Barry Bonds’s Home Run Record [Isn't]

I have to tell you, I do not see it that way. I think that steroids are just the next natural evolution in sports training. Just having better genetics also makes things unfair, but we should not do DNA test to level the playing field. We should not allow athletes to over do itlike Chris Benoit, but they can be really helpful when done correctly.

I think you have a point there; the problem is that things are about to get really silly in the world of enhancement. I think within 20 years there will likely be street available enhancement that will let regular people perform better than any Olympic athlete. I just don’t see how we can allow any and all modifications as the come available. We are already developing synthetic red blood cells that allow one to hold your breath under water for 2 hours. So once you allow one thing its going to be hard to argue against another. And at that point we”ok just be testing the enhancers, not the people. Thoughts?

I don’t mind anyone taking steroids. It shouldn’t be illegal. Hitting a homerun now is not much of a feat compared to long ago, but so what. The pitching is much faster now too, which makes it harder to hit. At one time having 300 hp in a car was an amazing accomplishment, but not anymore. It’s not a big deal. Maybe they should just make the walls higher or the fields bigger.. I don’t see any way of logically differentiating between enhancers and, for example, normal food. Food is an enhancer. Training is an enhancer. Any line that is drawn will be arbitrary and will cause controversy. The only thing that makes sense to me is to allow anyone to perform as well as they can with whatever technology they have available. (Where can I get some of that synthetic blood?)

You know, I think It’d be really cool if they just separated sports into two categories. Roid user sports and clean sports. I actually talked about this with some of my buddies a few years ago when they found a bunch of Olympic athletes using performance enhancing drugs. They should just have a Roid-lypics sponsored by drug companies to see which drug works the best! I’d totally watch that.

Actually, yeah, that’s the problem. I touched on it in my comment above but Al hits brings it out better.

The issue is that when we allow any enhancement we cease to be testing humans and start testing enhancements. So when we start blowing away the previous records we should give the awards to the pharmaceutical companies.

We’ll know this time has come when the enhancements can take regular non-elite athletes and let them outperform the world’s elite who aren’t using drugs. And that actually isn’t very far off.

In reality aren’t we testing training and genetics in most cases? Lets take Table Tennis for example. Are we not in some way testing the selection of paddle, training, rubber, and natural genetics? Paintball is another example. If you have the money to practice and buy the right you become good. If you don;t then you can not reach the higher levels. The point is that at some point you are just testing gear and training not the people. I do not feel there is a way around this. There is another argument for the use of steroids. It greatly aids in recovery time. So if an athlete hearls faster then they are of more use to there team and the fans. Thoughts?

I think we *should* be testing training and genetics. I think that’s what the spirit of the games is based around. It’s about getting the absolute most out of what you’ve been given.

Any kind of training is fine because it yields only incremental advances. As an example, the Olympic greats of 100 years ago would still be considered high-quality athletes today. And that’s the way it should be in my opinion. Small, steady advances based on training or diet.

The problems start when we have enhancers that are not incremental. At that point the genetics and training won’t matter much at all. It will still help, of course, but it won’t give much *relative* gain compared to the drugs.

In 20 years it will likely easily be possible to take a $5 drug (or cocktail) that allows you to blow any natural Olympic record out of the water by 25%. And that’s for a non-athlete. So you’ll have regular people able to long-jump, sprint, swim — whatever — way better than any professional athlete that isn’t using similar drugs.

Once that happens the relative skill and genetics of each human will mean very little. All drug enhanced people will beat all non-drug enhanced in the major events. This will be very strange.

One could argue that this is even MORE reason for the Olympic athletes to need access to those drugs as well, but I think it’s pointless. Once you start down that path it just doesn’t even matter anymore. The only thing that matters is what a natural human can do by themselves.

In fact, drugs of the future will even discourage training. More gains will come from slightly better drugs than slightly better training. So if a world-class athlete with the best genetics in the world is 2% better than his closest competitor, but the drug he takes gives a 15% increase, then the other guy gains more by having a bigger sponsor that’s going to enhance the drug even more.

Imagine a sprint for a world record. Wow! That guy isn’t even getting tired! He just left everyone behind! He destroyed the record by 30 minutes! This is not a victory for the runner. It’s a victory for the drug company.

So I would agree with you if the drugs were minor and were always going to stay that way. If that were the case then we could view it like a good diet and training. But they aren’t minor and they’re about to become insane to the point of granting superhuman powers. And because of this I think our only option is to stop the slippery slope now and test nothing but the human.

