Drug Testing For Olympic Chess Players? 344
Lawrence Person writes: "According to this AP wire story, they're thinking of adding chess as an Olympic sport. The downside? Mandatory drug testing. 'He's using steroids to move that pawn!'"
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Drug Testing For Olympic Chess Players?
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The hardest part of climbing the ladder of success is getting through the crowd at the bottom.
Actually, there's a problem: (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, seing as they usually play multi-game matches, and I've heard of many matches over the course of, say, 8 hours or more, couldn't this stretch out??
Irrelevent... (Score:3, Interesting)
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the banned substances are chosen on a sport by sport basis. Therefore, perhaps steroids would be allowed for chess. Just not some concentration-enchancing drug. Or rather, the IOC has a certain set of standards, and the individual sports have others.
Canadian Olympic Snowboarder Ross Rebagliati tested positive for marijuana use [mountainzone.com]. The IOC has no minimum amount set for marijuana use, but the Internation Ski Federation did...
You Betcha (Score:4, Interesting)
I have numerous 2nd and 3rd hand accounts of the use of some prescription drugs (including ritalin) being used to aid concentration during long study sessions. (Obvously it isn't hard for medical personnel to get them or to know the side effects.) How widespread this practice is or how effective it is, I have no idea but it does appear to happen and apparently to some degree.
Maybe that's why I was never a curve wrecker in college. Everyone else was doping... Yeah, that's it. That's the ticket...
History: Litterature used to be an official sport (Score:2, Interesting)
All this happened around the year 1900.
There's lot of stuff hidden in the old history books
Re:Chess - A stupid game for stupid people. (Score:4, Interesting)
But not all chess players are like that. I worked with someone who was a member of the chess federation. That is he had a ranking (low as it was).
Some people would say that being able to hack computers takes a special kind of mental skill. I guess any group of people can sink to snoberism, and yet another group of similar people will rise above it. There are assholes in any group.
Re:Performance drugs for chess? Sure... (Score:2, Interesting)
It would be a huge mess if you started trying to apply different drug-use standards to different sports. Imagine the confusion and potential for error...
class A - swimming, track & field, gymnastics and wrestling - no steroids, no amphetimines, etc
class B - fencing, skeet shooting, curling and equestrian events - no steroids allowed, but amphetimines are ok.
class C - chess - take whatever the hell you want
"no, no, no -- please just make it easier for us to know what we can and can't take by having one standard for everything!"
Mental games in olympics: why? (Score:3, Interesting)
To grok this we need to go back to the original Greco-Roman games. The games were feats of athletic skill and battle strategy, which were definitely essential survival skills during those days.
Today, while these skills are still important, the mental aspect of strategy and tactics has become far more important.
When a panoply of technologies can deter even the largest crowd (audio detterence technology, microwaves meant to temporarily blind people mounted on tanks are all part of the "nonlethal" arsenal) the controllers of these technologies are at the crux of social decisions.
The Int'l Olympic Committee is supposed to consider the social relationships of the Games, their deeper meaning, etc. along with all the cash and entertainment values of the Games. Perhaps, by adding chess, this social value is their primary consideration.
(It certainly won't add any entertainment or monetary value to the Games!)
Re:Woah... (Score:3, Interesting)
Massive ratings?....of course not...but SOME ratings if they actually got televised, sure. :) Of course, the number of actual events that get televised during the Olympics currently is absurd. Basically, it must have an American in it, and look very dynamically interesting. When was the last time you saw Table Tennis or Fencing or Judo or hammer throw or any of the other gazillion events televised?
Re:Can anyone think of any drugs (Score:2, Interesting)
The article on espn stated that doctors for the World Chess Federation said that caffeine and steroids and other drugs can give a person an endurance advantage when a match runs into the 5th or higher hour, which can lead to an unfair advantage in favor of an individual using an IOC-banned substance.
I find it kinda strange that the same drugs that allow Mark McGuire (sp?) to hit dingers also gives the brain an endurance lift.
Re:Can anyone thking of any drugs (Score:2, Interesting)
The increase in cognative speed and the general projected confidence could be extremely useful in a chess match.
You'd have to be very careful about the tendancy to over compensate though...
http://www.erowid.org [erowid.org] has more information on various chemicals, some of which could be interesting in this discussion.
Performance drugs for chess? Sure... (Score:5, Interesting)
How about Ritalin or some other drug to improve concentration skills. What about some kind of coolness-under-fire drugs to block out the pressure? Are there drugs that won't 'zombify' a person, but keep them focused?
Just asking...
Can anyone thking of any drugs (Score:2, Interesting)
FP?