The Paradox of Doping in Mountain Climbing | Hacker News Reader

The Paradox of Doping in Mountain Climbing

nautil.us

45 pointsdnetesn49 comments

What the author doesn't seem to understand is that alpine ascents in general aren't done in the form of organized competitions, so the entire comparison to anti-doping regulations in sports is quite absurd: you can't tell people what not to do when they do it independently, unless oxygen is somehow universally made illegal. Even WADA can't tell you what substances not to use when you are cycling/running/doing-whatever on your own free time. There is no "Paradox of Doping" in mountain climbing: it's the same as in any other activity that is done independently - you can use equipment that will make it easier for you, but then others might not feel as impressed.

Another way of looking at what you are saying is, there is no problem with doping in sport.. there is a problem with competition.

Competition is the 'con' which makes most sport worth watching (and hence paying for / advertising in). Without the promise of competition between the local / state / country / world's best, who is watching an average person running a hundred metres? What if we measured not time but technique, or like mountain climbing, preparation?

If the sport is about preparation rather than performance, what does it even matter if they are doping?

> Without the promise of competition...who is watching an average person running a hundred metres?

No one. This is why climbing making it into the 2020 Olympics is going to create a lot more trouble for the sport than good. Generally, climbing (be it alpine mountaineering or more approachable "rock climbing") is horrendously boring to watch, except for other climbers.

Climbing, done well, looks almost effortless. No one wants to watch someone _not_ struggle.

I don't know how it will be monetized. Probably just via gear endorsements, like all the other sports. :(

Indoor bouldering is very entertaining, even if you know very little about climbing. You don't need to be an expert to see the challenge posed by a tiny crimp, a massive overhang or a big dyno. The immense difficulty of the problems mean that the struggle is visible, even for the strongest climbers. In a sense, you're watching a battle between the climber and the route-setter.

https://youtu.be/00nLWbGQJks?t=48m15s

Indoor bouldering has evolved over the years to "comp-style" indoor bouldering, favoring exciting moves, large, dynamic movement, etc.

I love climbing, know a fair bit about it, and enjoy watching. I just don't think it lends itself to spectating the same way a team sport does (I.E. american football/football).

One thing climbing DOES have going for it is the skill of the athletes is immediately visible. It's not like an endurance sport where, while we all know the athlete is better than we are at the sport, we can all go outside and run a few miles.

In contrast to the one-arm antics required for world-cup bouldering, etc.

People seem to enjoy watching Usain Bolt run, and he certainly doesn't seem to be struggling. Not to mention that he's much less fast compared to the average person compared with climbers.

I think part of that is the time involved. Watching Bolt takes 10 seconds -- the entire event can be shown on the evening news. Not as many people sit and watch the 10,000 meters and even less an entire marathon. The more time involved, the more likely it that you are a fan of the sport/activity.

I don't know. Sport climbing isn't that boring to watch, and they already have a world cup, national championships, world championships.

To a climber, climbing is fascinating.

But take a look at this video of Jain Kim winning the 2015 world cup: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oLp89uGq2s4

It is a masterful display of climbing prowess. But it is, unarguably, _boring_.

Nothing happens quickly, the rests strategically throughout, and exerts little apparent effort.

Please note, again, that I LOVE climbing, and have eagerly watched this entire video in real time several times. But this is not the kind of sport that lends itself to the average observer.

At least, I don't think. Maybe I'm wrong! Wouldn't be the first time.

Cheers.

I'm not a climber (I've meant to get into it, but the day only has so many hours ...), but I like watching climbing. At least it's more exciting than 10 meters air pistol!

The problem is not with competiton itself, either. It really is about doping - but in competition.

>you can use equipment that will make it easier for you, but then others might not feel as impressed.

Put another way if do something in a non-orthodox way (free ascent w/o oxygen) that might be MORE impressive than a traditional ascent with O2 assistance but that doesn't mean the traditional ascent isn't impressive on it's own.

I'm impressed by someone who carries a steel oxygen tank all the way up a very high mountain.

According to http://peakfreaks.com/oxygen.htm a popular oxygen tank is the Russian-made POISK, which weighs 2.7 kg, not including the 350 g regulator. So you're lugging 3 extra kilos if you use that one.

And I'm even more impressed if they aren't an asshole and bring it back down with them instead of dumping it on top of the mountain.

Among other incentives, they're probably still using it on the way down.

Not if they use more than one.

quote: "Even WADA can't tell you what substances not to use when you are cycling/running/doing-whatever on your own free time."

This is incorrect. In both track-and-field and cycling there are extensive out-of-competition tests, the purpose of which is exactly that. This is because performance-enhancing drugs are often more beneficial in training than in competition.

http://www.faqs.org/sports-science/Mo-Pl/Out-of-Competition-...

