PETITION the Race Club ATHLETES UNITE

[Darth Vader]

Who's head grows four helmet sizes bigger in their mid thirties?
Barry Bonds, that's who:
Please read this.

If the news that Barry Bonds has been using steroids comes as a surprise to you, welcome back from the coma you've been in. Here is a list of how much Barry Bonds made over the years:

Salary
1992-4,800,000
1993-4,516,666
1994-5,166,666
1995-8,166,666
1996-8,416,667
1997-8,666,667
1998-8,916,667
1999-9,381,057
2000-10,658,826
2002-15,000,000
2003-15,500,000
2004-18,000,000
2005-22,000,000

These figures don't include sponsorship dollars.

The Race Club would like to file a class action law suit against Barry Bonds, and all athletes that test positive for performance enhancing, illegal drugs, on behalf of all clean athletes. The money and exposure that Barry Bonds has "earned" has been taken from clean athletes. Clean athletes don't get these opportunities and I believe that it is theft. Am I the only one? Barry Bonds is a cheater and a thief.

HELP!

The clean athletes need your help! Particularly, we need the help of a lawyer that is willing to take this on as a pro bono case. If we triumph in the courts the lawyer will be rewarded along with the athletes. If we don't we still send out the message that there are still clean athletes out there that are opposed to this behavior. Remember, clean athletes don't make the money that a cheater does. We need to let people know that this is not okay. Sport is in jeopardy if we do nothing.

We must file a class action lawsuit on behalf of clean athletes. Clean athletes must bond together to fight this scourge plaguing our sports. We must put a face to the victims, the clean athletes. We must let young athletes know that it is not okay to cheat and steal and if you do you will be punished, not rewarded with multimillion dollar contracts.

Support our fight against performance enhancing, illegal drugs. Begin by signing this petition: Click here.
Thank you!

How can Victor Conte and his cronies get away with manufacturing and distributing massive amounts of illegal drugs with only a few months sentence or probation? If they were dealing in any other illegal, equally harmful substance they would be given life sentences without question.

What is wrong with our legal system? What is wrong with our fan base? How can we let these people get away with this? Barry Bonds is about to wipe out the records of baseball's greatest athletes, Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, and all the other clean athletes before him. His records should not stand. It's not okay. We must do something. If the sport's governing bodies won't do anything then it is up to us, the athletes.


Victor Conte leaving the court house

The list of dirty athletes continues to grow, rapidly. Barry Bonds is the most recent addition to the likes of Ken Caminiti, Marion Jones, Jose Conseco, Lawrence Taylor, Mark McGwire, Bill Romanowski, Tim Montgomery, and Rafael Palmeiro to name a few. This is a short list of the high profile, highly paid cheaters that need to be held accountable for their actions.

For every one of these athletes there is a clean athlete that never got their shot at playing in the big leagues, of making the Olympic team, of living their lifelong dream, let alone the sponsorships, salaries and publicity.

The only consequences for these athletes admitting drug use has been a huge book deal and more publicity!

The Race Club will do our part to organize the athletes in this fight. We need legal help.

Please help! PLEASE.

Pass this request on to as many people as you know that are against our sport's growing trend of role models turning into drug crazed lunatics. I ask that clean athletes sign our petition. I ask for legal help. Please help us.

ABOUT the petition:

http://64.70.236.56/columns/index.html

Please sign the petition:
http://www.petitiononline.com/TRC/petition.html

Thank you!

[TheGoodSmith]

Darth Vadar,

While I agree with your general fears and description of situation, I have read that Gary was caught several times for illegal drugs (marijuana) himself years back. I find this ironic.

Even though marjiuana is not performance enhancing, it might be better to have someone advancing this discussion that hasn't been a target of the similar accusations.

Just a thought.


John Smith

[Frank Thompson]

Darth Vader:

How would you define who is clean? It it well known that the whole NFL was using illegal performance enhancing drugs. In fact Steve Coursen testified before Congress about this before his death years ago. Because there was no testing in place in many sports, how will you ever prove this. Not only that but what about drugs on the banned list today that were not banned years ago like TGH, HGH, and EPO just to name a few.

How would you get test results of years ago to make accusuations. The WADA was not formed back then and there was not an organization like that today with the leadership by Dick Pound. You would have to go to the IOC and the major sports organizations for help, to get data on this and I can tell you that you would be meet all sorts of resistance with these organizations because they know they were wrong and want to start over with a clean slate today towards the future.

I agree with Mr. Goodsmith. Wouldn't people be lined up to be critical of Gary Hall Jr. as Chief Excutive of the Race Club because of his drug infraction and fine years ago and the govening body of FINA ruling against him in an appeal. Would he be subject to these penalties. Do get me wrong, I am not signaling anybody out here, its just he who casts the first stone better not be guility of the same infractions in the eyes of judgement.

