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Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada IC report published)

587K views 5K replies 580 participants last post by  Chris Kuerten 
#1 · (Edited)
A Short History of Drugs in Tennis
by Michael Mewshaw

The bizarre saga of Richard Gasquet and his conviction for cocaine use grows, as they say in Alice in Wonderland, “curious and curiouser.” To outline the zigzag course of events for those trying to unpack this peculiar story — the Frenchman tested positive in March ‘09 at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami. His immediate reaction was utter disbelief. He swore he had never done drugs and added that he knew nobody on the circuit who did coke.
By the time of Roland Garros in late May, Gasquet started amplifying his denial and announced that he intended to appeal the case and overturn his two-year suspension. In an interview with L’Equipe, he admitted that he had violated his normally monastic training routine and gone clubbing in Miami. But he said he had had just a couple of drinks and he suspected somebody must have spiked them. Why? He couldn’t say. Who? He couldn’t guess.

Rafael Nadal rushed to Gasquet’s defense and suggested that his French friend may have kissed a cocaine user. As an excuse, that ranks up there with “the dog ate my homework” or the Twinkie Defense in Harvey Milk’s murder. It led joking reporters to observe that perhaps Gasquet had kissed Martina Hingis, who tested positive for cocaine and retired rather than fight a two-year suspension. But Gasquet refused to go away quietly like the demure Swiss. He vowed to keep battling and by Wimbledon he had discarded the spiked-drink defense and fastened on the cocaine kiss defense. Suddenly he remembered snogging a French girl, Pamela (no last name). Indeed, he kissed her more than once, he maintained. Though never identified, Pamela was said to be a cocaine user by some sources — and a good girl by others. Tennis fans held their breath, waiting for a decision on Gasquet’s appeal.

With all due respect to a player’s right to plead his case, there is for anyone who has followed tennis on a regular basis something wearyingly familiar about this scenario — a positive drug test followed by denials, impassioned appeals to the court of public opinion, as well as to the authorities, and an ever-changing defense. To escape the fog and put things in perspective, let us reflect on a Short History of Drugs in Tennis.

Stimulants have long been popular on the tour. The celebrated diva Suzanne Lenglen braced herself between sets with sips of cognac. Eventually, alcohol in industrial quantities became the drug of choice on the circuit, and hangovers, not overdoses, were the greatest danger. As described in The Romance of Wimbledon, a book by John Olliff, The Daily Telegraph’s tennis correspondent, the ‘21 quarterfinal between Zenzo Shimidzu of Japan and Randolf Lycett of Australia was a drunken fiasco. Played on a blisteringly hot day, the match was deadlocked at a set apiece and 3-3 in the third, when Lycett seemed to suffer sunstroke and had to be revived with gin. Though wobbly, Lycett won the third set, but couldn’t continue without another stimulant — champagne. Apparently, he drank a whole bottle and by the fifth set was staggering and stumbling, falling and crawling around on his hands and knees, searching for his racket. While it’s not surprising that Lycett lost, it may shock some fans to learn that the Aussie wasn’t the last player to quaff champagne on Centre Court. That dubious honor belongs to Jimmy Connors and Ilie Nastase, who split a bottle during a doubles match in the mid-’70s and were seen as jolly good fellows for doing so.

Inevitably, players branched out to other chemically-charged substances. But since there were no tests, users stood little chance of getting caught, and since omertà operated then just as it does now on the circuit, nobody did much more than gossip about the subject. Journalists who witnessed players doing cocaine, for instance, didn’t feel compelled to report it. My friend, Gene Scott, the late publisher of Tennis Week, always defended this practice, explaining that what a journalist saw in a social setting should remain off limits. By that logic, unless a reporter spotted someone snorting lines at a tournament, he should keep his mouth shut.

But then in September ‘80, Yannick Noah broke the silence in an interview with Rock & Folk, the French equivalent of Rolling Stone. While admitting that he smoked hashish, Noah accused other players of using cocaine. What’s more — and in his opinion what was worse — some were popping amphetamines. This infuriated him because it put clean players at a disadvantage. He lamented that they might have to use coke or amphetamines to stay competitive with drug abusers. He wanted the problem to be brought into the open and discussed. If it weren’t, Noah feared there would be deaths from overdoses.
The reaction of tennis authorities and the press was to savage Noah for smoking hashish. His remarks about coke and speed were ignored, as were the players whom he said “take the hit during a tournament and crash afterward. You have guys who have played super during one tournament and who you’ve never seen again.”

