Doping allegations

PARIS -- Former tennis great Yannick Noah accused Spanish athletes of widespread doping in an interview published Saturday, adding the only way to level the playing field would be to allow everyone to use banned drugs.

The 1983 French Open champion told Le Monde newspaper that French athletes no longer had a chance against their Spanish opponents and said his homeland was wrong to impose such stringent testing on its athletes.

"How can a country (Spain) dominate sport from one day to the next?" he asked. "Had they discovered avant-garde training techniques and methods that no one else imagined?"

He said Spanish athletes were consistently beefier than French ones and said the only conclusion was that they must be doping. He offered no other proof.

He said the buzz in sports circles was that the only way to win was to stay one step ahead of the capabilities of the anti-doping tests.

"If you don't have the magic potion, it's difficult to win," he said.

But Noah didn't advocate a crackdown on Spanish athletes.

Instead, he said France should be more lenient.

"We're not being treated in the same way as the majority of our adversaries from other countries," he said. "The best attitude to adopt is to accept doping. And then everyone will have the magic potion."

French Minister for Sports David Douillet condemned Noah's accusations as irresponsible, and said he hoped to introduce a criminal penalty for doping.

"What are we saying in reality when we want to institutionalize doping? We imagine that our children will die at 40 or that 12-year-old kids will take pills in the locker room, that's what that means," Douillet said on France 2 television.

http://espn.go.com/tennis/story/_/id/7254788/former-tennis-star-yannick-noah-believes-spanish-athletes-doping

Well, in football it is probably not doping, but a visual sleeping pill when they tiki-taka their opponents to sleep and then hit hard

Doping is pretty prevalent in all top sports... But Spain and Argentina were the first ones to adopt it systematically.

sportsczy wrote:Doping is pretty prevalent in all top sports... But Spain and Argentina were the first ones to adopt it systematically.

I guess it was more the old Sovietunion and the GDR that started doing it systematically with many Eastern European countries following suit. There are still investigations in current Germany about the doping practices of the former GDR, and it seems a lot is still in the dark.

rwo power wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Doping is pretty prevalent in all top sports... But Spain and Argentina were the first ones to adopt it systematically.

I guess it was more the old Sovietunion and the GDR that started doing it systematically with many Eastern European countries following suit. There are still investigations in current Germany about the doping practices of the former GDR, and it seems a lot is still in the dark.

yea doping was prevalent in eastern europe. it was a massive problem. A lot of teams, such as dynamo Kiev doped heavily. Cruyffs Ajax also doped and they said that they would refuse to play if there was regular testing. Herea also gave his inter teams drugs as well. Michels used to mix drugs in his players coffee, and some refused to take it.

rwo power wrote:

sportsczy wrote:Doping is pretty prevalent in all top sports... But Spain and Argentina were the first ones to adopt it systematically.

I guess it was more the old Sovietunion and the GDR that started doing it systematically with many Eastern European countries following suit. There are still investigations in current Germany about the doping practices of the former GDR, and it seems a lot is still in the dark.

Yeah... the eastern block countries were the pioneers. China is doing its part to keep the tradition.

My two sports growing up were football and tennis competitively. In the late 80s, you suddenly saw players from Argentina and Spain blow up. It was obvious. There weren't many eastern block teams and competitors... so i had no exposure.

In the US, it was pretty bad too. But it only happened in the college and professional ranks. In Europe, it started very, very young.

Well, there are even rumours that the German NT in 1954 used doping. The fact that at least four (IIRC) of the former players died from liver problems is definitely suspicious in my book.

Could Barca be doping after all? :siclaro:

/trololol

rwo power wrote:Well, there are even rumours that the German NT in 1954 used doping. The fact that at least four of the former players died from liver problems is definitely suspicious in my book.

Well let's be honest, I wasn't surprised, if you looked at the way the dutch pressed it was pretty obvious. No surprise pressing originated in the USSR as well, they doped hence they were able to press. Not surprised about Spain one bit. I believe that most top sports clubs dope. I mean what is the difference between most top clubs and bottome clubs? The fitness level. APart from skill and technique, fitness is a massive difference. FIFA covers most of this stuff up anyewyas. There was a list of allged doped athletes taht was circulating around the net like 3 years ago. It had loads of athletes names, Nadal was on it, the whole Barcelona team was on it, and then suddenly it vanished. No trace of it on the net whatsoever.

pretty sure that this original article was referring to sports such as tennis which was Yannicks own sport, and also basketball and cycling where theres been continues problems with doping amongst spanish athletes!

we're lucky with football that the culture of doping has been largely cut out! and all players and teams are subject to random doping tests!

in fact after a rumour started in Marca last year about barca players doping, they were tested 3 times in as many weeks and all came up clear!

Prometheus wrote:pretty sure that this original article was referring to sports such as tennis which was Yannicks own sport, and also basketball and cycling where theres been continues problems with doping amongst spanish athletes!

we're lucky with football that the culture of doping has been largely cut out! and all players and teams are subject to random doping tests!

in fact after a rumour started in Marca last year about barca players doping, they were tested 3 times in as many weeks and all came up clear!

don't buy it. Not just Barcelona, but all top clubs that can afford the 'extra' help use it.

the extra help they have is the best coaches, fitness trainers, physios, doctors etc that they can afford!
trust me, if teams were doping you'd know all about it!
also, example, why would barca dope their players when their games is based completely on technique, skill, tactics etc and not physicallity?! it makes no sense to run that risk!

and you also have to remember that this is the players day job, they have access to the best facilities, they can devote as much time as they like to their own playing level! you or i couldnt reach their levels of fitness, strength or skill cos we dont have the time, money or facilities to do it!

football is one of the cleaner sports out there at the moment! be grateful for that!

football is not clean dude... i know that for a fact. It's no dirtier than the other top sports except for probably cycling and track & field. Technique, dribbling, etc. is not the point of doping. It's sustaining effort, recovery and injury recovery.

jibers wrote:yea doping was prevalent in eastern europe. it was a massive problem. A lot of teams, such as dynamo Kiev doped heavily. Cruyffs Ajax also doped and they said that they would refuse to play if there was regular testing. Herea also gave his inter teams drugs as well. Michels used to mix drugs in his players coffee, and some refused to take it.