He is talking about YOU or ME, non-competitive athletes pursuing a sport in our spare time.

While there are a few contests here and there, mountain climbing is essentially a personal hobby, even at the highest levels.

Climbing is different. As Hemingway put it, "There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games."

Many performance-enhancing drugs are really bad for you; that is the rationale for banning doping in mere games, while permitting fancy shoes and other expensive performance-enhancing technologies. It doesn't work for mountaineering, because the sport itself is really, really bad for you, to the extent that death is a normal and accepted part of it. It would be obscene to enforce the rules of your game on other people when that posed a risk to their lives. They get to make their own rules, because the mountains are theirs as much as yours.

This is also why climbers are ambivalent about competition. Matching what the other kids are doing is a big part of what motivates many climbers to try harder things. On the other hand, if two climbers start one-upping each other, they had better stop before one of them gets killed, because no pissing contest is worth dying for. Few do.

I'm one of the exceptions, but that lesson involved so much luck that it made the front page of every newspaper in the country.

Testosterone isn't "really bad" for you yet is quite banned. It's ridiculous to pretend it's about health. It's just a combo of marketing (so people don't dismiss it as a drug competition) and general anti drug silliness.

> and general anti drug silliness.

What happened to the former 1980s GDR athletes (who had broken dozens of records in swimming and athletics while juiced to the max) was not "silly" at all. Got to watch some fragments of a related documentary with included a few interviews and the stories were harrowing.

Some climber dude (I forget who) said, paraphrased:

"Only chalkless barefoot free soloing[1] is proper free climbing[2], all the rest is just disguised aid climbing [3]"

If you've ever gone climbing, and compared your experience wearing random shoes (or no shoes) with wearing proper climbing shoes, I think you'll agree that the difference is tremendous. If you consider oxygen an unfair advantage, you will need to include many other tools as well.

Also, in alpinism, the stakes are so high that I don't fault anyone for using the tools necessary to make sure they make it safely back down - for their sake, and for their would-be rescuers'

Competition sports climbing is another matter, but its connection to alpinism is as tenuous (or more so) as that of biathlon to hunting in the scandinavian winter.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_solo_climbing [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_climbing [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aid_climbing

It isn't the same as doping in other sports. Climbers will often specify if their ascent involved O2 or not. It's still considered a big achievement in mountaineering to summit say K2 or Annapurna with O2.

"Perhaps the most controversial course of action, though, is the decision to carry and use supplemental O2. Most climbers consider their supplemental oxygen as equipment—just as much a part of their experience as their Gortex gear, and certainly as foundational as their extensive training."

This article is already self-contradictory. It doesn't need to make it obvious by putting these two sentences right next to each other. If it's just as foundational and normal equipment, then it's obviously not a controversial course of action. Also, not how you spell Gore-Tex.

I love Gore-Tex as a material. It's one of the few materials that has a negative Poisson ratio (when you stretch it the material expands in all directions, it doesn't narrow). My Ph.D. supervisor keeps a small sample of it to use for demonstrations to his Mechanics of Deformable Solids course. Only man-made materials can exhibit this property.

The main controversy with O2 is that far too many climbers just dump their tank on the mountain when they are empty rather than carrying them back down with them.

How do the these anti-oxygen purists going to scale Olympus Mons on Mars, when that becomes a thing to do? That sucker rises 26 km above its northern plains.

"No way is that legit; you're bringing Mars down to your level when you use O2. I'd rather train hard and suffer. If I fucking die, which I likely will, then so be it!"

For that matter, this would be a very different discussion if Everest were higher - it's geologically possible for a mountain to be significantly higher(1) than Everest, high enough that to get to the top you'd need something akin to a spacesuit.

Equally, no human free diver is ever going to reach the bottom of the marina trench...

1) https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/174cxr/how_high...

Used Diamox for Killimanjaro. Its totally cheating and awesome. A fellow climber was on dex just as a precaution. Also cheating. And o2? over 14k feet its a lifeline. But then so are down jackets, goretex, light alloy axes and light crampons, etc. Its an interesting debate.

Tennis player Novak Djokovic, on the other hand, was definitely not doping when he slept in an egg-shaped barometric chamber.

I believe that actually would be considered doping in Italy (or used to be).

it is not allowed in Italy where a rule forbids manipulation of blood values via artificial means.

http://inrng.com/2012/06/the-altitude-tent/

What are "artificial means"?

If he took a helicopter to the peak of midzor, would that be "artificial"?

The law is lazy-evaluated. Ask a judge. (But I would imagine it would be unlikely).