In my opinion, Barry Bonds will never be respected like Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron. Last week with the press release about the book and the Sports Illustrated article, as he gets close to the record he will be hounded by the press and he will be forever known about the scandels and the records will be tainted forever. MLB, I guess is willing to live with this because they are going to do absolutely nothing.

[Paul Smith]

I saw this on the Race Clubs website and have to admit it was interesting that Gary's the point man on this. If the US is going to get aggressive with cheats it seems that would apply to all drugs on the banned list?

I do agree with his position though, its actually somewhat in line with the Doc from UCLA that SI profiled a few months back who wants to start a "clean team" and "shame" athletes into being clean by drawing attention to those who refuse to be part of the team.

[Darth Vader]

clean = no performance enhancements


1. No Anabolic Androgenic Steroids
2. No Additional Hormones
3. No Beta 2 Agonists
4. No Diuretics and other masking agents
5. No Chemical enhancement of Oxygen transfer
6. No Gene Doping
7. No certain Stimulants...EX Ephedrine


Gets tricky with some Asthma medication...


good resource:
http://www.wada-ama.org/rtecontent/document/2006_LIST.pdf

[Darth Vader]

Marijuana as performance enhancing? well that would explain the overflow of athletic stoners...
All the Bong Ninja world record holders...

Marijuana is not an enhancer...

maybe a relaxation enhancer...

[craiglll@yahoo.com]

1. How can he talk about people using drugs?
2. What about the swimmers who have been associated with Balco? I didn't see any of their names. Yet several of those women grew muscle mass after their late thirties.
3. All cracking down on people who use banned drugs is going to do is promote new ways to deguise more intense drugs.

[Frank Thompson]

Hello Darth:

The problem you are going to have is getting data and records to prove wrong doing. There used to be a real good website by Brent Rushall and he had a Hall of Shame that was composed of athletes that were suspected and proven later to be using performance enhancing drugs. But once the time lapsed and the ship sailed so to speak, none of the organizing governing bodies did anything to try and correct or investigate the cheats. The IOC has made it clear that they will not go back in the past because they would have a hard time with proof. Plus, the NFL will not go back and dig this dirt up because they didn't have a drug policy and in fact dropped the ball like MLB did.

Now with the WADA and with Congressional support, the future looks a lot better because there will be testing in all of the sports and they will have policys for violators. But there will still be cheats that get thru because the drug testing is not always accurate and there will be new enhancing drugs that will be just put on the market and not on the banned lists like the ones that Balco was selling.

I agree with your assessment about marijuana, but its still on the banned list and there would be penalties associated with that even if like President Clinton used it and said he didn't get off or get high from it. Then, there will be people like Rick DeMont that will suffer injustice because the USA doctors did not inform him that the asthma medication he was taking was on the banned list.

I have some good links that you should read Darth. These are the links where the Hall of Shame came from but I can't find that particular link. I think they took it down.

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/coachsci/csa/vol56/table.htm

http://www-rohan.sdsu.edu/dept/coachsci/csa/vol56/fourdrug.htm

[newmastersswimmer]

I think that it is debatable as to whether or not marijuana should be considered a performance enhancing drug. I will be honest and admit that when I was a younger man I was guilty of partaking in a little marijane from time to time.....and I honestly never considered it to be performance enhancing....i.e. I didn't really consciously try and cheat like one who deliberately takes steroids for example....but I did go to practice under the influence of marijane on many occaissions....and thinking back on it now, I realize that it may have enhanced my ability to train harder....I guess you can kind of put yourself into a trance like state more easily when you're stoned....and this helps you to focus more on other things....like repetitive activities for example.....and it also seemed to have a numbing effect when it came to noticing the pain....maybe the trance-like state enabled me to not notice the pain?....or maybe the pot had an actual physical numbing effect?....I'm not sure.....but nonetheless, I think it did give me some advantages when I trained under the influence.....I can't take back what I've already done.....and its been many years since those infractions took place.....I do have some regrets about it now.....now that performance enhancing drugs of all kinds has become a more central issue in sports than it was back when I was using marijane......I hope that doesn't make me a cheater?.....It was never my conscious decision to try and pull one over on anyone....I mean I was just a stoner more or less....stoners never think that deeply about anything....its just food, sleep, cartoons, and whatever.

Newmastersswimmer

[Darth Vader]

Frank, those are fantastic websites, thank you...

VERY VERY interestng...

I would love to see a Hall fo Shame, maybe ill make one..

