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[Bauglir]

The concept of "artificial" is a helpful one in certain contexts, but "better or worse" is not one of them, yeah.

As has been said, the problem with steroids is the long-term consequences on the athlete's health. A good diet, physical training, and so on are usually better for your health anyway. The thing that comes closest the stress of certain sports, such as American football, which do significantly increase your chances of long-term health problems. Even there, those stresses are integral to the sport to an extent, which is a bit different than needing to put those stresses on yourself to be successful. There's a bit more of an element of freely choosing to put yourself at risk there, or at least there would be if those sports didn't generate such disproportionate amounts of income and fame, and knowledge of the risks was a bit more popularly spread. But I feel like those aren't exactly analogous issues because they don't have much to do with the rules of the game.

Even the blood one has implications for health, and I'm largely against allowing anything that forces athletes to undergo medical procedures in order to remain competitive.

[penguinofhonor]

I haven't met anyone who has played a sport for a significant amount of time without needing at least some minor surgery because of the wear and tear (and breaking and crushing) done to their body.

[Descan]

can we please not discuss how an organization that doesn't bend over backwards in full disregard of the regulations that have been there since the cold war became a thing (unless i am mistaken that's the time this one was added, as to not turn the olympics into a bloc vs bloc thing, they ended up being boycotted by people anyway) and how utterly horrible it is for that and how it should go die in a fire while there's a plethora of human rights abuses that have occurred while the olympics were not hosted in russia and that's more of a reason why it should be disliked? sure let's turn a blind eye to what was said in the previous discussion we already had on this (and my post was conveniently not replied to, but i don't hold it against someone to just stop talking when i'm starting a ~srs discuzzion~) but suffice to say the last three ones were bad on that front if not outright horrible but hey we had nice cgi and ridiculous mascots

Why I hate this idea:

"You didn't boycott them in the past? Then you're not allowed to make up for that and start now!"

[Scelly9]

It would be pretty wonderful if someone who loaded the fireworks at the Olympics did it a rainbow formation....

Hint hint.

[MonkeyHead]

It would be pretty wonderful if someone who loaded the fireworks at the Olympics did it a rainbow formation....

Hint hint.

At the World Atheltics Championships in Russia, did you see the Russian athlete giving an interveiw defending her nations stance? Did you also see the Sweedish athletes painting thier nails in the rainbow flag?

In other sports related shenanigans, the South African Rugby Union is applying a new rule which places a required minimum number of black players in a team...

[Graknorke]

It would be pretty wonderful if someone who loaded the fireworks at the Olympics did it a rainbow formation....

Hint hint.

If they had the intent of it being a political statement it would be in violation of the 'no politics' rule.

[SalmonGod]

I haven't met anyone who has played a sport for a significant amount of time without needing at least some minor surgery because of the wear and tear (and breaking and crushing) done to their body.

What counts as a significant amount of time?

[penguinofhonor]

Like 3+ years, I guess. Also I'm not sure if stuff like fixing broken fingers counts as minor surgery. But I've seen a lot of broken fingers, broken legs, blown out knees, broken collarbones... mostly a lot of broken stuff, I suppose.

[Vector]

Man, maybe for high-impact stuff.  Japanese martial arts don't, to my understanding, usually have that sort of problem.

[penguinofhonor]

Now that I think about it, none of the people that did track or other running stuff got injured. Just the ones where people are slamming into each other or sending balls flying around.

[GlyphGryph]

Man, maybe for high-impact stuff.  Japanese martial arts don't, to my understanding, usually have that sort of problem.

It depends on the martial art, actually. The more sparring-focused/competition-focused ones have their fair share of serious injuries, from what I understand.

I actually stopped playing volleyball/wallyball because I kept getting injuries. (sprains, but one of them knocked me out of work for a week and kept me off my foot for a month and a half or so. Took several more months to fully recover, still hurts occassionally).

[Vector]

Ah, injuries are common in e.g. kendo, but they're usually not the sort of thing that requires surgery to my understanding.

[penguinofhonor]

I think "surgery" was the wrong word for what I wanted to convey.

[SalmonGod]

I played football for 7 years and wrestled for 4 without any serious injuries.  I'm not sure how many of my teammates could say the same, though.

It's one of those things I feel justified being immodest about, because I'm not obviously big or muscular.  People almost always assume that I'm not a tough or athletic person.  It can be fun to correct them.

[GlyphGryph]

Well if you didn't get any serious injuries you can't be THAT tough or athletic!



And Vector, I missed the surgery bit and thought this was just about broken stuff and other injuries with potentially long-lasting consequences.

It's a bit weird to make surgery the limitation anyways, since many of the worst sports injuries are concussions which cause permanent damage but don't end up having surgery done because of them.