Monday, July 31, 2006

Not American sport’s finest hour

Gatlin faces prospect of life ban

World and Olympic 100m champion Justin Gatlin is facing a lifetime ban after confirmation that his B sample tested positive for testosterone.

The American announced on Saturday that he had failed a doping test in April.


MORE:

Landis gives positive drugs test

Tour de France winner Floyd Landis has given a positive drugs test, his Phonak team revealed.

The 30-year-old American, who claimed Tour de France victory on Sunday, has tested positive for unusual levels of the male sex hormone testosterone...




Ok, that was a snide headline in revenge for the endless soccer-bashing. Of course it’s not an American problem – it’s a particular problem in particular sports and is a function of the competitive drive (in which, as in so many areas, America leads the way).

In order to win things, you need the drive to win at all costs, not least the cost to your own body. Heaven knows what horrors these athletes are storing up for their old age.

Cycling, sprinting and weightlifting are three sports which depend on making unusual and unnatural physical demands on individuals. All three have become consumed by depressing, cyclical battles between the drug testers and the drug takers, who seek to find ever clever ways of masking the things that mask the things that mask the drugs.

And it's an open secret that in all three sports the drug takers are, well, everybody.

4 comments:

Oroborous said...

And it's an open secret that in all three sports the drug takers are, well, everybody.

That's especially true of American football.

With Landis, he didn't test positive for high levels of testosterone, his levels were actually depressed, which is normal after extreme exertion.
However, the ratio of testosterone to some other hormone was extremely elevated.

I hope that he's cleared. It would be a depressing end to a feel-good story if the cripple-who-could was just another stinkin' cheater.

Hey Skipper said...

I hope that he's cleared. It would be a depressing end to a feel-good story if the cripple-who-could was just another stinkin' cheater.

As a Lance Armstrong wanna-be, I couldn't agree more.

The proper question to ask here is: Why are trees so tall?

The answer to that answers a whole bunch of other things.

Brit said...

Agreed all round. This year's Tour started badly with all the favourites getting booted off. It would be another shattering blow to the sport if the fairytale ending turned out to be just as grim (Grimm fairytale?).

Skipper's point about tall trees is correct.

There is a school of thought that says we should just let them all get on with it and take whatever drugs they like.

The long-term health effects don't bear thinking about, but then cycling up all them mountains isn't exactly going to be good for you in any circumstances.

Oroborous said...

Unfortunately, from the 1 Aug. NY Times: "Tests showed that some of the testosterone in Floyd Landis’s body came from an external source, according to a person with knowledge of the results."

We'll see if that holds.