He mentioned Victor Pecci by name.

A year later, Arthur Ashe proposed that tennis start testing for drugs. During the ‘82 U.S. Open, Ashe told me that the ATP had “established a relationship with this organization called Comp-Care. Comp-Care will, for free, help you deal with your drug problems anonymously.”

At Ashe’s encouragement, I called Comp-Care to arrange an interview and was referred to Dr. Robert B. Millman, Director of the Drug and Alcohol Abuse program at Cornell University Medical College. A psychiatrist and internist, Dr. Millman said he was treating a variety of professional athletes, including an unspecified number of tennis players. When I asked whether drugs were a problem on the circuit, he answered, “Absolutely.” The money and glamour of the game, he explained, brought players into frequent contact with show biz celebs who were heavy cocaine users. Many players succumbed to peer pressure or turned to drugs to reduce stress.

Dr. Millman said that a few players used heroin, snorting it, not shooting it. He wasn’t convinced that players confined cocaine to recreational use. Though he conceded he couldn’t prove it, he had heard of players taking cocaine for a lift during matches. But for someone who wanted to improve his game dramatically, amphetamines had quicker results. As Dr. Millman put it, “Speed makes you better.” But then, “It makes you worse.”

When I published this interview in my book Short Circuit in ‘83, tennis authorities responded with an across-the-board denial and a series of personal attacks. I was physically removed from the press box at the Italian Open, roughed up and threatened by a tournament director and IMG agent. Tennis authorities dismissed this as a personal matter and took no action.

It wasn’t until the mid-’80s that tennis accepted international standards for drug testing, including out-of-competition testing and sanctions for rule-breakers. But it was too late to deal with a cluster of juiced-up stars. In various books, player memoirs and investigative articles, it has been alleged that John McEnroe, Vitas Gerulaitas and Pat Cash, winners of a combined total of 20 Grand Slam titles, used cocaine in the ‘70s and early ‘80s. In the early ‘90s, Karel Novacek tested positive for cocaine.

Some apologists argue that cocaine is a recreational drug, not a performance enhancer. But it’s a stimulant, and that’s why tennis banned it. Other drugs — heroin, ecstasy and a host of other party pills — are not penalized. Unlike other pro sports, tennis seems to have no interest in cracking down on non-performance-enhancing substances, which are both dangerous and illegal. That is, dangerous not just because of potential side effects, but because they force buyers to associate with criminals, opening them up to blackmail. (Think of this in relation to last year’s scandal about betting and match-fixing on the tour.)
By the time the news about cocaine use in tennis broke, the game had more powerful performance enhancers to worry about. Anabolic steroids, human growth hormones, EPO and a witch’s brew of powerful elixirs hit the black market. Aussie Open champ Czech Petr Korda tested positive, as did a gaggle of other Europeans — Stefan Koubek, Karol Beck, Filippo Volandri — and Argentineans Juan Ignacio Chela, Guillermo Canas, Guillermo Coria and Mariano Puerta. The latter two made it to the French Open finals after serving suspensions for drug use. At Roland Garros in ‘05, Puerta had the dubious distinction of testing positive a second time and receiving a career-ending suspension.

As tennis continued to award itself a badge of merit for its drug program, Steffi Graf startled a French Open press conference in ‘94 by announcing that she had never been tested for drugs and that she suspected other women were bulking up on steroids. Subsequently, Gabriela Sabatini threatened legal action when her name kept cropping up in reports about steroid use.

Then in ‘96, Boris Becker speculated that the hyperactive Austrian Thomas Muster must be on something — and the good German got disciplined for his injudicious remarks. Sticking to its policy of punishing the messenger, tennis authorities also cracked down hard in ‘02 on Frenchman Nicholas Escude, who said, just as Noah had done 20 years earlier, that it was obvious when players were juiced. All you had to do was look at their bodies and their eyes. Moreover, Escude charged that some players had tested positive, but the ATP wasn’t revealing the results.

Dismissed at first as a pop-off with no basis for his accusations, Escude was vindicated when it was belatedly revealed that between August ‘02 and May ‘03 seven players had tested positive for nandrolone and 53 others had showed elevated traces for nandrolone or its precursors. Only one of these players was identified — Bodhan Ulirach of the Czech Republic — and he was suspended for two years.

