August said:
Tennis is one of those sports why I'm against PEDs. You can improve your fitness with PEDs and improved fitness of players reduces the importance of skills. I find that sad as I like to see offensive shotmaking instead of players relying on defense and stamina. I think tennis should be a game for players with great skills and sufficient fitness instead of a game for players with great fitness and sufficient skills. Bad anti-doping culture (and slow surfaces) can turn tennis into the latter one.
And the Cilic case has made strange withdrawals/losses even more suspicious. Can you be sure a player had a three-month break just because of an injury? One can say a player's name shouldn't be tarnished with a positive A-sample. But I think they usually report the positive A-samples in many sports. Asafa Powell's positive B-sample was confirmed just recently and we knew about his poritive A-sample almost two months ago. I think positive A-samples shouldn't be tried to hide.
Not that I condone PED's but how does improved fitness reduce the importance of skills? If anything, it maximizes them. That is actually why I find "banned substances" so arbitrary. There is a crap ton of substances out there that are legal and let's guess what they're there for? Performance enhancement! I don't even mean that in the negative sense. But as Chael Sonnen (MMA fighter who got suspended for elevated testosterone levels) once said: Why would I ever drink/eat/take something if it wouldn't help my performance?
So why is it that certain performance enhancers are prohibited but not others? With the above logic, even other enhancers reduce the importance of skills...
If both players are on PED's, the match is still going to be decided by skills, not who is taking the better drugs.
Again, I'm not FOR PED's, but I do find the whole thing highly flawed. I also thing they're one of the misunderstood aspects of sports, with people thinking they're some magic potion that will turn you unbeatable.