Do skaters take performance enhancing drugs? | Golden Skate

Do skaters take performance enhancing drugs?

Mathman

Mathman

Joined
Jun 21, 2003
The 2004 summer games seems to be shaping up to be the Drug Olympics, with each athlete striving to prove that his pharmacist is better than the other guy’s. This is especially embarrassing to the United States. During the Cold War we always took a holier-than-thou attitude toward East German lady swimmers, and the like. But now it is our team that has already been decimated, plus, many of the athletes that are slated to compete will probably end up forfeiting their medals afterward.

Hoping to be wrong, I do not see any reason why figure skating should be immune to the pressure to win at all costs. The only thing I have ever heard about skaters and drugs are Christopher Bowman’s well-documented problems, and the incident two years ago when Kyoka Ina was given a suspension for refusing a marijuana test.

Is this a problem in elite skating circles? What do you think about the future? It seems quite likely that in this day and age some clandestine laboratory could come up with the “guaranteed quintuple jump” steroid. Higher, faster, stronger.

Mathman :\
 
I don't know if steroids would help skaters? Do they really want huge muscles? And while speed can help a skater, it isn't the be and end all of skating.

Has a skater ever tested positive, other than Elena and her cold medicine?

Laura
 
PrincessLeppard said:
I don't know if steroids would help skaters? Do they really want huge muscles?

Laura
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Are you saying you don't want your skaters to look like Evgeny in Sex Bomb? :laugh:
 
I remember Marina Klimova supposedly tested positive for testoserone (of all things) after the 91 Euros, but was subsequently cleared after a 2nd test.

I'm sure there have probably been a few "overcaffeinated" skaters over the years, but that's probably as far as it goes.

Actually, they probably should have tested Ilya Kulik after the 97 Worlds, because he certainly SKATED like he was stoned, that night.... :D
 
I remember the Klimova fiasco. She was so down after that. I actually got to see them skate after Worlds 1991 in a VERY tiny rink in Hull, Yorkshire in the UK. It was like the Z string of the tour, mostly made up of Brits but we got Bonaly and a lot of the Russians. I still remember asking for her autograph and thinking she looked 100!!! OK I was very young at the time, but it makes sense in retrospect that although she was subsequently cleared, mud sticks and I think this took it's toll on her. That made my mind up to support them going in to Albertville and I was so glad when they won with what is one of my few fave FD's. :love:
 
Do Skaters take performance enhancing drugs?

Yes,Elizabeth Manley has tested positive several times for Human Growth Serum........NOT! :laugh:
 
I really don't get the push to win. Is it the contestant? or is it the demand of the countries' leaders? I remember the East German Team was doing everything to win BIG in the Olympics using Drugs and also Transgenders. I can't believe it is the athlete's themselves who want to stoop so low.

Joe
 
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I don't think skaters use drugs like steroids. It wouldn't help them much. Skating is more about precision than pure strength or speed. Steroids do nothing for precision. Skaters do get tested, so we'd hear more about it if it was an issue.

Even if athletes really want to win, I don't understand why they'd put their health/lives on the line for it. The side effects of steroids are well documented.
 
Mathman,

I have never heard of figure skaters having problems with this. I remember, Karen Magnussen stating how embarrassing it was to have to be tested after her skate at the Olympics.

Skaters as a rule are very careful about what they ingest. They really need to concentrate and would not want the side effects of some drug to interfere with their focus.

Usually, the things skaters worry about are their costumes or their skating equipment - boot laces, blades etc. or their music cuts. They have enough things to worry about!!!!
 
I don't think it would help figure skaters, except perhaps to recover more quickly from an injury.

And there's Dick Button, I'll bet he uses Viagra!! Does that count? :laugh: .
 
Wouldn't figure skaters be helped by drugs that increase the production of red blood cells? Darbepoetin is one that caused some scandals at SLC. I also read something about athletes being given transfusions for the same purpose. Red blood cells transport oxygen throughout the body. That would help stamina and would be a major plus when the competitions are held at high altitudes. I don't think it would make it harder to concentrate. The transfusions would be extremely hard to detect, unless the teams leave their transfusion equipment behind. :rolleye: :sheesh:
 
Athletes and drugs

Real shame that athletes must severely limit use of medically necessary drugs because a few out there have abused it. Gracious, I don't know how I'd get along without my regular intake of ibuprofin.
Linny
 
SusanBeth, I agree. If there is any skater drugging, other than recreational drugging, I would expect to see blood doping. Chenjiang Li could definitely benefit.

On the beta blockers, would that be to keep the heart rate even? But that might not be what is needed to get a huge spring into the air? Would beta blockers actually help, given that skaters' activity on ice various in intensity?

In any case, it appears to me that cheating in skating centers around judging, not around drugging., Why pay for drugs when you can politick for free?
 
Do you think there are legal drugs in skating? I was talking to someone about skaters traveling all over the world. The person said how do they get over jet lag? Do they take a drug to keep them awake or put them to sleep so their bodies get rest or make them alert enough to get through their program? I guess I never thought about it again until now.

Dee
 
I have heard rumors about certain young female skaters taking some type of hormone that delays puberty and keps the girls small and thin.
 
I think skaters might use anabolic steroids for the same reason some tennis players have used them. Because these drugs increase the rate at which body tissues are generated and rebuilt, they not only help an athlete recover more quickly from an injury, they also speed the recovery from the normal wear and tear on the tissues from training. So athletes taking anabolic steroids can train more intensely and for longer periods.l
 
DORISPULASKI said:
SusanBeth, I agree. If there is any skater drugging, other than recreational drugging, I would expect to see blood doping. Chenjiang Li could definitely benefit.

On the beta blockers, would that be to keep the heart rate even? But that might not be what is needed to get a huge spring into the air? Would beta blockers actually help, given that skaters' activity on ice various in intensity?

In any case, it appears to me that cheating in skating centers around judging, not around drugging., Why pay for drugs when you can politick for free?
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Beta blockers like atenolol & such would help a skater become "less stagefright(?)" so as to be more calm & less prone to "come apart" during any part of the skating. Beta blockers have been proscribed to/for public speakers also.

hmmmmm, not to start a rumor, but perhaps SC can use it? or rather any skater who have a tendency to drastically "come apart" after a mistake.

A bit of calmness is a side effect of the beta blockers; I'm on the stuff everyday but not for public speaking, etc.
 
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