This really is the summer of the cheat. Laboratory tests have caught three of the most compelling champions of their sport using banned substances to enhance their performances.
World and Olympic 100-meter champion Justin Gatlin has been handed an eight-year ban from athletics after a doping violation. Gatlin will forfeit the world record he tied in May, when he ran 100 meters in 9.77 seconds. At age 24, the lengthy ban could knock Gatlin out of competition for the rest of his life.
A few days earlier, former triple Olympic champion Marion Jones tested positive after erythropoietin, or EPO, a blood-boosting drug; it was found in a sample given by Jones in June. Jones is waiting to learn if a second sample is also tainted. She faces a two-year ban if the second test comes back positive.
The cyclist Floyd Landis had electrified the sports world with an astonishing come-from-behind win in the grueling Tour de France road race last month. Landis had been among the leaders when he suddenly seemed to run out of gas and dropped far behind. The next day, in what some aficionados consider the greatest leg ever ridden, he surged back to third place, putting him in position to win in the final days.
It was a feat that seemed superhuman, and now it turns out that it probably was. Urine samples taken on the day of his epic ride showed excess testosterone in an initial and in a confirming test. Landis tested positive for a testosterone-epitestosterone ratio of 11:1, and as any schoolchild can tell you, the limit for a cyclist s testosterone-epitestosterone ratio is 4:1. Landis is almost certain to lose his Tour de France title.
All three stars claim they are innocent. Gatlin s coach, Trevor Graham, contends Gatlin tested positive after a vengeful massage therapist used testosterone cream on the runner without his knowledge. But the real fiend might not be the evil masseur but Graham himself who has been involved with at least a half-dozen athletes who ve received drug suspensions.
Jones’ coach, Steve Riddick, believes she, too, is a victim of sabotage. So, rather than believe Jones tested positive, we re supposed to believe that the woman who has been surrounded by doping rumors for years was set up. Why? Because of her long history of doping allegations, a textbook example of circular logic.
Landis has offered varying explanations for the high testosterone reading, including drinking beer and whiskey the night before he was tested. But why would you be partying like you already won a race when you re still in the middle of it?
Fortunately, we don’t have to answer such embarrassing questions in Egypt because our athletes don’t take enhancing drugs. It’s possible some do but it’s impossible to know for sure. No blood or urine tests in any sport at any level are conducted in the country, neither before or after or in between championships.
And if some of our athletes are taking something, the quantity would have to be enormous if they seek a world record. They would have to use not a vial and needle but a gas pump to guzzle down gallons of unleaded premium gasoline for that extra kick.
Footballers, our biggest stars, probably don’t take anything illegal because their sport does not depend on being a tenth of a second faster or an eighth of a centimeter higher. That’s not to say team sports are free of fraud. There was so much diving during this summer s soccer World Cup that the players needed swim suits. And the recent cricket scandal over ball tampering, in which Pakistan was forced into the first forfeit in 129 years of Test cricket, contravened the spirit of this most gentlemanly of sports.
This really has been a summer of deceit.