But when a second player came before the tribunal, he argued that he had taken electrolyte replacement pills provided by ATP trainers. Submitting two dozen legal affidavits, the player contended that the electrolyte tablets must have been contaminated with nandrolone. The other players who had tested positive promptly adopted the same defense.

Normally, under the ATP’s policy of strict liability, a player is responsible for whatever is in his system. Even if he ingests a banned substance unknowingly, he is penalized — although the penalty may be reduced if there are extenuating circumstances. But in this instance, because the ATP might have supplied contaminated supplements, the burden of proof switched, and players maintained that it was up to the ATP to prove that the pills weren’t tainted.

The ATP had been offering these products at tournaments for over 20 years with no problems and no complaints. Even so, it analyzed 500 tablets that were believed to have been available at a tournament where positive or elevated tests had occurred. No contaminants were discovered. Then the ATP submitted the remaining jars in its possession for further analysis. Representative samples from these jars revealed no contamination. In short, there was never any scientific proof that the ATP electrolytes were contaminated and no evidence that the players in question had consumed them.

Yet under the legal principle of equitable estoppel, the ATP couldn’t enforce its anti-doping rules unless it was willing to undertake a ruinously expensive court action. As a consequence, Ulirach was retroactively pardoned, even though he had never previously cited electrolyte replacements as a factor in his positive test. The cases against the other six players were dropped.

By mid-May ‘03, the ATP had stopped distributing electrolyte replacements. News of this was widely disseminated in the press, and notices were posted in player locker rooms. More than two months later, however, Greg Rusedski tested positive. Invoking the same defense as previous players, he claimed that the ATP, not he, was responsible. Though there was still no proof that the electrolytes had been contaminated or that Rusedski had ever taken them, and no explanation of how Rusedski had been tainted by supplements that had already been removed from the locker room, the tribunal decreed that his case too deserved to be dismissed.
Dick Pound, head of the World Anti-Doping Agency, called the decision “preposterous…It defies imagination.”

David Howman, Director General of WADA, pointed out, “It’s unprecedented to have a series of positive results where the individuals have been exonerated and the sport has chosen to fall on its own sword…It undermines the whole principle of the anti-doping program.”

Even the ATP was stunned. David Higdon, then VP of Media Relations, said, “To be honest, we’re surprised…He tested positive and that’s an uncontroverted fact.”

In the first months of ‘04, 16 more players showed elevated test results for nandrolone, with the same analytic fingerprint as the previous positives and elevated negatives. According to the ATP, these players hailed from a dozen different countries, and their test results occurred at tournaments at different times in different parts of the world. Since there was no question now of contaminated ATP supplements, what explained these troubling elevated scores?

No explanation has ever been forthcoming. Except for Ulirach and Rusedski, none of the other players who tested positive for performance enhancers or showed trace amounts in their systems has ever been identified. The ATP has refused to say whether these players were required to have follow-up tests. Tennis fans have no way of knowing whether the six unnamed players won tournaments, perhaps even Grand Slam titles, during the time when they tested positive.

Lest I be accused of sexual discrimination by focusing entirely on men, I should mention that Sesil Karatantcheva tested positive for steroids in ‘06. Showing the same feistiness in court as she does on court, the 15-year-old from Kazakhstan came up with an excuse that more than matched any man’s for pure chutzpah. Where Gasquet demurely fell back on the coke kiss defense, Karatantcheva went all the way and admitted she had been pregnant when she tested positive. Before she could have an abortion, she suffered a miscarriage. This, she contended, must have sparked a riot of hormones that had been mistaken for steroids.
As much as the tribunal may have sympathized with her predicament, it ruled there was no scientific basis to her argument. Now having served a two-year suspension, Karatantcheva is back on the women’s tour, but has shown nowhere near the same level that she displayed before her suspension.

But Gasquet still takes the prize, hands down. Without interviewing Pamela and pinning down the facts of the case — Did she kiss Gasquet? Did she use cocaine? — an independent anti-doping tribunal decided in July ‘09 to reduce Gasquet’s suspension to two-and-a-half months. In effect, the penalty became the time he had already been off the tour.

The ITF has now appealed Gasquet’s successful appeal and asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport to re-impose the original two-year ban. What’s more, Pamela has announced that she intends to file a suit against Gasquet for slandering her reputation, violating her privacy and infuriating her boyfriend with false accusations.

