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Comment by rwmj | Hacker News Reader

I really would like to see sports where performance-enhancing drugs (except life-threatening ones) are permitted.

Performance-enhancing drugs were endemic in Eastern-bloc Olympic competition for decades. From the Outside Magazine piece linked elsewhere in the comment thread[1]:

East Germany's state-supported system of doping, which often began before puberty, left a legacy of Olympic medals—along with deformed offspring, heart attacks, facial disfigurement, and lifelong sexual dysfunction.

If you permit the drugs, they'll be used not just in the elite competitors, but in the entire funnel of hopeful competitors starting from high school. These are serious drugs with serious consequences. I for one don't think entertainment is worth that.

[1] http://www.outsideonline.com/1924306/drug-test

Is that more as a side effect of the fact that this sort of doping is very hush-hush, and if it was more open and permitted safer more effective enhancements would be developed?

Maybe, but how would we set up a system of legal doping that doesn't provide any incentives to continue doping on the side, when the consequences for testing positive for a substance don't matter anymore? I could see a system where a certain amount of doping is legal, but you'd still have an incentive to get whatever edge you can on the side.

We basically already live under the scheme where a certain amount of doping is legal. It's just that what is legal, we don't call doping. But a pro athlete is certainly going to be downing protein powders, creatine powder, etc. that aren't natural either. There's no bright line. So I think you're already correct.

The late Hal Connolly, an American hammer thrower, told a sports reporter that from about 1960 on everybody in the field events was using steroids. The East Germans were extreme in their devotion to this, but they were far from alone.

[Edit: remembered from an article that ran in the NY Times shortly after Connolly's death.]

Currently the world's most famous athlete, Lionel Messi, is legally permitted to take HGH, one of the most potent steroids ever made, due to an earlier growth deficiency. Johann Cruyff, also considered one of the football greats, went through the same legal HGH treatments.

Their acceleration and injury tolerance is mind blowing. See how Messi blew past 6 players in a cup final last week after playing 50+ games:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOX2QpfMkq4

And also here's Johann Cruyff blowing past players with ease:

https://youtu.be/YU-k-Ots3iY?t=1m31s

The popularity of these two players would indicate that athletes legally permitted to use steroids would be very popular among sports fans

Lionel Messi is not generally considered a great athlete, with exceptional strength or stamina or anything like that which would be affected by PEDs. His ability is pure skill and intelligence. Cruijff was similar.

In Messi's case this is exactly why it's the supreme advantage. He already possess world class skill and intelligence, add HGH to the mix to boost his athleticism and you have a balanced, top tier athlete.

Completely disagree. Explosive acceleration, strength on the ball and ability to endure an entire season without being subbed off are all indicative of being a "great athlete".

I'd classify an athlete with great skill and intelligence to be a great athlete.

Not to be pedantic but HGH isn't a steroid, it's a peptide.

On topic, a lot of athletes get legal prescription for TRT (testosterone replacement therapy), and in several sports the legal application is perfectly fine.

I did not know about his license to take steroids - if this is true, it moves him from my "admire" category to "fu*cking bastards" category.

The problem is that they're probably nearly all life-threatening (or at a minimum longevity-threatening) in high enough doses.

Fully permitted-doping would escalate into a bloodsport where athletes would be competing to show how many drugs they could take before keeling over.

>Fully permitted-doping would escalate into a bloodsport where athletes would be competing to show how many drugs they could take before keeling over.

Highly recommended reading : https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/money-in-the-bank/

It's already happening albeit in a different sport (or entertainment industry).

>> The problem is that they're probably nearly all life-threatening (or at a minimum longevity-threatening) in high enough doses.

Everything is lethal in high enough doses.

Even water is lethal in high enough doses.

To what end? It's just a little more freak show and a little less sport, that's all. Plus the NFL, MLB track and field and cycling have pretty much done just that to varying degrees over the years.

It is a known that Pride FC did not test athletes and even had statements in the contracts that they would not test. That might be the closest you'll ever come to what you're asking for.

Also, MMA in general right now is going through a huge revolution in PED testing. For a long time it's been a simple matter of testing on fight night, with some athletes being give a therapeutic TRT pass. That is all changing as of this week. All UFC contract athletes will not be given random Olympic style testing year round.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_Fighting_Championships

http://espn.go.com/mma/story/_/id/13014746/ufc-announces-ext...

> That is all changing as of this week. All UFC contract athletes will not be given random Olympic style testing year round.

I think you made a pretty epic typo:)

That'd be tricky to set up because drugs are discriminatingly life-threatening depending on dosage and individuals.

Water is life threatening at a high dosage. In fact, a dramatically higher number of people die from water each year than from PED's. Point is, people know the risks when they swim in a pool, people are capable of making decisions for themselves.

Beer drinking competitions, debatably.

In many powerlifting federations they are allowed. There are both drug tested and non-drug tested federations to compete in.

They seem tolerated in some body building competitions. If you can call that a sport.

I'd say almost all body building competitions.

Bodybuilding is more akin to a beauty pageant.

Wouldn't call it a 'sport' per se, but in bodybuilding there's two divisions, 'natural' (which is supposed to be drug free), and ''(no formal name).

It's generally referred to as 'untested' I think.

That's how I refer to it, however I don't think I've seen them refer to themselves as that.

Do the military use them?

Yes: http://www.newrepublic.com/article/112269

I always think this is the exasperated "it's just too hard" response. We want the best athlete with the superior tactical mind to succeed. Not the best scientist.

Except, as we're seeing in cycling with teams like Sky, money will poured into legal ways to produce "marginal gains." See the kerfuffle during the recent Giro d'Italia when Sky provided their leader Richie Porte with his own motor home to provide more rest. The team also used a helicopter to whisk Porte off one mountain top finish, again in the name of recovery.

Professional athletics will always be a money-fueled arms race, whether the means are legal or not. Personally, I like to see "old school" athletes succeed (I'm thinking of cyclist like Oscar Freire, who eschewed most "modern" training devices, and simply rode based on how he felt). Of course, plenty of those athletes doped, so maybe I am living in a dream world.

powerlifting, ifbb (if not on paper, at least tacitly), strongman

frankly, I think the majority of this is hysteria driven by whiny baby boomers pissed their sport's records are being surpassed. Of course, tommy john surgery and greenies are cherished traditions. But Barry Bonds is evil because he's black and doesn't tongue bathe interviewers. Or consider the cherished tradition of cheating in the tour de france which was kosher until an american started winning.

If you allow car racing, why not drug racing?

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