[TheGoodSmith]

Frank,

You bring up an interesting point.

Rick DeMont should be given back his medal and rightful place in history first.


John Smith

[Frank Thompson]

About 5 years ago, I had heard that 1964 Olympian Steve Clark, who is an attorney now was looking into appealing the case for Rick and trying to petition to get awarded the gold medal for the 400 Free in the 1972 Olympics. I heard that it was on the IOC docket along with other petitions, like Tim McKee petition to get awarded the gold medal in the 400 IM in that same Olympics because today he would have tied for it and awarded one like Gary Hall Jr/Anthony Erving in 2000 and Nancy Hogshead/Carrie Steinseifer in 1984. After the 1972 Olympics it was decided that awarding races by one thousand of a second was not accurate and wrong to do so in the first place and in the future there would be ties if the time was identical to the one hundredth of a second. Simple request and the IOC has turned down the appeal for Tim Mckee.

The IOC is not known to overturn decisions even if they don't make sense in the first place. Rick's might be a little harder because it was on the banned list even though it was proven he got no competitive advantage and the person that was awarded the gold medal (Brad Cooper) agreed that he should be restored the gold medal. It might take years for a positive decision to be made in Rick DeMont favor. Here is an interesting link I found about his story.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/02/11/SP199010.DTL

[craiglll@yahoo.com]

Originally posted by newmastersswimmer
I think that it is debatable as to whether or not marijuana should be considered a performance enhancing drug. I will be honest and admit that when I was a younger man I was guilty of partaking in a little marijane from time to time.....and I honestly never considered it to be performance enhancing....i.e. I didn't really consciously try and cheat like one who deliberately takes steroids for example....but I did go to practice under the influence of marijane on many occaissions....and thinking back on it now, I realize that it may have enhanced my ability to train harder....I guess you can kind of put yourself into a trance like state more easily when you're stoned....and this helps you to focus more on other things....like repetitive activities for example.....and it also seemed to have a numbing effect when it came to noticing the pain....maybe the trance-like state enabled me to not notice the pain?....or maybe the pot had an actual physical numbing effect?....I'm not sure.....but nonetheless, I think it did give me some advantages when I trained under the influence.....I can't take back what I've already done.....and its been many years since those infractions took place.....I do have some regrets about it now.....now that performance enhancing drugs of all kinds has become a more central issue in sports than it was back when I was using marijane......I hope that doesn't make me a cheater?.....It was never my conscious decision to try and pull one over on anyone....I mean I was just a stoner more or less....stoners never think that deeply about anything....its just food, sleep, cartoons, and whatever.

Newmastersswimmer

I don't think that anyone thinks htat marijuana is a performance- enhancing drug. However, it is as illegal as are steroids.

[Darth Vader]

Rick Demont should get his medal back...
great Demont quote

"Winning is being the best in the history of your body"

[A.K.]

Not that I am saying it's Ok, but marijuana should be classed as a performance- DIS-enhancing . Not only are you in slo mo you are impacting the oxygen capacity of the lungs.

Shouldn't actual Performance- Enhancing drugs be banned?

Let the athlete next to me be stoned or drunk - it'll give me a better chance - unless they are too wasted and push off a turn into my lane :)

[mikeh]

[/B][/QUOTE] How would you define who is clean? It it well known that the whole NFL was using illegal performance enhancing drugs.

The whole NFL? Every last player? I suspect you mean, "A great many NFL players used steroids." That would probably be accurate. But let's not paint with too broad a brush with accusations like these. The NFL isn't like some sports - most notably track and field - where many observors believe that steroid use is all but required to obtain world class status.

[Frank Thompson]

Originally posted by mikeh
How would you define who is clean? It it well known that the whole NFL was using illegal performance enhancing drugs.

The whole NFL? Every last player? I suspect you mean, "A great many NFL players used steroids." That would probably be accurate. But let's not paint with too broad a brush with accusations like these. The NFL isn't like some sports - most notably track and field - where many observors believe that steroid use is all but required to obtain world class status. [/B][/QUOTE]

Mikeh:

I would be willing to agree with you about track and field now being worse than the NFL. There is a joke among T&F athletes that the Olympics is not a contest between the fastest runners but rather who has the best pharmacist. Commissioner Paul Tagliabue has issued random drug testing to the NFL clubs and that is a positive step in the right direction. However, back in the day there was no drug policy at all and clubs and players were free to do what they wanted when they wanted.