What do you think?

Okay, lets address a few issues.

Steroids are not all the same. Calling all steroids dangerous is like calling caffiene dangerous because it is a stimulant like crystal meth. It is just ignorant. Of the hundreds of types, some are harmless, some are very harmful, most fall between in varying ranges.

Orals are typically the most dangerous due to the pass through the liver before entering the blood stream, particularly the 17-alpha-alkyl altered ones. To survive this ‘first pass’, oral steroids have a methyl (or ethyl or alkyl) added at the 17 alpha position, which protects it from the liver, but causes most of the liver damage in the process. Injectable initially bypass the liver altogether to get into the blood stream, therefore have almost no liver side effects. Orals without this 17-alpha-alkyl altered molecule also do very little damage, if any, but the effectiveness is also reduced as well.

Second, why (I’m asking) is it fine for a woman to use hormones for birth control, menopause, and its even accepted medical practice to give STEROIDS to a woman becoming a man, but not for a man to have more of the hormone that is already naturally there to become a stronger or larger man?

Ken is right in my opinion.

Hey Daniel, are we going to limit how often athletes train to make it all fair too? Lets regulate their food intake to make sure someone doesn’t get more protein than his competitor… Oh wait, vitamins and sleep… Genetics! great we’ll fix that with handicaps for the genetically inferior…

I think the solution is to allow both, on clean, one not. Then let economics go from there. Nobody will want to pay to see the games with less home runs, track stars that are not setting records, etc.

The problem is everyone wants to see the records shattered and new levels archived, but they don’t want to admit the truth what it really takes to do this in TODAY’S current competitive arena. Stupid “don’t ask, don’t tell” or worse, you cant do it and we will call you a cheater when most everyone else is doing it that you are competing with for a job or that had the record before you. You know its out of hand when the FDA is banning OTC supplements precurser (androsteine, Nor-androdial, etc)that are 2, 3, or even 4 chemical conversions away from converting to testosterone in the body. Hey, the body uses cholesterol as a precurser to make testosterone, lets ban it from use on the market too!

I don’t advocate using steroids (especially for kids under 18 have additional risks)for anyone as they are illegal, and jail suxs, but athletes under the old (pre 1989) way were able to get them from a doctor with a prescription and the doctor generally supervised them closely with regular checkups and blood tests to monitor the liver function and cholesterol levels.

Sorry for the rant, tired from late night addiction to WOW, no caffeine or steroids left(j/k)to make it through the day. Humm, injectable caffeine shots…. IV drip bag…

I think you are giving the drugs more power then they really have. Plus, why would an athlete stop training? They would get more benefit combining the two, training and drugs, then just one or the other. Again one of the biggest advantages is that they aid in recovery times. This will help people live longer and healthier.

Now lets take the baseball player. He still has to have the eye sight, hand eye coordination, the know how and patients to hit the ball. The only thing that has really been done is he is now stronger and does not get hurt as much. I still fail to see what is wrong with that.

I agree with you about the baseball player. Certain sports benefit more from these types of super-drugs than others. Like, powerlifting or bicycling is going to be far more damaged by them than table tennis or baseball. It seems to be easier to make drugs that enhance brute strength and endurance than drugs that enhance hand-eye coordination and other abilities.

As for my overestimating the power of the drugs, I don’t think I am. Keep in mind that I’m not talking about what exists today, but rather what is currently being researched and are likely to be released in the near future. Check out some of the research that Kurzweil talks about in the TED conferences. The stuff they are working on SOUNDS like sci-fi, but it’s just sci.

Steve,

You missed the point of my earlier post. I clearly stated that the point of the Olympics is to test the genetics and will of the competitor, and that’s the problem. If a small change in drug potency makes more of a difference than ANY change in training or genetics then we cease to be testing the humans involved.

At that point we’re only testing the drugs because IT WON’T MATTER WHO takes the drugs. ANYONE competing with them will do better than ANYONE who competes naturally, and at that point the games are ruined. My point is that we should avoid this inevitable result by testing nothing but the human from the very beginning. This way only diet, training, genetics, and willpower will be tested — which is the way I think it was meant to be.

Thoughts?

I couldn’t agree with you more. I’m a bit saddened to feel this way about a sport I absolutely loved as a child. I personally don’t think steroid use should be viewed as the next step in sports evolution. Honoring an athlete’s pure natural ability is what sports has been (in my opinion) and what it always should be.

But my dream of watching games at Yankee stadium and Wrigley Field remains.