
The Paradox of Doping in Mountain Climbing - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/39/sport/the-paradox-of-doping-in-mountain-climbing
======
pavelrub
What the author doesn't seem to understand is that alpine ascents in general
aren't done in the form of organized competitions, so the entire comparison to
anti-doping regulations in sports is quite absurd: you can't tell people what
not to do when they do it independently, unless oxygen is somehow universally
made illegal. Even WADA can't tell you what substances not to use when you are
cycling/running/doing-whatever on your own free time. There is no "Paradox of
Doping" in mountain climbing: it's the same as in any other activity that is
done independently - you can use equipment that will make it easier for you,
but then others might not feel as impressed.

~~~
cam_l
Another way of looking at what you are saying is, there is no problem with
doping in sport.. there is a problem with competition.

Competition is the 'con' which makes most sport worth watching (and hence
paying for / advertising in). Without the promise of competition between the
local / state / country / world's best, who is watching an average person
running a hundred metres? What if we measured not time but technique, or like
mountain climbing, preparation?

If the sport is about preparation rather than performance, what does it even
matter if they are doping?

~~~
wonder_er
> Without the promise of competition...who is watching an average person
> running a hundred metres?

No one. This is why climbing making it into the 2020 Olympics is going to
create a lot more trouble for the sport than good. Generally, climbing (be it
alpine mountaineering or more approachable "rock climbing") is horrendously
boring to watch, except for other climbers.

Climbing, done well, looks almost effortless. No one wants to watch someone
_not_ struggle.

I don't know how it will be monetized. Probably just via gear endorsements,
like all the other sports. :(

~~~
jdietrich
Indoor bouldering is very entertaining, even if you know very little about
climbing. You don't need to be an expert to see the challenge posed by a tiny
crimp, a massive overhang or a big dyno. The immense difficulty of the
problems mean that the struggle is visible, even for the strongest climbers.
In a sense, you're watching a battle between the climber and the route-setter.

[https://youtu.be/00nLWbGQJks?t=48m15s](https://youtu.be/00nLWbGQJks?t=48m15s)

~~~
wonder_er
Indoor bouldering has evolved over the years to "comp-style" indoor
bouldering, favoring exciting moves, large, dynamic movement, etc.

I love climbing, know a fair bit about it, and enjoy watching. I just don't
think it lends itself to spectating the same way a team sport does (I.E.
american football/football).

One thing climbing DOES have going for it is the skill of the athletes is
immediately visible. It's not like an endurance sport where, while we all know
the athlete is better than we are at the sport, we can all go outside and run
a few miles.

In contrast to the one-arm antics required for world-cup bouldering, etc.

------
thisrod
Climbing is different. As Hemingway put it, "There are only three sports:
bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely
games."

Many performance-enhancing drugs are really bad for you; that is the rationale
for banning doping in mere games, while permitting fancy shoes and other
expensive performance-enhancing technologies. It doesn't work for
mountaineering, because the sport itself is really, really bad for you, to the
extent that death is a normal and accepted part of it. It would be obscene to
enforce the rules of your game on other people when that posed a risk to their
lives. They get to make their own rules, because the mountains are theirs as
much as yours.

This is also why climbers are ambivalent about competition. Matching what the
other kids are doing is a big part of what motivates many climbers to try
harder things. On the other hand, if two climbers start one-upping each other,
they had better stop before one of them gets killed, because no pissing
contest is worth dying for. Few do.

I'm one of the exceptions, but that lesson involved so much luck that it made
the front page of every newspaper in the country.

~~~
MichaelGG
Testosterone isn't "really bad" for you yet is quite banned. It's ridiculous
to pretend it's about health. It's just a combo of marketing (so people don't
dismiss it as a drug competition) and general anti drug silliness.

~~~
paganel
> and general anti drug silliness.

What happened to the former 1980s GDR athletes (who had broken dozens of
records in swimming and athletics while juiced to the max) was not "silly" at
all. Got to watch some fragments of a related documentary with included a few
interviews and the stories were harrowing.