>>The World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) prohibits an athlete from using a substance that fulfills two of the following three criteria: 1) It is performance-enhancing; 2) It is harmful to health; 3) It runs counter to the spirit of the sport.

these things are extremely hard to quantify which is why there are explicit lists of "prohibited substances" where the line is drawn more or less arbitrarily. my personal opinion is with the exception of artificial hormones everything else should be allowed.

and when it does come to 'roids and hgh (which btw are demonized beyond any reason) - I like the way powerlifting federations address it - as an athlete you can compete in a tested (which still of course doesn't guarantee the athletes to be "clean") or "untested" federation where anything goes.

>as an athlete you can compete in a tested (which still of course doesn't guarantee the athletes to be "clean") or "untested" federation where anything goes.

this is pretty clever, it reminds me of the "cheater pool" solution to cheating in video games. flagged players are placed in a matchmaking pool with other flagged players. I'm not sure of the pros and cons to this being applied to real world competition, but I wouldn't mind it as a spectator.

In _No Shortcuts To The Top_,[1] Viesturs gave more treatment to the topic of oxygen - I don't remember the exact quote, but he said something to the tune of:

> I prefer to climb without oxygen, but when guiding groups up Everest, it would be irresponsible for me to not have oxygen, so I can be most responsive to any issues that arise.

There's no "paradox". It seems the author noticed that climbing recently got added to the 2020 list of Olympic sports, and is trying to create controversy where there is none.

[1] https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MAH5OM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?...

Here is an argument in favor accelerated acclimatizers and oxygen tanks:

1. They reduce the high risk of irreversible damage to an especially important organ, the brain. 2. They reduce the significant risk of death.

Any chemical or equipment that does the above should be considered standard equipment, not doping. This is like arguing that helmets are doping because riders can more safely go faster.

I wouldn't care how much the "community" would look down on me. I'm not voluntarily accepting certain brain damage to climb a mountain.

by some of the logic presented here, mountain climbers should climb naked to ensure the legitimacy of (wo)man vs mountain, anything else is cheating.

There's no cheating in climbing, the only taboo is lying. But if you want to be recognized, your ascent has to be more stylish than the guy who climbed the route before you.

Climbing without oxygen is purer. Climbing in a single capsule style push rather than relying on fixed lines with sherpas ferrying loads from station to station is purer. Climbing solo is purer. On well traversed routes some climbers go for speed records. And if an individual were to climb a Himalayan peak buck naked, they would be recognized rightfully as a proper badass and an alpine god.

Now that there are few unclimbed peaks of note left in the world, style is everything. You've got to up the ante somehow, just getting to the top isn't newsworthy.

I would argue that the purest form of climbing is to do it without regard to recognition.

Alpine expeditions are very expensive. Gotta keep that sponsorship money coming in if you want to do it full time, and you gotta do it full time if you want to push the limits.

And quite a lot of climbers would agree with you.

From the article:

  If purists are to be consistent in their argument,” says
  Moller, “they should argue that one should not be allowed to
  go to the top of the mountain with one’s clothes on—
  alpinists’ clothes are incredible technologies in and of
  themselves—or have any kind of gear. That would be a truly
  pure ascent.”

The purists sound like (from this article) they're a bit too sensitive to other adventure seekers methods. Guess what, tech exists, these aren't competitive events, people will use what they can to achieve their goals.

There are several flavors of "purists" in alpine climbing. Some are curmudgeons who draw lines in the sand about what is and is not acceptable. But other purists fit into the category of minimalists--how much can equipment be pared down, and how quickly can they move on the high peaks. In many ways, speed == safety. The faster you can move, the better chance you have of reaching a summit before bad weather moves in, or the faster you can react to bad weather and get the heck off the mountain. If you are relying on supplemental oxygen, that is a fair bit of extra equipment that often requires stocked camps.

You are free to use whatever means you like, and I am free to adjust how impressed I am at what you do and how you do it.

(And vice versa.)

How do these anti-oxygen climbers cope with using cheat items such as clothes, shoes, tents and all?

"It brings the mountain down to your level."

There are no real anti-oxygen climbers. The article is trying to create controversy where there is none.

It all comes down to style. More minimalistic of an approach usually equals more "style points" (which are worth exactly as much as you think they are.)

If you and I were to go try Everest, we'd be aiming for "completion", not "style points", and we'd probably use O2.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Really interested to see how Kilian Jornet and his ultra-minimalist approach are going to fare on Everest. He's supposed to be attempting a climb soon (after other summits like Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimandjaro and Mont Blanc in the past few years). If he succeeds in his ways, I bet he's going to shatter the records.

>The World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) prohibits an athlete from using a substance that fulfills two of the following three criteria:

>1) It is performance-enhancing; >2) It is harmful to health;

O2 is poisonous and performance enhancing. .: All athletes dope. Q.E.D.

In short: "purer than thou" attitude from an elitist minority forming a negative core inside a very small community.

Because their $way is better than your $way.

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