Tag Archive for 'Amstrong'

Doping is an every day news

Doping dominates the media because it’s too common in sports. Only in the last days the most sensational news:

  • sentence of 3.6 years to Italian Olympian athlete Schwazer,
  • The U.S. Department of Justice calls the damage to Lance Armstrong. The former cyclist, if found guilty, must pay a fine of $ 150 million
  • U.S. Olympian sprinter Crawford was suspended for two years from competition
  • Sheikh Maktoum’s 15 horses were found positive for doping and their coach, Al Zarroniwas banned for eight years
  • Spelman College has abandoned competitive sports also due to the spread of doping and corruption

The success rules in the Amstrong case

About 40 years ago, two distinguished scholars Jurgen Ruesch and Gregory Bateson wrote about the meaning of success in the North American culture:

“The end justifies the means, and the success performs evil  and dishonest actions. If there is a possibility, it is automatically perceived as a challenge, even if you respond to this challenge could lead to break the law, but if an individual is caught in the act of illegal uses of shortcuts he is considered a loser. It is not  important what he does but the fact that others allow him to get away with it ” (The social matrix of psychiatry, 1968).

And further on:

“The American people have a rich mythology of people who have reached the success: the myths of Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie idealize the free initiative and the possibility of  poor people to become rich and powerful. Admiration for this success goes hand in hand, however, with  the condemn of the activities of dishonest industrial magnates. People are however ready to turn a blind eye to questionable ways of acting of a successful person if his behavior is then tempered by good works, offers for charity, fundraising for foundations and other public institutions. ”

So people fraud or in the case of Armstrong   use doping because there is an opportunity. The important thing is not to be taken and he has succeeded throughout his career. Now not to be considered a failure (and possibly fail even financially) he has decided to admit what he had denied until then. There is no repentance in this interview tv confession, merely the tale at the public of what he did and what it costs him (75 million in one day). Even his sponsors were not interested to know if  he was a clean athletes, because what mattered to them was the return on investment (see the article by Claudio Gatti: http://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/notizie/2013- 01-15/caso-armstrong-doping-213438.shtml). Even for them it is important that their athlete wins and when someone is discovered may also make a good impression showing outraged. Perhaps the only time that Armstrong is in trouble is when he’s with his children that he had to give explanations involving personal affects and to whom he has the responsibility of the father who must first follow the rules if he wants they learn to respect them.

 

 

http://www.repubblica.it/sport/ciclismo/2013/01/21/news/i_miei_anni_con_armstrong_brutta_favola_del_ciclismo-50962378/?ref=HRERO-1

Huffington Post Italia

Today it has been published the first blog on L’Huffington Post Italia, topic  ”Lance Amstrong, s system to win with doping”: http://www.huffingtonpost.it/

 

Amstrong: the doping-system

The Daily News reported on Tuesday that Nike may have been complicit in Armstrong’s doping scheme, described in the USADA report as the most sophisticated in the history of sports. Kathy Lemond, the wife of American cyclist Greg Lemond, testified under oath during a 2006 deposition that Nike paid former International Cycling Union president Hein Verbruggen $500,000 to cover up a 1999 Armstrong positive drug test.

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/i-team/protesters-demand-nike-cut-ties-disgraced-armstrong-article-1.1185339#ixzz29Xv4o5zT

In sports, doping has emerged precisely because of the approach that the pursuit of victory justifies the use of any means to get it, and those who are against this idea: “it means, then, that they do not want to win.” But not enough to win the will of an individual (Armstrong) willing to set up the fraud, it need to build an organization that moves in the same way and shares the use of doping as a winning system. Of course, the higher the charisma and authority of the athlete, the greater its influence across the organization, the more difficult it will be for his teammates to refuse doping. To consolidate this system needs strong alliances and partnerships with other organizations, such as sports or business. This is why the news of the possible involvement of Nike and the former UCI president could be this additional piece of the puzzle. Armstrong was not alone in this adventure and now we’re finally finding out who were his allies.

To learn more about fraud: Alberto Cei, The Lords of the fraud. The mechanisms of financial and sport fraud. www.francoangeli.it / Research / Risultati_ricerca_avanzata.ASP

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From despair doping to the scientific doping

The bad news are never alone, so in a few days we have passed from condemnation of doping of despair, Schwazer to the deception carried out in a scientific manner, Armstrong. Doping is a deception which makes it look real (a result), which instead is false, because it is determined by the use of artificial substances. The human being has always been deceived and, therefore the form that we call doping there will always be. The question is to ask to ourselves what to do, as well as increased penalties, to create a sport culture really based on competitiveness and not on a fiction of it. The question is: “How do you find the strength that provides the doping through the normal training of body and mind?” If we do not commit ourselves to work in this direction will always be the question on every win. We must learn to master the desire to win through workouts without tricks.