Yesterdays finals race shown last night here in the USA .It looked like 15 year old Ye Shiwen was racing with the pack of swimmer and the last 40 meter she just had a burst of energy rocketed/sprinted to the win she seemed very happy did not look guilty.{I don't know swimming terms so I use running terms} Maybe she is training differently and learned a new technique to sprint to the win in the last 50 meters. If she not on roid's I feel sorry for her and all the controversy she's going trough because she worked hard to take 5 seconds of her best time last year.

I have witnessed unknown young children, pre teen or teen competitors in skateboarding come out of the wood work and win contests and doing trick no one else could do when I use to judge skateboard contest.

For example Danny Way at age 13 took the skateboard world by storm.Or my little brother Jimmy at at age 11 took the extreme Vertical/ Street Rollerblade skating like a storm. He had advantages he was in Gymnastics for 4 years at very young age and he hung out with skateboarders. I coached him and told him about extreme roller skater I knew what tricks they use to do.I also helped and coached him with figuring out tricks. But I never pushed him it was choice if he wanted to try the trick or not and when he wanted to practice I did not wanted to take the fun out of it for him . He also he was not afraid to do the tricks. Danny had the same type of coaching from old Pro skateboarders.


We talk about the other countries training camps I think the parents{ sports/stage moms and dads} of USA olympic and other sports athletes and other activities like acting/music put their children through worse when they find out their kid has talent.

I remember watching 60 minutes and they did a spot on a little Golf kid named Tiger woods and they also did spot on little girls playing tennis named Venus and Serena Williams.
They grew up to be champions but what about the ones that did not and became injured physically and mentally and it is a hard road to from being a young athlete to a injured or not as good a they thought they were champion to a successful person in society with out sports.

The parents took a fun a game or hobby and turned it in to training camp of hell for the kids. I have witnessed it time and time again.
I Remember I went to a Cattle call for Levi's commercial with my brother they needed a rollerblade kid for the commercial. I was watching stage Mom's and Dad's putting their young actor kids in brand new inline skates who had never been on skates they were falling all over the place it was funny and very very sad the extremes the stage parents would go through to get their kids in a stupid commercial that only payed $1750.00 that my brother made off the commercial.

Terry

Ben, it has nothing to do with foreigners, the issue is when someone produces a performance that is not really possible, that means that they have a medical team that is completely up on all testing methods used by the current world doping agencies, and have found a way to do it. At this point globally, that's all it means.

Other people who found such a way were Lance Armstrong, an American, almost caught many times, but just skirted full technical detection. And now finally, because it really was vile how he lied for so many years, he's largely been busted, but playing his constant game of constant denial to the end. For those who don't follow such things, every single one of his primary helpers who was hired to head other teams was subsequently popped for doping, which means, the us postal team had better doping doctors, not that they were magically better. A simple formula in such cases you can use is this: if all top level athletes in a sport are doping, which was the case during armstrong's reign as top doper globally, then you cannot beat them unless you are also doping, that's the vicious circle of doping. Bradly Wiggins, by the way, made a nicely snide offhand remark post tour win, he apologized for the relative dullness of his victory by noting that when heavy duty doping is removed, magical day long breaks somehow are no longer possible, nor are miraculous overnight recoveries that allow the next day's briliant break away victory. You remember, like the magical recovery Floyd Landis had to gain the yellow jersey after bonking the day before, via our good friend synthetic testosterone. Trained by the same group, worked with Armstrong, just didn't have the level of medical staff, so they messed up and it was detected. Like Armstrong, denied it to the very end, and still does. Embarrassing, I really wish these guys would be men and own their cheating, but they remain human scum and will deny it til they die, or have a change of heart, like Jose Canseco, another American well known in the doping world.

I remember one olympics where Ben Johnson appeared, and radically outsprinted the competition, it was totally obvious just looking at his physique that he was doping, steroids I believe in his case, and he was, then stripped of his medals. Was he Canadian or US, can't remember off the top of my head.

The US olympic training center was also involved in developing blood packing, which US cyclists used to win some events, until they developed ways to track hemocrit levels better, now that's not as easy to do, or they have to use more refined methods, ie, control and test for blood hemoglobin. Lance Armstrong, in either his last, or second to the last, tour de france, registered blood hemoglobin levels that never dropped during the race, but did not exceed the limit. This is not possible technically, but it was within the rules, which is one reason they now use blood passports as part of the detection methods.

So there you have some prime US doping, happy?

You're confusing high level and highly funded doping doctors and systems for individual brilliance. There's no way a girl can beat a guy's time who is top level in a strength event, that's totally absurd. Unless of course she's been changed into a guy partially via doping over time. It's all about masking, when to pull the active stuff out of the body so it isn't detected, and using better testing than the world antidoping groups use to make sure your athlete passes the drug test.

If you're not aware of the horrifyingly debilitating results of years of steroid use, look up some videos of old pro US wrestlers, who beg the young guys to not use steroids because it cripples you totally when you get older. Very sad. Since Chinese and Eastern European bodies aren't magically immune to such negative results, and since they aren't exactly known for having open media, China doesn't even have an open internet, not reading about their horrible later years is hardly meaningful, you expect the Chinese Communist party to publish such stories in the State media outlets?

There's some other points, but it takes too long to go through all this, but the comments re pro level training vs amateur have now nothing to do with reality,. US basketball, all pros. Most of the cycling teams, all pros. I dont' love that newish rule, but given that some countries spend fortunes to gain medals and national prestige, it's only fair in the end.

