you look at sports they have success in (track and field, swimming, gymnastics) these sports are all pretty big at the collegiate/university level. Wrestling is an exception here (it’s huge in college/university, but that hasn’t translated to great international success, though there’s reasons for that I won’t get into here).
There’s kids on the track, in the pool, and tumbling around on the floor from the time they’re 5-6 years old, and that filters up into prominent athletes at the high school and collegiate/university level where they are groomed for Olympic success.
THERE IS NONE OF THIS FOR WEIGHTLIFTING. Everyone can talk til they’re blue in the face about how it’s so unfair that other countries get to dope and we don’t but until the sport of weightlifting starts to grow in North America it won’t make one whit of difference. Case in point, take a look at the results from the 2012 US University Nationals for weightlifting that wrapped up last weekend.
Some good numbers were put up, but the level of competition is not as high and the field is not as deep as it needs to be. Also 2 Canadians medalled there (77 gold and 105 silver), not that that really means anything. Just. Go Canada. Yeah.
Christ, this is getting long. Ok. I think looking at PEDs as the be-all end-all of Olympic success is the wrong way to look at it. With the way PEDs are demonized in North America that’ll be an ugly, long battle. Instead we need to look at everything else that’s holding us back, and try to improve in those areas first (funding, exposure, coaching, accessibility, etc etc etc).
Maybe when the sport’s done some serious growing on the domestic front and the field of competition has expanded by a few orders of magnitude we’ll start seeing those lifters capable of international medals start rising to the top.
Or maybe once there’s more money in it people will just start using the designer steroids that you can’t test for. Either way, I need to cut this off and get back to studying.[/quote]
there is a lot of truth in this post, but I would also say that the USA’s attitude toward PEDs is part of the equation as well.
anybody who thinks otherwise is just naive and uninformed. I apoplogize in advance if that offends anybody here, it is not my intent, but it is the truth. [/quote]
The thing with the PEDs for Americans is that in the absence some big money sponsorship to give a weightlifter tens of thousands of dollars to have an expert in doping who is up to date with the current tests, is they WILL fail tests at the international level, even if the national level decides to look away. So it isn’t just a matter of the US not cracking down on it but the ability to do it in a way that you can get away with it. There is no hope in hell of ever having a national drug plan for US athletes…
But you can just as easily say that it’s not the US’s attitude that is the problem, but it is Chinas etc.
[/quote]
Not really. The problem with stringent testing in the U.S. is it doesn’t allow one to get on a a proper cycle of PEDs with a decent time-frame. I don’t know why you say they “WILL” fail tests at the int’l level, because they schedule a cycle AROUND an international competition.
Whereas in China/Russia/everywhere else, lifters can get crazy good gains almost year-round and don’t have to be worried about their national organizations asking for a test every two weeks. And then when the Worlds or Olympics or Euros come around, they back off the PEDs but are still able to retain some of their gains.[/quote]
Even the lifters from the countries that don’t test still get caught when they go to international competitions and they have a lot of people who (should) know what they are doing.
I don’t believe a coach and a lifter or two on their own have the knowledge or resources to know how to do it right and to have the inside info on the latest tests. If it was just a simple matter of timing and cycling correctly I don’t think you’d see lifters that you see getting caught as frequently as they do. And the fact that they do get caught is how we know how much drug use is going on.
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
but like Jonty said, all of this talk about PEDs with U.S. lifters simply isn’t a big deal right now because we have to get our other shit in order, first. Other shit being, DEVELOPMENT CENTERS, and general popularity of the sport. Just look at the crazy huge training halls in China, Poland, Belarus, France, etc… yet all we have is the OTC, California Strength, and I guess Broz Gym if that counts. Let’s get that aspect on track before we even bring up the use of PEDs… because the sheer amount of lifters that a country has simply increases our chance of winning, even if they are all using. Some will get caught, some won’t.[/quote]
I agree completely. But don’t lose sight of the reality that if there is a public perception of rampant drug use in weightlifting, there will be no development centres or lifting programs or funding etc.