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luca_ing
Some climber dude (I forget who) said, paraphrased:

"Only chalkless barefoot free soloing[1] is proper free climbing[2], all the
rest is just disguised aid climbing [3]"

If you've ever gone climbing, and compared your experience wearing random
shoes (or no shoes) with wearing proper climbing shoes, I think you'll agree
that the difference is tremendous. If you consider oxygen an unfair advantage,
you will need to include many other tools as well.

Also, in alpinism, the stakes are so high that I don't fault anyone for using
the tools necessary to make sure they make it safely back down - for their
sake, and for their would-be rescuers'

Competition sports climbing is another matter, but its connection to alpinism
is as tenuous (or more so) as that of biathlon to hunting in the scandinavian
winter.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_solo_climbing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_solo_climbing)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_climbing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_climbing)
[3]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aid_climbing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aid_climbing)

------
nate_martin
It isn't the same as doping in other sports. Climbers will often specify if
their ascent involved O2 or not. It's still considered a big achievement in
mountaineering to summit say K2 or Annapurna with O2.

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kirrent
"Perhaps the most controversial course of action, though, is the decision to
carry and use supplemental O2. Most climbers consider their supplemental
oxygen as equipment—just as much a part of their experience as their Gortex
gear, and certainly as foundational as their extensive training."

This article is already self-contradictory. It doesn't need to make it obvious
by putting these two sentences right next to each other. If it's just as
foundational and normal equipment, then it's obviously not a controversial
course of action. Also, not how you spell Gore-Tex.

~~~
tjl
I love Gore-Tex as a material. It's one of the few materials that has a
negative Poisson ratio (when you stretch it the material expands in all
directions, it doesn't narrow). My Ph.D. supervisor keeps a small sample of it
to use for demonstrations to his Mechanics of Deformable Solids course. Only
man-made materials can exhibit this property.

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kazinator
How do the these anti-oxygen purists going to scale Olympus Mons on Mars, when
that becomes a thing to do? That sucker rises 26 km above its northern plains.

"No way is that legit; you're bringing Mars down to your level when you use
O2. I'd rather train hard and suffer. If I fucking die, which I likely will,
then so be it!"

~~~
petertodd
For that matter, this would be a very different discussion if Everest were
higher - it's geologically possible for a mountain to be significantly
higher(1) than Everest, high enough that to get to the top you'd need
something akin to a spacesuit.

Equally, no human free diver is ever going to reach the bottom of the marina
trench...

1)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/174cxr/how_high...](https://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/174cxr/how_high_was_the_highest_mountain_ever_on_earth/c8243c5)

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mmaunder
Used Diamox for Killimanjaro. Its totally cheating and awesome. A fellow
climber was on dex just as a precaution. Also cheating. And o2? over 14k feet
its a lifeline. But then so are down jackets, goretex, light alloy axes and
light crampons, etc. Its an interesting debate.

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nl
_Tennis player Novak Djokovic, on the other hand, was definitely not doping
when he slept in an egg-shaped barometric chamber._

I believe that actually would be considered doping in Italy (or used to be).

 _it is not allowed in Italy where a rule forbids manipulation of blood values
via artificial means._

[http://inrng.com/2012/06/the-altitude-tent/](http://inrng.com/2012/06/the-
altitude-tent/)

~~~
oh_sigh
What are "artificial means"?

If he took a helicopter to the peak of midzor, would that be "artificial"?

~~~
nl
The law is lazy-evaluated. Ask a judge. (But I would imagine it would be
unlikely).

