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Comment by Something1234 | Hacker News Reader

I really hope people comment on this. It's absolutely fascinating to me how a private organization can ruin someone's life or completely jerk them around like this. With no recourse.

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UK Anti-Doping (UKAD) is the organisation responsible for protecting sport in the United Kingdom from doping. It is a non-departmental public body of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport and is structured as a company limited by guarantee.

Maybe I'm confused, but the issue here is with UKAD, which is a public body?

I hate to think of other agencies that act this negligently. Not enough funds/competence to do their task properly but a ton of power to destroy people's lives, the problems too complex to tease out without real focus.

It's basically every large organisation in the world. I've worked in enough now to understand they're all the same.

This is too glib. Some organisations do a a lot better than others, have better culture, responsiveness to evidence, and management.

rarely is the real issue a lack of funds either - they somehow have no issue coming up with plenty when it comes time to punish whistleblowers or make someones life hell.

> how a private organization can ruin someone's life

Believe it or not, the cyclists signed up for the possibility of ruin. Maybe there is an argument for some legal intervention to prevent people from agreeing to something so egregious?

That would be communism.

Here's a comment: we need doping leagues. There should be athletes doped up on 10 different steroids looking like Arnie in the '80s.

Why. That sounds lame as hell

Because science. Imagine the lack of morals required to build truly scientifically the limits of human ability. Pushed beyond all peaks and limitations of natural ability

It would be amazing. Willing test subjects and the competitions to actually tell if we are making improvements.

Yes. Let's have a league where athletes drop dead all the time.

Isn't that the regular league, in some sports?

If it's all happening above the table, I think you'd actually get better management of the drugs and far fewer adverse side effects.

And what if something is harmful yet enhances your performance? Do we ban and test for that?

It's their choice to take it, isn't it? Alcohol is extremely harmful but it's my choice.

Given the countless stories of child abuse and general abuse by coaches across pretty much every sport, I don’t think you can hide behind “but it was their choice!” when an athlete is forced to take performance enhancing drugs or be blackballed from the sport.

This is in the context of a doping-only league.

Where does what you said rebut my point?

If they don't want to take drugs... don't join the drug enhanced league. This isn't complicated.

So you’re saying we should legalise children taking PEDs because “it’s their choice.” What other things would you like to do to children under the auspices of “their choice?”

Alcohol causes abuse too. I think the hypothetical you're talking about would be a social problem, and not a substance one per se.

Abuse in sports is a terrible ill. I think you're right to highlight that this is a potential vector for it, but I feel like it's a "people problem" and not a "things problem".

So we should create an approved vector for child abuse? “Just fix humans” isn’t a good enough response.

Welcome to Mr Olympia!

Bodybuilding, powerlifting, strongman etc all have untested federations. A lot of the money in these sports comes from the athletes themselves, so the athletes have a lot more voice, and scope to find a federation that lets them compete the way they want. Compare this to the UCI where it's a meme that any innovation that comes along gets banned in order to preserve the "spirit of cycling"[1].

[1] maybe a bit less so recently, and I definitely approve of the safety-related bans such as the supertuck

For those like me that hadn’t heard of the supertuck.

https://biketips.com/supertuck-cycling/

that's not even a league of "who is the best athlete" it's a league of "who is the best athlete willing to destroy their body"

The goal becomes "dope the athlete the exact amount to win the final and drop dead immediately afterwards".

https://enhanced.org/

> Backed by the world’s top venture capitalists, the Enhanced Games are the Olympics of the future.

> When 44% of athletes already use performance enhancements, it is time to safely celebrate science.

> It’s time to pay athletes instead of bureaucrats, and demonstrate what the human body is truly capable of.

> Sport is safer without drug testing.

That seems improbable at best and requires extraordinary proof to accept as fact.

With strong guardrails maybe, without them contests devolve toward maximal enhanced performance just shy of that which kills or disables.

Much like horse racing when stewards turn a blind eye.

So we replace doping in one competition with doping in two?

When they signed up to be professional riders with the UCI, they also signed up to be monitored by WADA. The rules are clear and can realistically not work any other way: the majority of violations are on strict liability, it is on the athlete to establish how the substance entered their body if they want to claim contaminant.

> The rules are clear and can realistically not work any other way

Here's one way it can work differently: if someone has to spend any amount of money to clear their name, WADA (or whomever) should have to reimburse them.

It's criminal that the author of this article drained her savings merely to prove that she did nothing wrong.

But she hasn't - WADA has appealed to CAS and will likely prevail. At which point she will get the 6 month or so backdated suspension she was always going to get in a case like this. The whole "spend all your money" part was entirely unnecessary.

Was it unnecessary? It’s her career and her reputation.

It’s also on a time schedule where she has a limited period during which she can have success.

There's very little voluntary about signing up to rules that you're required to sign up to in order to have a career in your field.

The policy position that detection of prohibited drugs at arbitrary low levels should result in a punitive finding, even though it is not consistent with an attempt to enhance performance or with industry standards on permissible cross-contamination, is untenable.

If the goal is to establish the "cleanliness" of sport, then subjecting people who have almost-certainly done no wrong to the same treatment as those who almost-certainly have in fact undermines the moral position.

The goal is never to establish cleanliness, but to establish the perception that you are establishing cleanliness. Also, a lot of people just enjoy seeing others get punished.

> There's very little voluntary about signing up to rules that you're required to sign up to in order to have a career in your field.

The rules are signed well before a career even becomes an option. Everyone who holds a race license, even if you buy a bike yesterday & start your first race today, signs the anti-doping agreement

This might surprise you but it’s totally possible to sign up to rules necessary to do your job while also criticising said rules and wanting them to be better.

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