- Do I think that there are performance enhancing drugs
in triathlon?
Everyone who is trying to be a pro triathlete
is basically putting their entire life
towards this one goal.
And we look at the two options.
The one option is not doping.
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Woo hoo, cold, it's very cold.
Morning, trainiacs.
So it has been a very interesting few days
in the endurance sports world.
I don't know if you heard or if you follow main cycling,
as opposed to non main cycling.
Traditional cycling, but Chris Froome,
the previous, I think four time winner
of the Tour de France just recently got popped
for banned substances.
He was found with, now this isn't a proven
performance enhancing drug, but it's a banned substance.
It's celebuterol, which is, like I think,
taken with an inhaler,
but the thing about it is
that if that is combined with two other inhalers,
it's been proven in swimmers to reduce
a second per 100 meters off their swim time,
and at elite swimmers, that's massive, that's huge.
Not so good, Chris Froome.
A few weeks ago I did a video on Lance.
Don't worry, there's cycling shorts underneath.
♪ My eyes ♪
- I did a video on Lance Armstrong,
and it is absolutely blowing up.
The emotion that people have towards Lance,
one way or another, whether it's well give the guy a chance,
you know, everyone was doping,
or get him the hell out of my face for now and forever.
One way or another, the topic of performance enhancing drugs
in sport, obviously as we're seeing
with the recent Netflix documentary, Icarus,
that is also blowing up,
and how we're finding that hundreds and hundreds
of Russian athletes, and I don't think
that other countries can be entirely different.
It's clear that performance enhancing drugs,
banned substances in sports, is a big topic
that we need to consider,
and triathlon is not immune,
so here's the question.
Do I think that performance enhancing drugs
in triathlon is something that is a thing
that we should be concerned about?
Well I'm going to do a bike workout first
and then we'll talk about it.
20 second bike montage, now.
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Very, very good hour.
Very, very sweaty.
Alright, do I think that there are
performance enhancing drugs in triathlon?
Yes, but do I think that it's everywhere
like it was in the Tour de France back in Lance's days,
where he gets pocked for PEDs
and then all of the sudden they start looking
at the rest of the field and you've got to go down
to 17th, 19th place, to find somebody
who has no traces of performance enhancing drugs?
No, I don't think that's where triathlon is,
and I had somebody at IRONMAN, when I was in Kona,
saying that they thought that Daniela Ryf was on the juice.
She's jacked, and she is so dominant.
Do I think that she's on the juice?
I, frankly, I don't know.
I don't have an opinion strong enough,
one way or another about how prevalent it is in the sport.
And you contrast findings, like this year,
where earlier in the year, Beth Gerdes
and Lauren Barnett got dinged,
but had proof that it was likely from
a tainted supplement that they were taking.
Lisa Roberts, who's been on the podium
at Challenge Rock getting dinged,
then Lucas,
something also getting popped
for performance enhancing drugs.
It's clear that it's in the sport,
but like I say, you contrast that with pro triathletes
like Heather Wurtele, that are about as down to earth
and humble and open about their training
as can possibly be, saying that it's not
as prevalent in the sport as a lot of people
unfortunately think.
However, I think that it would be naive to think
that it's not in the sport for one reason.
Just looking at kind of like a grid
of risk, reward, and cost versus benefit,
everyone who is trying to be a pro triathlete
is basically putting their entire life
towards this one goal.
And what ends up happening is unless you are
a complete genetic freak that can just keep progressing
indefinitely, you're going to reach a plateau,
and when you reach that plateau,
it's going to start getting in your head
what can I do when I am trying to be
the top 1% of 1% of 1% of the athletes in the world?
And we look at the two options.
The one option is not doping.
The risk to it is that you are likely out of the sport.
The reward to it, there's no financial reward.
There's intrinsic reward.
You feel good about yourself,
but there's no external motivation
giving you an incentive to not dope.
On the other hand, you have the option
of taking performance enhancing drugs.
The risk is potentially health
and also potentially getting caught,
but just by psychology, we know that those
are potential risks and inherently
we can put them off to the side
and not really think of them as an immediate risk
because it's so far down the future.
Humans aren't wired to actually accept
those kind of risks.
However, the reward is that you keep progressing
and you could potentially be that top 1% of 1%
of the best triathletes in the world,
so the only real good option
is performance enhancing drugs,
but that said, I think that because the rewards
in triathlon aren't nearly as high
as professional sports, where you're getting
multi, multi million dollar contracts,
the reward of making a 20, $30,000 a year salary
out of triathlon is not nearly as strong a motivator
as being a professional football player
or professional basketball player,
a Lance Armstrong on the tour.
It's quite a bit smaller, so do I think
that it's as ingrained in the culture of pro
or even, well let's talk about it,
amateurs are getting caught for doping in triathlon.
I don't think that it's nearly as common
as a lot of other sports for that reason
that the reward isn't as strong.
There we go.
You can sleep at night, I think, believing
that a lot of our IRONMAN and triathlon heroes
are Santa Claus, and they're real.
I imagine this is going to get a bunch of new views
because it goes outside of just triathlon,
so if you are new here and you aren't yet subscribed,
please hit the subscribe button below.
If you are an existing trainiac, thank you,
and if you want to check out that Lance Armstrong video,
check it out right up there.
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Now I'm out for the day.
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We need to run later today.
See you, trainiacs.