Is it really cheating (in a physical sense) when your competitors are all doing it?
Drugs don’t make you instantly world class, its so you can work harder more frequently. Top level athletes take them because other top level athletes take them. They worked hard to get where they are and the next step is steroids because your competitors are taking them. If you dont use then chances are your not a competitor to them.
Its like weightlifting shoes. Everybody uses them, if you didn’t use them your at a big disadvantage.
Obviously it would be great if nobody used them and pigs shit gold and bad people were ugly so you could recognise them. But like some people have said its not an ideal world.
[quote]Swolegasm wrote:
Is it really cheating (in a physical sense) when your competitors are all doing it?
[/quote]
Not everyone uses them, though. Not by a long shot.
[quote]Swolegasm wrote:
Is it really cheating (in a physical sense) when your competitors are all doing it?
Drugs don’t make you instantly world class, its so you can work harder more frequently. Top level athletes take them because other top level athletes take them. They worked hard to get where they are and the next step is steroids because your competitors are taking them. If you dont use then chances are your not a competitor to them.
Its like weightlifting shoes. Everybody uses them, if you didn’t use them your at a big disadvantage.
Obviously it would be great if nobody used them and pigs shit gold and bad people were ugly so you could recognise them. But like some people have said its not an ideal world. [/quote]
It’s not like weightlifting shoes at all because they are against the rules.
I’m curious what everyone here thought about allowing the Muslim weightlifter to cover her arms and legs when that was a controversy. I seem to recall most were against changing the rules and that she shouldn’t be allowed. But with the drug issue, if you don’t actually care about them, why have rules at all?
[quote]debraD wrote:
[quote]Swolegasm wrote:
Is it really cheating (in a physical sense) when your competitors are all doing it?
Drugs don’t make you instantly world class, its so you can work harder more frequently. Top level athletes take them because other top level athletes take them. They worked hard to get where they are and the next step is steroids because your competitors are taking them. If you dont use then chances are your not a competitor to them.
Its like weightlifting shoes. Everybody uses them, if you didn’t use them your at a big disadvantage.
Obviously it would be great if nobody used them and pigs shit gold and bad people were ugly so you could recognise them. But like some people have said its not an ideal world. [/quote]
It’s not like weightlifting shoes at all because they are against the rules.
I’m curious what everyone here thought about allowing the Muslim weightlifter to cover her arms and legs when that was a controversy. I seem to recall most were against changing the rules and that she shouldn’t be allowed. But with the drug issue, if you don’t actually care about them, why have rules at all?[/quote]
It kind of is like the shoes (it was example) because for the top level lifters your just short changing yourself if you don’t use.
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
[quote]Swolegasm wrote:
Is it really cheating (in a physical sense) when your competitors are all doing it?
[/quote]
Not everyone uses them, though. Not by a long shot. [/quote]
I never said everybody??
[quote]Swolegasm wrote:
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
[quote]Swolegasm wrote:
Is it really cheating (in a physical sense) when your competitors are all doing it?
[/quote]
Not everyone uses them, though. Not by a long shot. [/quote]
I never said everybody?? [/quote]
Your competitors at the nationals aren’t using, generally. Is it still okay then?
[quote]debraD wrote:
[quote]Swolegasm wrote:
[quote]PB Andy wrote:
[quote]Swolegasm wrote:
Is it really cheating (in a physical sense) when your competitors are all doing it?
[/quote]
Not everyone uses them, though. Not by a long shot. [/quote]
I never said everybody?? [/quote]
Your competitors at the nationals aren’t using, generally. Is it still okay then? [/quote]
I should have expanded, i meant when your in klokov or lu xiajouns situation.
Also you seem quite angry? I never made them do it, their all grown men and women who make their own choices. No point in taking it out on me.