Can a clean athlete win?

Good, if sad, article today in The Times (UK).

With the Landis media hype, the drama that is Justin Gatlin has been somewhat overlooked - but by God it shouldn't be. Here is a guy who is a seemingly class act - someone who greatly supports the sport and is an amazing role model for the future of track and field and BAM, get nailed with doping charges. I weep for my sport and the image it continuosly puts up.

The quotes from the article that hit me the hardest...

Reiterer never tested positive, yet he could not live with the lie and so he wrote a book called Positive, instead. “Few had any choice,” he writes in its prologue. “Modern Olympians are forced to turn to drugs once they’ve . . . realised with crystal clarity that they wouldn’t be anywhere near competitive standard without them.”

Why has it come down to this? What happened to being proud of doing it right?

Roger Black
Former European and Commonwealth 400 metres champion

It’s just getting a bit bloody stupid, isn’t it? Yes, I do believe you can do it clean, that human beings can do extraordinary things — Paula Radcliffe and Jonathan Edwards prove the point. And the facts suggest that if you’re the fastest man in the world, you’re probably on drugs, but I choose not to believe it. Then something like Gatlin happens and you think: maybe I’m just a sucker. It becomes harder and harder to believe. There are people in the throwing fraternity who believe you can’t win clean now. I don’t know that world, but in my event, 400 metres, that’s not the case.

I am from the throwing fraternity. And for the most part, he's right.

Ivan Tikhon the #1 hammer thrower in the world and one who is expected to break the WR soon, gave up an Olympic gold medal in Athens because he refused to take a test.

What does that say about how clean he was? And to think he is also coached by former WR holders and arguably some of the most prominent throwers in the history of the event.

They gave it by default to Koji Murofushi, a class act who had his Olympic glory stripped from him because of a suspected cheater.

I wish people didn't have to cheat, it ruins sport so much. Winning isn't everything, or at least, it shouldn't be - there is such a thing as integrity, I just wish more people would realize that.






There is some decent discussion over at the TrackShark forums on these topics as well.