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IPF . Are they going to far?


Skeletor

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So I'm sure most of you who on here who even take the slightest interest in powerlifting would have seen the commotion caused by the IPF over the goat Eddy Coan running a series of seminars and the IPF coming out with a statement  banning any IPF lifter from attending these .  Fair or not?  Whether a lifter is drug free or not do they have the right to ban IPF lifters from learning from one of the greatest of all time? Didn't really think powerlifting was about all that but I'd like to hear from both sides on this.  Thoughts?

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I guess I'd be looking for parallels elsewhere...in other sports, where someone gets banned for life for a similar reason, what would happen if registered athletes attended an event he ran/ hosted/ spoke at?

 

Lance Armstrong received a lifetime ban from all WADA sports. Would registered competitive cyclists be prohibited from attending?

 

Mind  you, the IPF is toiling damn hard to get powerlifting accepted as an Olympic sport, so it has to be far stricter that all the Olympic sports with doping problems, like..oh, cycling, Oly lifting, track and field, to name a few.

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They still have a dream of making Powerlifting an Olympic sport. So they're trying to be as strict with the WADA rules about association etc as possible.

 

It's completely idiotic imo and it's stuff like this that made me not want to lift with IPF in the end. This is another level of stupid though.

 

But if you don't like it take the ban and go to the seminar and lift with one of the other 100 Feds.

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Everyone loves ed coan, so naturally there is a whole lot of bias in people's arguments. Let's take that out of the equation and look at the facts...

 

he cheated, multiple times. A lifetime ban means you didn't learn from your first suspension and just disregarded any kind of fairness or rules. I think people are calling it a personal vendetta and jealously and just forgetting the lifetime ban. He is one of a small group who are banned for life on an international level. It would be wrong for the Ipf to encourage its lifters to go, so is it also wrong to just ignore it? 

 

powerlifting like bodybuilding are special in the regard where people tend to worship cheats and make them royalty. Lance Armstrong is a great comparasion, greatest cyclist of all time, caught cheating when probably everyone else was too and now the whole world hates him. But we love ed coan... How the f*ck does that work? At least Lance Armstrong fundraised million in the name of cancer. 

 

I don't really care personally but I think some people on FB are pretty narrow minded.

 

Also a big fan of Coan - Once in a lifetime lifter.

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Very good points, they are playing by the rules set out for them and yes he did cheat so it does make sense.

But the fact that everyone loves him so much has to count for something, and just because you go to his seminar doesn't mean that he's going to teach you what gear to use, injection protocols and the like lol. He has a lot of good lifting knowledge that people will be missing out on.

 

But yes as you say it is within the rules and he is a known cheat in respect to the IPF so his lifetime ban also makes sense.

 

However I can't help but think they may have actually helped him by mistake with the explosion on social media. No such thing as bad publicity as the saying goes.

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17 minutes ago, Realtalk said:

Everyone loves ed coan, so naturally there is a whole lot of bias in people's arguments. Let's take that out of the equation and look at the facts... he cheated, multiple times. A lifetime ban means you didn't learn from your first suspension and just disregarded any kind of fairness or rules. I think people are calling it a personal vendetta and jealously and just forgetting the lifetime ban. He is one of a small group who are banned for life on an international level. It would be wrong for the Ipf to encourage its lifters to go, so is it also wrong to just ignore it? powerlifting like bodybuilding are special in the regard where people tend to worship cheats and make them royalty. Lance Armstrong is a great comparasion, greatest cyclist of all time, caught cheating when probably everyone else was too and now the whole world hates him. But we love ed coan... How the f*ck does that work? At least Lance Armstrong fundraised million in the name of cancer. 

 

I don't really care personally but I think some people on FB are pretty narrow minded.

 

Also a big fan of Coan - Once in a lifetime lifter.

 

 

few things i wanna add

1. everyone loves ed so yeah fair enough they gonna be pissed. i think its harsh because the only people really missing out are the members that genuinely wanna go. rules are rules but they need to be enforced across the board or it looks like a personal vendetta thing, which brings me to 2.

 

2. this anti association thing shits me. iv seen that guy jp cauchi 66kg ipf world champ harping on on instagram today about how association rule stops people being encouraged to cheat or whatever. get fucked. everyone knows everyone. if the anti association rule was enforced across the board IPF numbers would take a huge drop. i'd bet that 50%+ of IPF members associate on the regular with people that take steroids. nothing wrong with that unless they do it themselves. if they went full on investigator on each and every member there would be a shit load of bans. I think any rule like this should apply to all or none. If some swedish lifter is not allowed to go watch ed coan speak, then every single IPF member is not allowed to ask advice or even talk  to anyone that has ever taken steroids. same same.  only difference is ed got caught doing it in an ipf competition. 

 

apologies if i dont write that understandable but been reading about it all day .

 

cliffs: if ipf members will be banned for going to ed coan seminar, they also should be banned for talking about powerlifting with any other steroid user that exists.

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Sweden and that part of Europe is so IPF dominant. so basically it is going to be an unofficial seminar without actually being one. He runs seminars in Australia and America all the time and this never gets a mention so I think that's probably why.

