Is the WSL still interesting?

I've assumed for years that he was, it just doesn't make any sense that he wouldn't be on something. How could someone be that competitive and pathologically driven to win everything at all costs, but would turn down an opportunity for an immediate upgrade in athletic performance, durability, explosiveness, recovery capability, etc. (when there are well established and proven ways to beat the testing and a whole industry of people dedicated to staying apprised of the latest testing methods and devising ways to beat them)? How exactly is kelly any different from pre-fall-from-grace lance armstrong? If he is willing to do anything to win, but is not willing to capitalize on an easily-disguised performance upgrade, then by definition, he is not willing to do anything to win. And everything I've ever seen or heard from the dude suggests that he's willing to do anything to win.

Then again, I'm a cynic and have assumed for as long as I can remember that ALL top level athletes in major team or olympic sports are on some sort of PEDs, simply for the reason outlined enough. If you don't want to be the best bad enough to cheat, then you don't want it bad enough period, and there's gonna be someone else with comparable talent who does want it that bad, and they are gonna win. Just they way it is when there's millions of dollars on the line. That said, surfing is a little different than, say, professional football... I don't necessarily think that EVERY WCT competitor is on something, but between the back issues and the age and the competitiveness, I always figured it was a foregone conclusion in this case.

 

Interesting comments.

I played ball with guys who were juicing. It's not always one drug for everyone, it's a lot of different drugs to select from. You can mix & match. Depends what a guy wants to achieve.

Your body doesn't always change. Look at big guys like Clemens & Piazza. Jacked on juice but they didn't go the Canseco route.

Look at Lance Armstrong. He was jacked to the tiits. But his body looked the same his entire career. He was doing drugs that enabled him to recover from exertion faster than the body can do normally. And, he was doing drugs that enabled his cardio to go to unheard of levels. Watch him on some hill climbs in The Tour. Other competitors, the top ranked pros of the day who had access to every training technique & dietary supplement that Armstrong did, slack-jawed as he powered past them.

Other guys want bulk, get ripped, get stronger. One cc of testosterone injected into your ass cheek every week & you'll feel & look like Adonis. Buddy of mine did that. Went from the Mendoza Line to leading the team & smashing the ball with power.

The classic in this genre is, of course, Brady Anderson. Puts on 30 lbs of muscle in 3 months prior to his option year with the O's, has a career year with 50+ dongs, signs a huge contract, comes back the next year drug-free & goes back to being a Punch & Judy hitter the remainder of his career.

The tough part of detecting it is when talented, great athletes in their own right become superstars. We ask, is he just getting better & better with experience? Or is he getting some 'help?'

Slater started the personal trainer revolution; he was the first to to do this in pro surfing. Before he came along with that stuff (and he was mocked for it in the early going), guys like Fanning & AI were surf hard party hard train wrecks. Fanning's alter ego when he was plastered even had a name: 'Eugene.' They saw Slater's success & the money he was taking down, and the pro tour changed rapidly as everyone went out & got their own trainers right quickly.

Yet, Slater was still crushing guys. He would get out the back so fast. Seemingly endless reserves of paddle power. Which, as we know, is cardio. And Slater got better & better as he aged. Already a superbly talented surfer, he had seemingly endless energy reserves. In no sport does that happen past the early 30's. Unless you have a vial of magic that you call upon.

Slater coincidentally went back to mere mortal when the ASP tightened up the drug testing. He was no longer way out in front of the field a la Lance on the road bike going up the Alps like he had a secret motor in the frame.

Anyways, just talkin.' Neither here nor there. Slater's a tremendous surfer. Just sayin'....he had help. imho

 

The other thing to remember is that Slater stopped winning titles when he turned 40. That could be it too.
I personally think he slowed down due to age and declining motivation. He started skipping events (even to go surf better waves) and didn't seem to have the motivation he did in the past.
Agreed on the Lance Armstrong stuff. People assume PEDs means bulk and it's not the case anymore.
But one thing I would say is that when someone is as dominant as Slater has been there is a good chance their'd be jealously and that would create rats. There were PED rumors around Armstorng for years before he actually got pinched, because people were tired of him winning... IMO if Slater was dirty people would talk about it out and you'd hear about it a lot more.

 

Well-stated.