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ChemicalWarfare
>>The World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) prohibits an athlete from using a
substance that fulfills two of the following three criteria: 1) It is
performance-enhancing; 2) It is harmful to health; 3) It runs counter to the
spirit of the sport.

these things are extremely hard to quantify which is why there are explicit
lists of "prohibited substances" where the line is drawn more or less
arbitrarily. my personal opinion is with the exception of artificial hormones
everything else should be allowed.

and when it does come to 'roids and hgh (which btw are demonized beyond any
reason) - I like the way powerlifting federations address it - as an athlete
you can compete in a tested (which still of course doesn't guarantee the
athletes to be "clean") or "untested" federation where anything goes.

~~~
oxide
>as an athlete you can compete in a tested (which still of course doesn't
guarantee the athletes to be "clean") or "untested" federation where anything
goes.

this is pretty clever, it reminds me of the "cheater pool" solution to
cheating in video games. flagged players are placed in a matchmaking pool with
other flagged players. I'm not sure of the pros and cons to this being applied
to real world competition, but I wouldn't mind it as a spectator.

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wonder_er
In _No Shortcuts To The Top_,[1] Viesturs gave more treatment to the topic of
oxygen - I don't remember the exact quote, but he said something to the tune
of:

> I prefer to climb without oxygen, but when guiding groups up Everest, it
> would be irresponsible for me to not have oxygen, so I can be most
> responsive to any issues that arise.

There's no "paradox". It seems the author noticed that climbing recently got
added to the 2020 list of Olympic sports, and is trying to create controversy
where there is none.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MAH5OM/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000MAH5OM/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

------
bmh100
Here is an argument in favor accelerated acclimatizers and oxygen tanks:

1\. They reduce the high risk of irreversible damage to an especially
important organ, the brain. 2\. They reduce the significant risk of death.

Any chemical or equipment that does the above should be considered standard
equipment, not doping. This is like arguing that helmets are doping because
riders can more safely go faster.

I wouldn't care how much the "community" would look down on me. I'm not
voluntarily accepting certain brain damage to climb a mountain.

------
keithnz
by some of the logic presented here, mountain climbers should climb naked to
ensure the legitimacy of (wo)man vs mountain, anything else is cheating.

~~~
Jtsummers
From the article:

    
    
      If purists are to be consistent in their argument,” says
      Moller, “they should argue that one should not be allowed to
      go to the top of the mountain with one’s clothes on—
      alpinists’ clothes are incredible technologies in and of
      themselves—or have any kind of gear. That would be a truly
      pure ascent.”
    

The purists sound like (from this article) they're a bit too sensitive to
other adventure seekers methods. Guess what, tech exists, these aren't
competitive events, people will use what they can to achieve their goals.

~~~
bmj
There are several flavors of "purists" in alpine climbing. Some are
curmudgeons who draw lines in the sand about what is and is not acceptable.
But other purists fit into the category of minimalists--how much can equipment
be pared down, and how quickly can they move on the high peaks. In many ways,
speed == safety. The faster you can move, the better chance you have of
reaching a summit before bad weather moves in, or the faster you can react to
bad weather and get the heck off the mountain. If you are relying on
supplemental oxygen, that is a fair bit of extra equipment that often requires
stocked camps.

------
ezoe
How do these anti-oxygen climbers cope with using cheat items such as clothes,
shoes, tents and all?

"It brings the mountain down to your level."

~~~
wonder_er
There are no real anti-oxygen climbers. The article is trying to create
controversy where there is none.

It all comes down to style. More minimalistic of an approach usually equals
more "style points" (which are worth exactly as much as you think they are.)

If you and I were to go try Everest, we'd be aiming for "completion", not
"style points", and we'd probably use O2.

¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

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VeejayRampay
Really interested to see how Kilian Jornet and his ultra-minimalist approach
are going to fare on Everest. He's supposed to be attempting a climb soon
(after other summits like Aconcagua, Denali, Kilimandjaro and Mont Blanc in
the past few years). If he succeeds in his ways, I bet he's going to shatter
the records.

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abandonliberty
>The World Anti-Doping Association (WADA) prohibits an athlete from using a
substance that fulfills two of the following three criteria:

>1) It is performance-enhancing; >2) It is harmful to health;

O2 is poisonous and performance enhancing. .: All athletes dope. Q.E.D.

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erelde
In short: "purer than thou" attitude from an elitist minority forming a
negative core inside a very small community.

Because their $way is better than your $way.