 

lets use lance Armstrong again. It would be like him coming to NZ to run cycling workshop on Cambridge next to the velodrome and high performance sport NZ saying no one in the Olympic cycling program is attending even though it's in their own time and out of camp. Fair or unfair?

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4 minutes ago, Realtalk said:

Fair or unfair?

 

I know what the rules say but I would say unfair.

It's only the cyclists that would be missing out on his obvious experience and knowledge.

And again it's not like he's going to give out EPO protocols or anything.

Just being in their presence doesn't make you want to suddenly go and stab yourself full of performance enhancers.

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10 minutes ago, Realtalk said:

Sweden and that part of Europe is so IPF dominant. so basically it is going to be an unofficial seminar without actually being one. He runs seminars in Australia and America all the time and this never gets a mention so I think that's probably why.

 

lets use lance Armstrong again. It would be like him coming to NZ to run cycling workshop on Cambridge next to the velodrome and high performance sport NZ saying no one in the Olympic cycling program is attending even though it's in their own time and out of camp. Fair or unfair?

 

this

can see where they are coming from, but still, very unfair.

 

there are different levels of interferring in someones life off the platform/field: 

 

 OOC drug testing is fair enough and i think if you are going to drug test make sure you take every chance you can to make sure as many people are clean as possible (impossible but they have to do their best).

 

but this is not checking if someone is injecting drugs into their own body (reasonable). This is stopping someone from going and standing 10 metres away from and listening to someone that got caught 20 years ago. not like hes gonna be pinning people in the toilets during intermission lol

 

 

 

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I was explaining this little spat to a non-lifting workmate today. I gave a brief summary - basically "Ed Coan was banned for life, and now the IPF have prohibited anyone from attending his seminar." Without knowing anything more than that, his uninformed (and therefore unbiased) reaction was, "WHAT?! How can they do that?!" He too compared it to Lance Armstrong.

 

53 minutes ago, Realtalk said:

powerlifting like bodybuilding are special in the regard where people tend to worship cheats and make them royalty. Lance Armstrong is a great comparasion, greatest cyclist of all time, caught cheating when probably everyone else was too and now the whole world hates him. But we love ed coan... How the f*ck does that work? At least Lance Armstrong fundraised million in the name of cancer.

I think the difference is Armstrong's public profile. When you say the world now hates him, you're talking about the general public. They thought he was a hero, then they found he was a cheat, and they hated him for it. I suspect within the cycling world, there's actually less hatred for Armstrong because cyclists have a better understanding of doping in their sport than the public do. They know how common it is, and therefore in their eyes Armstrong's fall perhaps wasn't quite as great.

 

Obviously Ed Coan doesn't have that public profile, so his popularity is only among powerlifters who, like the cyclists, are more informed, and see things in shades of grey rather than black or white.

 

27 minutes ago, Realtalk said:

lets use lance Armstrong again. It would be like him coming to NZ to run cycling workshop on Cambridge next to the velodrome and high performance sport NZ saying no one in the Olympic cycling program is attending even though it's in their own time and out of camp. Fair or unfair?

That is a fantastic analogy. I had to think hard about this one!

 

I reckon the NZ cyclists would NOT be allowed to attend, on the grounds that it would tarnish the reputation of the NZ Olympic team, and their sponsors. On that basis, I think it's fair.

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Great reply pseudo, only thing I could say is it's not so grey when there are tested and non tested federations. Cycling doesn't have that luxury at the elite level. Powerlifting does. So it is kind of black and white.

 

Also I'm not sure what cyclists think I don't know any. Would have loved to listen in to some of their conversations and opinions when that all went down.

 

i also would have been interested to know the feeling and opinion in the powerlifting community when ed got banned those different times... Did people really care? With no internet I guess not.  I know nowadays people get absolutely scolded online for that.

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3 minutes ago, Realtalk said:

Great reply pseudo, only thing I could say is it's not so grey when there are tested and non tested federations. Cycling doesn't have that luxury at the elite level. Powerlifting does. So it is kind of black and white.

 

Also I'm not sure what cyclists think I don't know any. Would have loved to listen in to some of their conversations and opinions when that all went down.

 

i also would have been interested to know the feeling and opinion in the powerlifting community when ed got banned those different times... Did people really care? With no internet I guess not.  I know nowadays people get absolutely scolded online for that.

were there any untested feds at that time?

my gf asked this when she read about it on facebook and i dont know the answer

makes a little bit of difference although cheating is still cheating but if you have no other options to compete at that level untested like there is now, then there is a bit more justification.

 

nowadays cheating in tested fed is a dickhead move, but back then was there another choice?

dunno

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Yeah I sort of agree with the fact that everyone loves him and lots of people are biased. There's definitely two sides to it.   The fact he got a lifetime ban is a reasonable reason BUT I think the ipf keeps riding the IOCs dick with a dream of getting in the Olympics which will probably never happen, look at the drug issue with the oly lifting atm. Imagine what PL would be like. 