You mention a very important aspect to top level competitors: the will to win & the desire to do anything to win. You nailed it.

In an era when every single major & even non-major sport was rife with PEDs, surfing was no different. The guys who wanted to win more than anything on the planet & who employed the most skilled pharmacists blew away the remainder of the field.

It was years ago, there was a study done. Top athletes were interviewed. One of the questions was along the lines of if you could be the best athlete in your sport year after year, would you give up 5 years of your life? And something like 95% said, where do I sign up for that??

Intriguing...

 

I believe Kelly is different, until proven rong-

 

I had forgotten about this guy getting popped

 

Erythropietin (EPO)?

Erythropietin is in WADA’s peptides and hormones doping class, similar to Human Growth Hormone (HGH). That means it’s actually a hormone naturally produced in the body. In the case of EPO, once it’s produced artificially it will shoot an athlete’s endurance through the roof. Lance Armstrong, the world’s most notorious “cheater” called EPO “the meth of performance enhancing drugs.” It was the main focus of his own doping scandal in which he was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles, and it’s also one of the most well known and possibly widely used performance enhancers in all of sports. Why? Because its benefits can serve a wide spectrum of athletes.

“It’s such a strong anti-inflammatory that, with that, inevitably you feel better,” Armstrong said about the drug in a 2015 interview. “Whether it’s physically you feel better, even just a euphoria that comes with that,” he added before raising questions about where the bar is set for acceptable performance enhancing drugs versus supplements. “It’s all performance enhancing. A nap is performance enhancing, vitamin c. You have to draw the line somewhere.”

With EPO, the spike in red blood cells delivers more and more oxygen to the muscles, delaying the onset of fatigue. Cyclists and distance runners are known for using EPO to perform at a higher intensity for longer periods of times. According to BBC in 2006, tests on Australian athletes showed that improvements in performance over a four week period could match the expected improvements over several years.

How would it translate to surfing? How many waves have you missed on the back end of a marathon session? Tired arms, sore back, stiff legs and hips can and will slow the best of us down. Whether it’s a single marathon session or a week-long run of swell, fatigue turns you into a different surfer – slower, less limber, and somehow always a step behind. Imagine paddling out on a full tank, feeling minimal inflammation and soreness after days of being surfed out. Except you’re never really surfed out. For a competitor, imagine having fresh arms in that final or during a big wave contest with hour-long heats.

Side Effects: For those using EPO non-medically, the side effects include clotting, thrombosis, heart attack and stroke.
-- THE INERTIA

 

Beta Blockers?

Fear is man’s most basic survival tool. It can save you in one instant and paralyze you in another. And if you surf, whether it was the first time a wave held you down or you’re an adrenaline chasing hellman, you’ve experienced fear in the ocean, even if just for an instant.

But what if you could control fear on a chemical level? Many athletes use beta blockers like Propranolol, Atenolol and Metoprolol to do just that. The specific reasons doctors prescribe these drugs to patients typically have to do with treating heart conditions, as they all help in reducing blood pressure, heart rate, muscle tremors and anxiety.

So why and how does this serve as a performance enhancer?

Beta bockers are actually a class of drugs within WADA’s prohibited list, rather than one specific drug. In general, they can actually diminish performance in aerobic activities like running, which feeds the argument they wouldn’t actually help you surf better. But they also help the body control the effects of anxiety – like hand tremors, for example– and improve the steadiness of the body while under stress. In the simplest terms, a drug like Propranolol blocks the body’s normal reaction to adrenaline. They’re often called “stage fright drugs,” which might open that conversation about surfing back up. Beta blockers are banned by WADA because athletes in archery, billiards, golf and shooting can gain an obvious advantage with them. Even musicians have been found to use beta blockers ahead of performances to diminish stage fright. The drug has such a widely assumed calming effect in moments of anxiety that a 1991 study investigated the use of beta blockers on high school SAT performance. Thirty-two students with a history of test anxiety were given the drugs an hour before taking the test for a second time. The study found students scored an average of 130 points higher than the first time, more than four times the normal increase for second time test takers.

Of course, surfing is wildly different and requires more athleticism than the previously mentioned sports and surfers aren’t exactly sitting in SAT prep courses, but the same logic could apply when looking to stay in control under extreme conditions (bigger surf or contest nerves, for example). To be clear, beta blockers don’t erase adrenaline rushes or the charge of fear in an exhilarating scenario. They simply help control the body’s physical reactions to it.
THE INERTIA

 

Modafinil?

