NYCkayaker Anabolic steroids et.al. [was: Re: YPRC Commodore]

[Rich Kulawiec]

On Wed, Feb 06, 2008 at 11:31:26AM -0500, mike wrote:
> At least the anabolic in sports is really harmless to the other
> people, except for the rage acts.

Two-part answer.

First, it's not harmless.  It is Not Much Fun to train 300+ days a year,
alone, in all kinds of weather, with no coach, no support, nothing, and
then travel hundreds of miles to a race...only to finish seven tenths
of a second behind a guy whose already-toned biceps have somehow doubled
in size from October to March.

If you're me, and you're in your 40's when that happens, and there's
really nothing on the line but your own pride, then eventually you just
get over it.  But if you're 22 when something similar happens, and you
just finished third in a qualifying race that selects the top two for
an event that only happens once every four years -- an event that you've
been training for since you were 10, an event that was important enough
that you put college on hold, an event you may never get near again for
the rest of your life, then maybe you don't just get over it.

Or maybe, even worse, because you're young and don't have the long view
yet, you decide to pre-empt that possibility by out-doping your rivals.

And then, when you're 57, and your body is destroying itself while your
family and friends look on in horror, and while your doctors desperately
try to figure how the hell to stop it, and while every financial resource
you once had is drained to try to keep you alive, maybe you figure out
that it wasn't such a bright idea.  Too late.  Oops.

Now multiply by the number of kids in sports who are good enough to
be competitive, but not quite good enough to be the among the best
without a pharmaceutical assist.  Make sure there's a generous dose of
the didn't-win-the-silver-medal-really-lost-the-gold attitude in play.
Add in peer pressure, coach pressure, team pressure, parental pressure,
societal pressure, financial pressure.  And factor in ready availability
of an vast assortment of drugs -- many of whose primary effects, let
alone side effects, are barely understood.  Set clock to "February 2008"
and you have arrived precisely: here.

And that's the benign part, when compared to:

Second, "except for the rage acts".  Yeah.  Except for the assaults, the
rapes, the suicides, the homicides.  You know: minor, transient problems.
Nothing to see here.  Move along, move along.


So I completely reject your assertion.  It does a lot of harm,
and that harm extends well beyond the individual taking the drugs.
And I'm profoundly sad to say that competitive kayaking isn't immune
to the problem -- I suppose it would be quite surprising if it were,
but I still find myself very disappointed every time that thought goes
through my head.

---Rsk

p.s. I am not, by the way, advocating the stunningly idiotic approach of
the "War on Drugs", which is proving to be as complete and monumental a
failure as the "War on Poverty" was and the "War on Terror" will be.
I'm not actually advocating any approach at all to *solving* the
problem in this message; I'm just arguing that it (steroid and other
performance-enhancing drug use in sports in general and in kayaking in
particular) really *is* a problem, therefore worthy of debate over how
it might best be addressed.