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Let's make sure there is no confusion 

 

Using PEDs in a drug tested competition - Cheating 

 

Using PEDs in a non drug tested competition (where it is not stated they are against the rules) - Not cheating 

 

The issue isn't that he used gear or that anyone uses gear, it's that he cheated. 

 

I question why Ed Coan even wants to associate with the IPF and if I was the IPF I wouldn't want my lifters associating with Ed Coan.  

 

I think Ed Coan is the man, and would give my left nut to learn from him but I'm not sure I feel the IPFs stance is that over the top?  

 

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I guess from the perspective of trying to get into the Olympics. .. guys who have been caught cheating .. say like a Linford Christie who also coached, very quickly become persona non grata and lose all ability to do anything within athletics. The hypocrisy lies in the fact that everyone cheats they just hate on a Ben Johnson or a Lance Armstrong cos he beat everyone else. No one worries about the dude who came 10th yet chances are he's just as doped up as the winner :) 

 

Do they still test the coaches in IPF? I have helped a few people on comp day in that fed and they've wanted to test me. Not a registered coach buddy and I'd melt your sample bottle. 

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11 hours ago, GyzzBrah said:

How do the ipf define association? Do they enforce the rules more stringently in europe etc or does this attitude remain constant internationaly right down to local meets?

 

 

Alex Lowe a former IPF lifter now one of the best lifters in aus in the gpc, I think he's the best in his class and one of the best in the world makes jokes about showing up to ipf comps and being told he can't be there. About people in the audience being told to not wear tshirts for other federations at ipf comps and I think he once wore his ipf representative tracksuit when receiving his award at a CAPO meet as a pisstake. This is local level stuff for the most part and he's a pl coach so it effects his business. Ipf lifters can't train with him. I daresay if he wasn't so good the ipf wouldn't really care what he does. Seems a lot of personal politics get involved.  Bunch of hypocrites if you ask me... you didn't? Oh well hehehehe

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1 hour ago, soundsgood said:

Let's make sure there is no confusion 

 

Using PEDs in a drug tested competition - Cheating 

 

Using PEDs in a non drug tested competition (where it is not stated they are against the rules) - Not cheating 

 

The issue isn't that he used gear or that anyone uses gear, it's that he cheated. 

 

I question why Ed Coan even wants to associate with the IPF and if I was the IPF I wouldn't want my lifters associating with Ed Coan.  

 

I think Ed Coan is the man, and would give my left nut to learn from him but I'm not sure I feel the IPFs stance is that over the top?  

 

 

Ed is a multiple time IPF World Champion.

 

Yes, he cheated. Thing is, the whole stay away from Ed thing is recent. Drug testing came in around 1994 and even back when I was an IPF member in 2009-10, I doubt more than 1% of lifters would pull up their noses at doing a seminar with Ed. It's not like he's handing out Dbol while talking about squat form.

 

 

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I think this is a massive mistake by the IPF, and it hurts them more than anyone.

 

Now in my opinion, if a coach or athlete gets banned by WADA, yes they should be banned from competing/coaching/handling/running/refereeing at IPF events. Emphasis on IPF events. Bans ought to mean something as it pertains to being involved in IPF events.

 

But beyond that, there seems to be a clear pattern of the IPF pushing non-association upon lifters in refraining from attending seminars, online coaching and such events. At the end of the day, why? Once this gets enforced beyond official IPF competition, you really have no foundation upon which to make sound judgements.

 

For example: Ed Coan seminar is apparently a no. What about being Facebook friends with Coan? If you say no to that, how are they going to police that? By becoming a de-facto GCSB/NSA spying agency? That's crazy, and yet the same information given in a seminar could be given out via email, social media or skype. 

If Ed walks into the commercial gym you're at, are you supposed to leave? No? Well what if he offers you tips on your squat?

The whole thing is a hyper-critical mess that makes no sense in the 21st century.

 

The reason non-association makes sense, is if it can be policed practically. An athlete fails a prescribed drug test, they are then banned from participating in future competitions. IPF officials are present at the event to make sure no one breaks that rule. That makes sense.
Are the IPF going to have a guy in a suit at the door of the Ed Coan seminar to make sure no one goes? Seriously, think that through practically!

 

And the craziest thing? In an amateur sport, you're paying $150 membership a year for the privilege of getting told you can't have a multiple-time IPF World Champion spot you in the gym.

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Good read and nice to hear from both sides.  So its my understanding they also stopped Brett Gibbs from doing his seminars with Sebastian Oreb to , not sure why?   That would have been a sick one to attend to.  Would that then mean any NZ registered IPF lifters would not be able to attend Sebastians seminars if he comes here?   Just seems a shame that an IPF lifter isnt allowed to learn from some of the best in the sport.  Its certainly given Ed a lot of positive attention on social media with some big names coming out in support of him.  

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Has Sebastian Oreb tested positive in an ipf comp?  To my knowledge he hasn't.  That's basically saying you can't take advice from someone they suspect of using PEDs?  That's crossing another line completely. 

 

That Blaha video was great.  Some extremely good points and its hard not to agree with him.  

 

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