For all you pessimistic people...there is hope.

yep, no reason a cut-off date can't be negotiated now especially if the USADA thinks it's okay to stop blood testing 18 days before the fight.

 

Isn't the point for things to be random, meaning that no one except the USADA knows when the cut off is going to happen? It can be 18 days out, 9, 5, etc.

 

It'll be random up to a cut-off date. No ones going to juice up 14 days before a fight, especially when there's a drug test afterwards.

 

30/27 Pacquiao

 

The fight will get made, but no way mayweather is going to take a 18 day cut-off.....I've heard doctors that work for the USADA, go on the record saying, a cut-off date is pretty much meaningless....Sure, they could stop days before the fight, but it has to be random all thru the camp ala floyd-shane....

18 days is a joke...

 

:think

 

In that article it states that USADA came up with the random days of blood testing....

Bob Arum wants it in writing when they are going to test.....USADA will never throw their random protocols out the window...

That's why floyd was cool with the 18 day window with shane.....he is not going to agree to specific dates for testing, defeats the purpose in it..

 

It's really just a week out that bridges to the 14 days. The week before leading upto the fight, no fighter is training hard and they are well into tapering off. There's not much gain testing rigorously pre-fight compared with how much you could be hurting them during their tapering period. It's just like runners before a marathon the week before they drop down and days before the marathon they barely run 3 miles.

Back to the original point, yea it can be anytime/random leading upto the fight, but in boxing do you want our fighters giving vials of blood during their taper period? Tygart can say its just a teaspoon all he wants when the video shows it being 3-6 vials of blood which a teaspoon does not make. These guys are not sprinters just running for 10 seconds 3 times a day.

Blood aside they are still doing random urine analysis right upto the fight so imo that takes care of the "keeping athletes honest" bit. Also the fact that USADA of their own accord stopped blood testing 18 days out and just did urine analysis for the rest of the time SHOWS that urine is just fine at detection. Tygart's also been on record saying he cares less about the 14 days leading upto the fight and is more concerned about the possible doping two months before the fight.

Thus is it really about the blood?

 

This is what I meant. Things can be filtered in and out if you know when they're going to stop.:good

 

Wishful thinking. The 18 days was not a set date. The testing was random. But it just happened that the last blood sample was draw 18 days before the fight. Under the rules that Shane and May both agreed too they could have had blood drawn the morning of the fight. If there was going to be a hard cut off date they would need to get the USADA out of the picture..because they've specificaly said no cut off dates under their policy. LAst time out Floyd said something like 14 days as well. So I imagine at this point it is just a matter of whatever with Manny's actual demands and not the ones that he's throwing around in the media (i.e. the amount of blood that can be drawn, who does the testing...a.k.a. the finer points of the deal) can be molded into something that works for both parties. The biggest thing that makes me worried here is that Bob and Manny have already come out into the media and started throwing pieces of fish out there. Given how they started dropping things in the media last time prior to backing out in an attempt to make it not look like they were in the wrong, well before negotiations went soure makes me worried that they are not trying to do the same again. I`m worried that the only reason that they would have come out like they did acouple of days ago is that they are hitting a snag behind closed doors. Negotiating like this is not negotiating in good faith and again that makes me worried for the health of this fight. Also with Margo waiting in the wings and Arum (who would probably make more money off that fight) at the helm my faith is limited.

 

You don't like to weigh two sides of an arguement very much do you?

 

The testing can be random even with a cut-off date. 14 days before a fight is nothing. You think a fighters going to juice up for a week? The last week of training is a tapering down period. Plus there's a test after the fight. There's still many months for random blood testing to happen.

 

Who needs more than a couple of days at the most to recover from a blood test? WHO? Pacquiao seems to be the only person in the world afflicted with this condition and his fans believe him.

 

That's stupid.

The USADA still had the choice of testing. Keeping the fighters on the heels if they were wanting to cheat.

Putting a cut off date means that they CAN cheat within that time.