Then just when it seemed that the history of drugs in tennis couldn’t get any weirder, Andre Agassi’s autobiography, Open, appeared, and in addition to revelations about this heavy drinking, it contained an extraordinary confession. Andre admits to using crystal meth, snorting it with a Vegas friend called Slim. What’s more, in ‘97, he tested positive at a tournament and was informed by the ATP that he faced public exposure and suspension. But in a series of flabbergasting moves that seem to foreshadow Gasquet’s case, Andre wrote a letter to the ATP claiming that he had mistakenly drunk one of Slim’s sodas that had been spiked with meth. The ATP accepted Agassi’s bogus plea of innocence, never asking for evidence nor apparently even questioning him or Slim. And of course the public was never told, adding credence to Escude’s accusation that players have tested positive and never been named, much less punished. This admission by Agassi raises a host of questions that his book doesn’t address. But just as clearly it raises serious questions once again about rule enforcement in tennis.

Mewshaw is the author of Short Circuit, as well as Ladies of the Court: Grace and Disgarce on the Women’s Tennis Tour

http://www.insidetennis.com/2009/10/short-history-drugs-tennis/

Pretty interesting stuff. The part about the nandrolone positives is quite damning. :eek: Was that a big deal in the early 00's or did it fly under the radar somehow? :scratch:

EDIT:

Drug testing facts:
http://www.menstennisforums.com/showpost.php?p=10349355&postcount=14

Operacion Puerto, drug testing facts and quotes from players and officials:
http://www.menstennisforums.com/showpost.php?p=10442306&postcount=26

Drug testing facts:
http://www.menstennisforums.com/showpost.php?p=10444558&postcount=40

Armstrong's doping doc has tennis links!
http://www.menstennisforums.com/showthread.php?t=168510&page=16
 
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#3,484 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Originally Posted by Myrre View Post
He's beating them in shorter matches. In longer matches (Bo5) his level drops and he loses.

Tyler Hamilton (Cycling) says in his book; Quote "Was it possible to win a bike race clean during this era? Could a clean rider compete with riders on Edgar (i.e. EPO)? The answer is, depends on the race. For shorter races, even week-long stage races, I think the answer is a qualified yes. I've won smaller 4-day races paniagua (i.e. clean) with a hematocrit of 42. I've won time trials in similar condition. I've heard of other riders doing the same. But once you get past a one-week race it quickly becomes impossible for clean riders to compete with riders using Edgar, because Edgar is too big an advantage. The longer the race, the bigger the advantage becomes - hence the power of Edgar in the Tour de France" Unquote.

So if clean riders can win shorter races, don't you think clean tennis players can win short tennis matches?

Looks like my post was deleted. Needed to make a correction (in red).
 
#3,489 · (Edited)
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

If you're that certain nothing is awry, don't reply to our discussion, getting defensive only makes it more obvious that you're uncomfortable :)
 
#3,490 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

If you're that certain nothing is awry, don't reply to our discussion, getting defensive only makes it more obvious that you're uncomfortable :)

I never said that in tennis nothing is awry. You didn't even read my posts. :)

And with trying to shut me up you will only achieve the opposite :wavey:
 
#3,493 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Good effort for trying to get us banned. If anything, you are doing the baiting. I wish I was as ignorant to the situation as you, maybe I could enjoy Tennis a bit more. Ignorance is bliss right, but it isn't the truth.
 
#3,500 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

No double standards here, and from a Baldito fan no less. What a surprise.
 
#3,504 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

ITF president in his recent interview:

http://www.tennis.com/pro-game/2015/04/davis-cup-final-may-be-played-at-neutral-venue/54680/#.VTRSsaPLfQE

"Quantity doesn't mean quality. The program in anti-doping has to be very focused and I'm proud to say the tennis program is one of the best,'' he said, adding that ''there could be a little bit more'' testing.
The ITF has the right to retest samples for a period of eight years. This has been used in other Olympic sports in the past to catch drug cheats from past years using modern technology, but Ricci Bitti said the ITF very rarely used its right to reopen samples.
"We retain all our testing and we can retest,'' he said. ''I believe in sports like the Olympics, this has some value because it's one competition every four years, but we test the players continuously, so it's not so important."