This is documented in both Steve Coursen book "False Glory" and Bill Romanowski book "My Life on the Edge--Living Dreams and Slaying Dragons", just to name a few. When you read these and other stories about the accusations that NFL players have said and testified before grand jurys and Congress, one is to believe that drug use in the NFL was as bad as what happened in East Germany in the 1970's and 1980's. I will provide links to these stories rather then rehash what has been said.

http://www.sportsline.com/nfl/story/8322840

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/2005-11-10-courson-obit_x.htm?csp=34

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0681411872/102-4750974-4564108?v=glance&n=283155

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060758635/102-4750974-4564108?v=glance&n=283155

[knelson]

Originally posted by Frank Thompson
After the 1972 Olympics it was decided that awarding races by one thousand of a second was not accurate and wrong to do so in the first place and in the future there would be ties if the time was identical to the one hundredth of a second.

This is a pretty interesting topic. I'm pretty torn about going back and changing past results in this and DeMont's case. My heart tells me Rick DeMont deserved a medal, but he DID violate the rules at the time. By the same token, if the rules allowed timing to .001 second at the time, those were the rules and it doesn't seem proper to overrule them now. Consider this: would it be fair to go back and strip anyone who false started (in an individual event) of their medals today? I mean, after all, false starts get you disqualified now.

[Frank Thompson]

Kirk:

You make an interesting point and I don't think the IOC will overturn the decisions. In Tim McKee's case its a little different. The 1972 Olympics was the first Olympics that electronic timing was used for final decisions and rightly so judging from what happened to Lance Larsen in 1960. In the 400 IM both Gunnar Larsson and Tim McKee tied at 4:31.98 and at that time there were no rules to declare the winner. Because Omega could dismantle the timing device and upon inspection find out who won by the thousandth of a second. That is just what they did and Larsson was declared the winner by two-thousandths of a second.

Later upon analyzing this, it was found that lane lines and touch pads could vary ever so slightly as to not be an accurate measurement. That a faster than a blink of an eye would not be a fair judgement. An international rule change was made for the future. Tim McKee is the only one of six people that never received a gold medal in these exact circumstances. He is appealing and petitioning the IOC to be awarded the gold medal. The IOC has yet to overturn this decision.

http://216.109.125.130/search/cache?p=two-thousandths+of+a+second&sm=Yahoo%21+Search&fr=FP-tab-web-t&toggle=1&cop=&ei=UTF-8&u=www.finishlynx.com/lynx/press/DELTAINF.pdf&w=two+thousandths+second&d=PLE4521aMQF0&icp=1&.intl=us

http://www.ishof.org/98tmckee.html

[knelson]

Originally posted by Frank Thompson
Later upon analyzing this, it was found that lane lines and touch pads could vary ever so slightly as to not be an accurate measurement.

Yes, that's why the tolerance on pool measurements is so critical. Consider this: if one lane is 1 cm shorter than another (about the length of a fingernail) the swimmer in the shorter lane will have to swim 8 cm less than the swimmer in the longer lane for a 400 long course meter event. That doesn't seem like much, but at the speeds McKee and Larson were swimming (4:32 for a 400, or 1.47 m/sec) that equates to a time difference of .05 seconds. The .002 time difference the timing system recorded amounts to a distance of only 3 mm.

[Frank Thompson]

Originally posted by knelson
This is a pretty interesting topic. I'm pretty torn about going back and changing past results in this and DeMont's case. My heart tells me Rick DeMont deserved a medal, but he DID violate the rules at the time. By the same token, if the rules allowed timing to .001 second at the time, those were the rules and it doesn't seem proper to overrule them now. Consider this: would it be fair to go back and strip anyone who false started (in an individual event) of their medals today? I mean, after all, false starts get you disqualified now.

Kirk:

I have been thinking about what your saying about Rick DeMont and you make some valid points. The 1972 Olympics was the first Olympics that drug testing was used so there were no precedents or decisons of the past that the IOC could follow. Because the US Olympic team doctors failed to cross reference the components of a medication (ephedrine) that was on the IOC list of banned substances, Rick failed the drug test and was stripped of the gold medal he won in the 400 Free and DQ'ed in the 1500 Free after qualifing for the final. I am not sure if this was the first case at an Olympics that an appeal was made and if this was the first case that it was beyond the athlete's control in drug testing.

Possibly, the IOC set a precedent at that time in that everything is black or white and there is no in between. Now supporters of this will say that this landmark decison would preclude all sorts of appeals in the future with similar circumstances and there should be no excuses regardless of how innocent the victim is.

Rick DeMont will always be a hero because he did not let this adversity affect his future performances. The next year 1973, at the first FINA World Championships in Belgrade, he won the 400 Free in a Word Record time of 3:58.18 and will always be remembered as swimmings first Roger Bannister for being the first swimmer under 4 minutes in the 400 meter Free.