PED use in boxing - Is it particularly an American based problem?

It seems like we can't go a week without another American based disgrace being outed for being a PED cheat, i'm not just talking about American fighters but foreign fighters as well who fight in America and are either based their, trained their, or have trainers and medical teams from the US.

The shambolic list seems to go on, first started by the Roy Jones revelation when drug testing in professional american boxing first began, to the likes of Toney, Mosley, Vargas, Holyfield, Peterson, Tarver, Berto, Morales, Gamboa etc, along with the strongly suspicious cases of the likes of Pacquiao, Hopkins, Tyson and Marquez etc.

My own personal opinion is that American based boxing thoughout the 1990s and 2000s was absolutely drenched in PED use with American boxers thoughout these decades taking huge advantage of the lapse testing involved with boxing in a similar way to the American track and field team were having positive test's covered up, its pretty obvious that the few who have been caught is just the tip of the iceberg.






My question to you is

- Do you believe that this PED use has mainly been an American based problem in boxing? If not, why not?

 

I'm not sure I agree with that, Americans know that the likes of Jones, Toney, Mosley, Carl Lewis, Marion Jones, FloJo are an an absolute disgrace to sport, yet I very rarely here any Americans condem them, 95% of the time all i hear is excuses and PED apologist thoeries, backed by American governing bodies who are prepared to keep positive PED results behind closed doors.

On the other hand Britain had an athlete in Dwain Chambers who was found guilty of steroids and he was slaughtered and hated upon throughout Britain and even when he had served something like a compulsary 4 year ban by the IOC, the British governing body in athletics fought to extend his ban to a lifetime one so he could never represent us again. There seems to be a huge difference in culture as to how Britain and America treat an outed drug cheat.

 

Thats a good question, it would be interesting to see how rigid the PED testing is in europe in comparison.

I think the steroid use in the Soviet block is way different to todays PED use and much easier detected.

Just seems to me that there are many American based boxers from the past who you could look at and think something was going on (eg Jones and Holyfield) and plus there is evidence to support your governing bodies have been happy to cover cheating up.

Out of interest, which european fighters (past or present) would you suspect of being drug cheats (bar the Klitchsko's)?

 

What makes you say that?

Do you believe our sports have governing bodies that are happy to cover positive drug tests up?

 

Thats a terrific post and I whole-heartedly agree with you're sincere statement. I couldn't ever imagine giving my support to a drug cheat or ever try and defend the athlete with monotonous well thought out damage limitation theories.

I noticed recently in the lounge that there was still many American's defending Lance Armstrong and trying to maintain his innocence prior to his grovelling admission before the queen of chat Oprah Winfrey.

 

Relax Pimp C, Wach is an absolute ****ing disgrace to the sport of boxing. Please try and enter this discussion topic with an open mind and not a defensive anger, we are here to discuss boxing in an open and neutral manner. Please continue in this thread if you can leave your bitter ranting behind.