I was listening to NPR the other day, they were interviewing an antidoping person, who noted that currently, dopers vs antidoping bodies are sort of like bicycle track pursuit riders, only the dopers tend to be slightly ahead of the antidoping groups. They know the rules, they know the levels, they know the chemicals on the lists, all those have to be published, so the game is to keep your results of blood / urine tests within allowed limits, using whatever means necessary. This is why dopers tend to be ahead, sometimes far ahead, sometimes not so far. Testing does help by the way, it doesn't eliminate the problem, but it does make it less extreme and less obvious. That's what Wiggins meant when he referred to the dullness of the race, they can't pop in an extra pint of blood now and expect to get away with it, can't do epo straight out of the bottle, they have to use less blood for example when blood packing, and can't be using certain things during the live race, and so on. Sad, one reason I do not watch the olympics, by the way, and why I dont' really follow pro cycling anymore, I'm not interested in the wonderful world of chemistry battling it out.

Edited by hhope on 08/01/2012 13:12:59 MDT.

"like the magical recovery Floyd Landis had to gain the yellow jersey after bonking the day before, via our good friend synthetic testosterone. Trained by the same group, worked with Armstrong, just didn't have the level of medical staff, so they messed up and it was detected. Like Armstrong, denied it to the very end, and still does."

I thought Landis ended up admitting to his doping, and accusing Armstrong in the process?

Anyway, this thread is one of the reasons I stopped paying attention to the Olympics, and most major league sports, a long time ago. I could care less who's doing what, who's winning what, medal counts, etc.

No way to tell if she was legal or not until testing is done. She's legal if she falls within the testing standards. I hope she's legal; doping is bad for the sport.

While I do find it impressive that she went faster than Lochte in the final 50 of a 400 IM, that still means she was slower for the other 7/8ths of the race. Lochte finished in 4:05. Ye finished in 4:28-an impressive swim but nowhere near the men's time. We should wait for the testing before being too judgmental.

Landis was a low point, did he finally admit it? I know he publicly admitted he was there when Armstrong doped, but did he take personal responsibility? I stopped following him, he's just such a lowlife character, not as low as Armstrong, but pretty close. By the way, it's also generally suspected that Armstrong's testicular cancer arose from doping in the first place, which makes his entire cancer thing about as cynical as possible, if true. My guess is it's true, judging by his character.

One of the key lessons the us postal group in its various incarnations learned was this: deny always, never admit it, even when popped, do not admit it. And have really good team doctors, use the best.

I also don't watch these events due to the heavy drug use in all marquee sports, the lesser ones probably are still reasonably clean, but you simply never know now anymore. However, now, with training raised to such a high level, any time I see anyone who manages to significantly raise the bar, like the Chinese girl, I immediately suspect doping, because that's the best guess today in sports, magic just doesn't happen now so much any more.

See my remarks re testing and doping, the testing does not catch doping like magic, and the game is very simple: the dopers know the limits, the goal is to dope while testing under the limits. All passing the tests means is that they managed to keep the levels under what is permitted, and managed to keep all listed agents out of the blood. That's what national training institutes and doctors are for. My impression is that nobody actually believes that girl's performance who is in the antidoping group, just like they didn't believe armstrong's 7 tour victories, but they couldn't quite get the tests to fully prove it.

Money has ruined sports, period. Keep in mind that properly administered blood packing, which uses the athlete's own blood, is almost undetectable, making guys like Phelps suspect as well. It's sad, but true, these techniques were pioneered, I believe, by the US olympic training centers.

Edited by hhope on 08/01/2012 13:26:41 MDT.

Yup, kids are getting faster. This video shows you how much faster.

One Race, Every Medalist Ever.

Quite a different perspective!

But then, 100 years -- and 3 seconds' worth of improvements. Makes me wonder... if today's fastest has to wear the same type of shoes and run on the same surface as back in 1896 -- how might the 3 seconds' difference be affected?

Finally, back to the earlier contention, the 16 year old Ye has come out clean. So I guess the fall back for the sore losers here is "well, they train too hard"?? Sore losers indeed.

The technology in the sports like rubberized tracks,Carbon fiber bicycles and crew boats. To the spring loaded floor mats in gymnastics wrist braces for spinning on the uneven bars.
The Body hugging breast compressing women swim suits and slick coatings on both genders swim suits. Look at Rebecca Soni's Arena brand swim suit you can see in the underwater shots it has hydrophobic coating of some kind because it shiny.
Also have you noticed the USA track athletes Nike track suits they have raised tinny puffy surfaces on the fabric track suits. the only thing can think of is it acts like a golf ball to disrupt the airflow around their body to increase speed some what.

The athlete did not have these type of equipment back in the 70's and 80's.

The only thing that has not changed is the antiquated judging system in gymnastics that does not reward innovation in tricks. Their always been certain standard elements/tricks for years and when a athlete come up with a new element/trick that is so hard and no one else can do they get marked down because the judges don't know how to judge it.I It's the same way in Ice skating they even outlawed hard tricks like back flips and other risky tricks.
Also rid of the crippling bone breaking ,stress fracturing, ligament tearing landing of sticking it straight legged gymnastics dismounts in gymnastics for more personal safety for the athlete safety in the sport.

I was a head judge in skateboarding for both Amateur and Pro contests for 5 years of my life and we reward innovation, style, consistency of making every trick the athletes did.

Terry

Edited by socal-nomad on 08/08/2012 10:40:09 MDT.