Bike Ping
When the use of radio communication was allowed, I knew we were heading in this direction.
I have long held to my personal belief that there should be no restrictions on drug use in sports because the pro level business is entertainment in its purest form and in that vein, athletes are no different than actors, dancers or wrestlers.
I think if you asked top level amateurs in sports if they would risk potential health problems for fame and fortune by taking performance enhancement drugs, most would say, "Yes".
The technical advances being developed differ from physical advantages in that anyone can get them and use them. But the game changing attributes of either one are almost endless.
Even the simple and natural sport of golf is being changed by digital enhancements such as devices that measure distance, temperature, wind speed/direction and even read greens. If we do not return to pure physical competition there will be no end to the continued devolution of all sports.
I think if you asked top level amateurs in sports if they would risk potential health problems for fame and fortune by taking performance enhancement drugs, most would say, “Yes”. Forgive me for a drawn out story, but this reminds me of my experience trying out for the Jr. Worlds Team in the late 1970s at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. The whole process was a completely pathetic screwed up mess from day one.
We had been told before we came that for the individual time trial which would determine the team we were on for the team time trial portion, that gear restrictions would not apply. Then the night before, the staff changed their minds and we were told that we would have gear restrictions after all.
So that night I swapped the cogs around on my freewheel to comply. Unfortunately, I did not have a lot of experience with this and did not realize that the cogs needed to go on with the beveled faces oriented in a specific direction depending on their position. So the next morning during the time trial I had a lot of difficulty shifting into the gears I needed on the rolling course and it screwed up my time.
So I ended up on a team with two of us who were pretty good and three riders who were good enough to qualify for the tryouts but not very strong. So the two of us who were strong riders basically pulled the other three through most of the course, but a couple of them still couldn't keep up and since the time was based on the 4th riders time reaching the line, our time suffered.
So the other strong rider and I hung out that evening and it turned out that he was using “speed” to enhance his performance. Well the next day, for the road race it was extremely hot. The organizers decided to start the race an hour early to avoid part of the heat. Only no one told me about it until about 30 minutes before we were suppose to get ourselves and our bikes loaded on a bus. When I ran down to the cafeteria there had been a run on the food and I was able to eat almost nothing.
The road race was longer than a typical junior road race; it was over 90 miles. I managed to get myself into the winning break away, but then I completely bonked out. I hadn't eaten basically any breakfast and was not able to find enough food to stuff into my pockets and of course I had no one to hand me water during the race. So on the second to last lap I got dropped and stopped at a gas station to eat something. Then I rode back to the finish line. Because of the extremely poor planning by the USCF people in charge of the event, a high percentage of the field had dropped out.
The group that I had been in came across first, and the field had basically fragmented into a lot of small groups. One of the last people who came across the line was the doper that I had befriended after the team time trial. He came across the line with white dried sweat all around his mouth and then collapsed and they had to haul him away in an ambulance.
So that night there was a big mandatory meeting called and our new “coach” Eddie Borysewicz, who still didn't speak English gave us an impassioned speech in Polish which was then translated. He praised LeMond and the others who were in the winning break away and then he said that those of us who had not finished the race were quitters and would never amount to anything. Then he called up my new doper buddy and said that he was the finest example of all the riders there because he had pushed himself until he practically died.
I knew that he had collapsed because the he was using amphetamines and I guessed that Eddie B and the coaching staff were either too stupid to figure this out or this was some kind of tacit approval. So my doper buddy of course didn't make the team, but he actually did move to Europe to race. He had no success and had to come back after a year or two.
So back then the only truly effective performance enhancing technique was “blood doping” where you stored your own blood and then had it pumped back in the night or morning before an event to increase its oxygen carrying potential. It was not illegal to do this back then. I knew top riders who were my friends who did do this but it took money and know how. And I had no interest in that; I don't like being stuck with needles for one thing. But I thought it was wrong even if it wasn't illegal.
I don't know if “most top level amateurs” would use the types of performance enhancing techniques available today if they were legal. But if they knew it would give them a definite advantage and it was legal you are probably right. I don't really like that you are probably right, I have always looked down on this type of nonsense.