Stimulants are huge in the sports world. Everything from Adderall to the prescription drug Dexedrine are commonly found in locker rooms across several sports for their ability to increase a person’s focus.

It would be hard to pick out just one substance from the stimulant list because they all have a pretty straightforward application in sports: spikes in alertness, stimulating the nervous system, and refining reaction times. The stimulant class makes up a large chunk of WADA’s prohibited list, so you can grasp how easy it would be to overlook several that could apply to surfing. Modafinil is/was one of the more popular drugs amongst athletes for years, used as kind of a super drug in that sense. It landed on the banned substances list a little over a decade ago when Major League baseball players, cyclists, weight lifters, sprinters and any other competitor you can think of found a way to benefit from what they call the “smart drug.” Even military personnel have been given Modafinil because it can enable a person to stay awake for as much as 40 hours while operating at full mental capacity. The common difference between a drug like Modafinil and other stimulants or even narcotics like cocaine is that the body experiences no side effects during use. Drink a pot of coffee and you’ll have shaky hands at the absolute least, but when athletes like Barry Bonds used Modafinil, they were gaining the stimulating advantages without any jitters, anxiousness or even aggressive behavioral changes. Essentially, it’s a super drug for enhancing alertness and stamina at the same time. Some even referred to it as the time shifting drug for its ability to keep an athlete operating at their full capacity for extended periods of time.

Many stimulants are designed to treat things like ADHD or narcolepsy, but when used by people who don’t suffer from what the drugs are created for, the user experiences a heightened baseline for normal activity.Interestingly, the side effects of non-medical use are similar to those when taking beta blockers unnecessarily. Depression is sometimes experienced, as well as even hallucinations and unusual behavior by users. The common description of their benefits to athletes simply states the effect as increased “alertness,” which is a broad term generalizing everything from a euphoric feeling of invincibility to heightened spatial awareness. So while they don’t exactly give you the physical balance and agility needed to take off under the lip at 10-foot Cloudbreak, it seems that they can boost the presence of mind needed to do so in the first place.
THE INERTIA

 

I didn't realize that cocaine is considered a PEDs. I'm naive

 

A lot of people mistakenly call it an "opiate". It really opens up the vascular system for short periods of time, like meth, which is in exact opposition to opiates. Most people are morons.
I know you did not think it an opiate.

 

I dont think Kelly was juicing. Like Yank said, he was training hard when everyone else was the typical party surfer so that gave him a leg up. Hes also a competition animal when most aren't. Finally to him, eating is like a religion and that helps.

 

Yeah stimulants like Adderal have been proven to be extremely effective in all types of sports, and although classified as a PED, is not a "steroid" per se. They heighten alertness and reaction time, as well as increase stamina...which makes them perfect for surfing. I believe that they also aid somewhat in the burning of body fat, another plus.

Don't forget that just because somebody tests "clean", doesn't necessarily mean that they are. There are myriad ways to beat testing, including the timing of one's "cycling", or the use of masking agents. Only the dumbest guys get caught in reality.

Clemson's tackle got suspended for using Ostarine, an illegal supplement. People rarely use Ostarine stand-alone. Gym rats and athletes either use it as a "cruise" when after finishing a cycle, or as a "mask" to cover up actual illicit substances.

Is it just me, or are the Bazillions the only guys getting busted for juicing on the tour?

 

Good query, Kid. Along the lines of why is it that almost everyone getting busted in MLB are the Dommies?

 

they're poor and desperate to make it to The Show, so they will make more mistakes along the way. Also, their performance programs are nowhere near a sophisticated level yet.

they'll figure it out eventually

 

Plus they live in a place where you can buy juice at the corner drug store

 

True.

Although the poverty thang doesn't quite explain Manny, Fat David Ortiz, A-Fraud & Robby Cano getting busted at the height of their careers...

 

Look at the players you just named.

Each one of them is cocky and arrogant. Probably the cockiest players in baseball, just a half step behind Puig. And his day is coming very soon, they're getting tired of his shite and won't protect him much longer.

They just got overconfident that they wouldn't get tested or busted