The rest of the interview is discussed elsewhere, but I wanted to bring the doping-related statements over to this thread.

Seriously, this statement is very worrying for everybody who cares about anti-doping in the sport because of the sheer absurdity of the arguments brought forward and by the president of the ITF no less. :sad:

Quantity doesn't mean quality? Fair enough, but how about both? You won't catch cheats if you test them twice a year, no matter the quality of your tests.

You don't need to retest samples, because players are tested continuously? That doesn't even make sense, olympic athletes aren't tested at the Olympic event only, you know? And the purpose of retesting is to retest for doping agents that were undetectable at the time anyway, so what is he trying to say here? :confused:

This - again - casts doubt on how serious ITF even is in their supposed anti-doping stance.
 
#3,505 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Bitti in the past has basically said the anti-doping programme is about PR, since tennis has no issue with drugs.

Presumably he thinks Lance Armstrong's doctor and Fuentes were dealing out aspirins to all the tennis players that used them.
 
#3,506 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

I think you are being unfair by criticising his first point. It's true that quantity doesn't mean quality, and you'd probably be criticising him if he'd simply said 'we do loads, so it must be fine'. That's not to say there are enough, but he does acknowledge there could be more, which is as good as you'll get. No way could someone in his position publicly say that it's no where near enough. If he wants more, he can allude to it gently in public, while using stronger language in private.

I agree that the second point doesn't make sense. The purpose of being able to re-test old samples has little to do with any ongoing programme of regular testing. It's to catch out the cheats who were using something untraceable at the time. If that substance becomes traceable, those cheats will stop using it, or move onto something else. A handful might get caught out if they didn't know, but testing old samples is more reliable.

Arguably, the threat of being able to test old samples up to eight years later is the most effective weapon to prevent doping, so admitting that you don't bother is a poor move tactically. He should just have said something about focusing on an ongoing programme of testing, and keeping that in reserve.
 
#3,508 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

I think you are being unfair by criticising his first point. It's true that quantity doesn't mean quality, and you'd probably be criticising him if he'd simply said 'we do loads, so it must be fine'. That's not to say there are enough, but he does acknowledge there could be more, which is as good as you'll get. No way could someone in his position publicly say that it's no where near enough. If he wants more, he can allude to it gently in public, while using stronger language in private. (...)
You are right, there is no right way to talk about it, because it's never enough. I guess I wouldn't be so harsh on him, if they actually had something to show for their efforts, but they don't. So everything he says appears to be a futile excercise in PR management with some moments of either true delusion or willful misdirection thrown in, like "PEDs are useless in a skill based sport like tennis."
 
#3,507 · (Edited)
#3,521 ·
Re: Who is Kyrgios referring to ?

Sounds like Nick wants some other players to be tested. I wonder if he has any particular players in mind ?

"Blood and urine test, unbelievable, they would have tested me twice in about two months. Would love some other players to get tested."
Question is, does he *know* that other players aren't being tested, or is he merely assuming it? And the guy's just coming back from injury: I get the impression they test more in those cases - wasn't Nadal complaining about the number of times he was tested when he was coming back from one of his injuries?
 
#3,509 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Once again, don't be naive !

I do not know anything about doping in tennis.

But I did run in French Track and Field for 15 years.

From Regional League doping was common, some athlete went to Spain or Italy at the end of winter and came back and sold doping products. From Upper level, you could be in the secret and be given the names of doctors that will give you the therapeutic authorization to legalize you illegal doping products use (asthma, knee or ankle pain and so on).

And there is absolutely no money to earn at those levels in Track and Field just relative Glory and positions for later on.

So I just can imagine what can happen in Soccer Golf or Tennis.
 
#3,511 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Once again, don't be naive !

I do not know anything about doping in tennis.

But I did run in French Track and Field for 15 years.

From Regional League doping was common, some athlete went to Spain or Italy at the end of winter and came back and sold doping products. From Upper level, you could be in the secret and be given the names of doctors that will give you the therapeutic authorization to legalize you illegal doping products use (asthma, knee or ankle pain and so on).

And there is absolutely no money to earn at those levels in Track and Field just relative Glory and positions for later on.

So I just can imagine what can happen in Soccer Golf or Tennis.
I played pro tennis for a while and the word was that GO TO place for dopes was Switzerland.
Their doctors have a special technology to stop the ageing process... even reverse it. Side effects may cause hairiness !

