Steroids

I made fun of gull80 once and from that I received a humiliation in the 200 free. I've chosen to not cross him again.

Originally posted by R6Chick You apparently do not know many people with HIV. It is still very much a death sentence. It is just a slower death now. You've joined this thread late and taken one of my comments out of context. For your information, I was treating patients infected with HIV when you were still in high school. My post, in response to a criticism of medicine, was as follows: "Small pox has been eradicated. HIV is no longer a death sentence. The mortality rate from heart disease has declined dramatically such that it is no longer the leading cause of death. Life expectancy in the Western world has almost doubled in the past century. That's the impact of medicine." With access to the newer antiretroviral agents, survival rate has been extended to decades in many cases. Unfortunately, access to these drugs is not universal, so perhaps I should have stated that HIV need not be a death sentence.

I know this isn't swimming related but it kinda is because the World seems to judge the use of drugs in sports by the nations that use them. In the last two days, I have been seeing this all over the TV. And they have had all sorts of people all around the world talking about this because of this book that just came out. I wonder how people will react if and when he gets Hank Aaron record. Here is the story. sportsillustrated.cnn.com/.../index.html

George: You make a good point that we don't know if Hank Aaron was on them or not. When I think of Hank Aaron I think of when he broke Babe's record and he was very popular and friendly with the press and everyone. Even the sales of OH Henry candy bars were going up and getting popular and you did not want to believe this guy was not a hero. By the way did you ever compete against *** Pound of the WADA. He was a Commonweath/Canadian Champion and Record holder in the 100 Free a little bit after yourself. He has been very vocal about this Balco stuff. I used to coach a swimmer from Canada that knew *** and said that he was one of the most respected swimmers ever to come out of Canada. He is one of only two swimming people recently to be selected to the IOC and is considered one of the most powerful men in swimming along with Mustapha Larfaoui, who is also on the IOC.

Originally posted by TheGoodSmith There should forever be an asterisk placed next to Bond's name in the record books. Personally, I wouldn't let him have a record. He should only be compared to modern supplement abusing talent. To compare him to a noncheater is ridiculous. John Smith Actually MLB is going to do absolutely nothing about this. In fact they were hoping that Barry Bonds would retire before he breaks the records. They are hoping that people will forget about this but when he gets close to the record it will be brought up and the press will have a field day with this. They are already saying he should be in the Hall of Shame and join others record holders there. I think they are worried about others that might have done this before and have never been caught and they will never have a clean slate. Plus because of the legalities and what other sports governing bodies have done in the past, they want to forget and move to the future. But everyone will know how these baseball records have been taken down and I truely believe it has already tainted a sport that does not need to be more tainted.

Mr Goodsmith: I would say that Cycling is up there. One of the things that I have read about the sport is that the cyclists are masters and experts when it comes to using masking agents and hidding the drugs in there systems and beating the tests. Most of offenses are HGH, EPO, blood doping and designer drugs and not the performance enhancing steriods that maybe are used in the power sports and less in the endurance sports. I have also read that drug cheating is as good as the most up to date masking agents that are not on the drug banned lists for testing purposes. In fact, I had read that if Ben Johnson's drug test was an hour later he would have passed and been awarded the gold medal. The masking agent he used did not work as fast it should have and that is why he was caught. He was never caught in a drug test before the Olympics because evidently the masking agents were working. Right now there is probably some drug out there that is being developed that will enhance performance. Much like TGH was and it will take maybe up to 5 to 6 years to catch it and ban it. I remember when HGH and EPO were not illegal and people were doing it back in the 2000 Olympics. In fact, Italy tested Massi Rossolino and found that he had done that prior to the 2000 Olympics, but since it was not illegal back then like it is now, nothing was done and nothing could be done. Baseball, because of its lax attitude up until this year had all sorts of violations and it was pretty much a joke compared to the other sports that at least had testing. Even if the testing was not always perfect at least they had some and found violaters. With Baseball, they did nothing until pressure from Congress. Thats why records by people like McGuire and Sosa are suspect because you know they were not 100% clean and MLB knows they dropped the ball on this long ago and wants to try to forget about it. Last year when Bonds only played a limited number of games, MLB probably thought he would retire and people would forget about this and move on. But with this book that is coming out and him being close to Babe Ruth and passing him this year it will always come up and taint the sport.

How do we know if Hank Aaron was not on something. Bond still says he did not take steroids knowingly. I believe him.

There should forever be an asterisk placed next to Bond's name in the record books. Personally, I wouldn't let him have a record. He should only be compared to modern supplement abusing talent. To compare him to a noncheater is ridiculous. John Smith

I knew *** and even raced him. My brother has regular conversations with him in Burlington Ontario. As you probably know I think anyone should be able to do what they want. I am very liberal. I never used any thing except large doses of Vitamin E and did not care what any one else did. I even liked the East German swimmers when they used rectal injection of air. Even though it could be dangerous when around them when they passed air.

Frank, Although the type of supplements and cheating vary from sport to sport depending on the demand set, which sport is the most tainted in you opinion? Personally........ from what I've read and heard about.... I'd say cycling. John Smith