This is interesting, do you have any more info on this?

no sport is shiny clean! its not possible, therell always be some who try to cross lines with doping but the top end of football is, its just too hard to get away with it! cycling and athletics are ridiculous for it, but even sports like American Football, Ice Hockey, Basketball, Tennis, etc have more prevelant doping issues!
shhow us examples that make it a fact for you! otherwise its just an unbased allegation!

BarrileteCosmico wrote:

jibers wrote:yea doping was prevalent in eastern europe. it was a massive problem. A lot of teams, such as dynamo Kiev doped heavily. Cruyffs Ajax also doped and they said that they would refuse to play if there was regular testing. Herea also gave his inter teams drugs as well. Michels used to mix drugs in his players coffee, and some refused to take it.

This is interesting, do you have any more info on this?

Salo muller was ajax's masseuer in those times. he admitted it in his autobiography. the club doctor, rollink used to give all the player pills, and two of them complained. Rollink was involved in the 1st doping scanadal in dutch sport as well and his signature was found on the prescription for one of the drugs. Rollink said AJax would have refused if doping checks came to dutch football.

Herera was known as the pharmacy cup coach, and used to give his players pills.

Prometheus wrote:no sport is shiny clean! its not possible, therell always be some who try to cross lines with doping but the top end of football is, its just too hard to get away with it! cycling and athletics are ridiculous for it, but even sports like American Football, Ice Hockey, Basketball, Tennis, etc have more prevelant doping issues!
shhow us examples that make it a fact for you! otherwise its just an unbased allegation!

Mate I have a mate who's dad is a team Dr for onr of the top clubs in the prem. There's a reason that all the top clubs are starting to open up their own private clinics, you could say to cut costs, maybe but it is far deeper than that. Hell wasn't arsene accused by one of his ex players for giving them drugs? It's not just football it's in all sport. Doping is used to aid their recovery massively.

still waiting for solid examples!

Prometheus wrote:still waiting for solid examples!

It's a bit hard to give when all the doping bodies are covering things up.

convenient...

compared to cycling were any amount of solid evidence can be found instantly! but even a small rumour of top end teams doping is unobtainable by a global clampdown by the doping bodies!!

jibers wrote:

Prometheus wrote:still waiting for solid examples!

It's a bit hard to give when all the doping bodies are covering things up.

Read this mate:

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/dec06/dec08news

http://autobus.cyclingnews.com/news.php?id=news/2006/sep06/sep24news2

ok so 5 years ago, Le Monde claimed to have in its possession a number of documents that suggested that several spanish clubs utilised Fuentes as a consultant to better improve the recovery time of their players prior to them entering an extremely fixture heavy calender year in the hopes of preventing injuries! said same doctor was also implicated in the doping of a cycling team and several abbreviations cropped up on the documents that MAY OR MAY NOT have anything to do with doping, but is speculated on!

the players from the named clubs were all tested prior to the World Cup 06 in germany by several anti-doping agencies but all returned negative!
FIFA itself did not conduct any blood sampling but rather left it to independent bodies

a newspaper article is published about the story but fails to mention that Fuentes himself was a world renowned doctor at the time specializing in athlete recovery systems, the vast majority which did not include doping, therefore not mentioning the fact taht it would be perfectly normal for a club to have him draw up recovery plans for their players at a time like that!

anything im missing? oh yeah, nothing further every turns up and no players tested positive on the named teams for any performance enhancing drugs!!

seriously guys, doping was so prevelant in cycling at the time that the only way to win was to take drugs!! didnt matter what training you did! so any team doctor or physio was always going to give the cyclists drugs cos EVERYONE in the sport was doing it!

the same doctors would also work in other sports, but that doesnt mean that they were doping other athletes, it just means that they doped cyclists!!

2+2 does not equal 5, guys, so stop trying to make it!!

jibers wrote:

Prometheus wrote:still waiting for solid examples!

It's a bit hard to give when all the doping bodies are covering things up.

I think the fact that it is so hard to give evidence of doping make me believe that the big bosses are covering things up in football, we're all humans and at some point we all like to cheat so as to win tittles, say for example match fixing scandal etc.

I dont want to believe no team has tried doping in order to win tittles, but the fact that this topic is just dead and buried makes me feel it is possible that there are some covering up going on.

But then again I think if the Big clubs are doping, it will be hard to stop smaller clubs from keeping their mouth shut, I feel they will some how get upset and blow the covering up one way or the other.

exactly, you're talking about a cover up conspiracy with THOUSANDS of players, never mind all the back room staff involved!!

each year theres approx just over 100 cyclists in the Tour de France but if someone is doping it instantly comes out and someone will speak to the press about it, whether its a cyclist or physio etc!

how would they keep thousands of people involved in Europe alone quiet if there was a conspiracy to let the top teams dope their players so as to stay at the top?!?!

considering all the furor about the splitting of tv revenue in spain, i think if the top teams were doping someone would complain!!