Of course that wont take you too far in current strong field in terms of big event success if you lack talent.
 
#3,523 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

How's it possible that a player's level has so much ups and downs, peaking only in slams?
 
#3,525 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

tonight there was a TV program which made an experiment with the approval of the WADA :
8 sportsmen had doping microdoses and their biological passport was controlled :

Link to the video program on French TV

a text about the program :

http://www.lequipe.fr/Medias/Actualites/Huit-sportifs-se-dopent-pour-stade-2/555179

some of them had unbelievable improvements : 5% improvement in cycling (corresponding to a cyclist ranked 22 reaching the first place) or 30 seconds on 3000 m on track and field.

it seems that their biological passports were still OK.
 
#3,526 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

tonight there was a TV program which made an experiment with the approval of the WADA :
8 sportsmen had doping microdoses and their biological passport was controlled :

Link to the video program on French TV

a text about the program :

http://www.lequipe.fr/Medias/Actualites/Huit-sportifs-se-dopent-pour-stade-2/555179

some of them had unbelievable improvements : 5% improvement in cycling (corresponding to a cyclist ranked 22 reaching the first place) or 30 seconds on 3000 m on track and field.

it seems that their biological passports were still OK.
Was there a blind placebo control in this experiment to remove placebo effects in the measured performance improvement? I'm not surprised about microdoses not registering in the biological passport as it has to account for normal fluctuations. When we were developing whole genome microarrays there was always a question of how much change is significant - some things are very tightly controlled, some aren't.
 
#3,528 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Lol at uninformed people comparing pure endurance no skills sports like cycling and track and field to predominantly skills based sports like tennis.
PDEs don't help you in tennis much if at all. There is no PED to make your FH or serve better.

That is why doping is rampant and huge in sports like cycling and track and field while it is minor in tennis.
 
#3,529 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Lol at uninformed people comparing pure endurance no skills sports like cycling and track and field to predominantly skills based sports like tennis.
PDEs don't help you in tennis much if at all. There is no PED to make your FH or serve better.

That is why doping is rampant and huge in sports like cycling and track and field while it is minor in tennis.
100% wrong. Fitness is inherently linked to your ability to consistently produce your best forehands. If your fitness drops over the course of a match, your footwork goes and with that the quality of your forehands as well. How to keep that in check? Doping.

A post like this could have been avoided, of course after every form of logical thinking had failed, if you had picked up a racquet just once in your life...
 
#3,540 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Chico should be banished from this thread, the technique argument is so weak. If you don't know a smidgen about doping and how it can massively aid your performance on court, you need to GTFO.
 
#3,543 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

^Obviously Fujee is the expert on doping here. :superlol:
It's better to be an expert with the propensity to be occasionally wrong, than ideologically committed to particular fanbases in constant denial.
 
#3,552 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Chico probably dropped out of kindergarten and has been living without any education ever since :haha:
 
#3,554 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

^^ It's called (PED)- cycling and means an athlete is on and off the PEDs. It's necessary for some type of PEDs because if they are taken all the time they will:

- intoxicate the athlete's body - detox is necessary for recovery of endocrine system
- decrease in efficiency level, the body gets used to them due to desensitization of receptors
- possibly show up in drug screenings

So if an athlete is using certain types of PEDs he must by necessity cycle them up to peak at a big event he wants to win. After that event he will begin to cycle down. The best doctors can make exact plans to time the PED schedule.

Such an athlete however would show highly fluctuating results. He would show performances out of this world at some important events and barely top 100 worthy performances at events when he is on a downcycle.

Note: this is not necessary for all types of PEDs, some can be used throughout the year.
 
#3,559 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

:lol: Chico and Matt01 - quality upholders of omerta.
 
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#3,563 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

Baldito fans, doping apologists :lol:
 
#3,566 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

If talent was the sole factor in being a great tennis player, Mansour Bahrami would be the greatest of all time. It is obvious that physiological ability plays a fundamental role in being able to hit a decent forehand, backhand etc.. Anyone who denies this, is either propping up a doper or simply doesn't know shit about Tennis.
 
#3,568 ·
Re: Doping in Tennis Thread (No accusations without proof. Wada could test using hair

I love the havoc this thread is wreaking, damage to legacies is being done, and there is nothing anyone can do about it. No smoke without fire eh :)
 
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