The messy business of sports doping

 
Andrew Sutherland Columnist

By Andrew Sutherland, 13 Nov 2009 Andrew Sutherland is a Roar Expert

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I despised Andre Agassi when I first saw him with the long wispy hair and that gold earring; a desert rat with tacky jewellery. He came from Las Vegas. That explains it, I thought.

But now we realise he took crystal meth because of his overbearing ex-boxer father who “built a backyard prison just for him”.

“What a great dad!”, I can hear today’s kids yelling, “just like Xbox Prison Break but for real!”

It is apparent now that the professional era of sport has been awash with infusions, injections, boostings and enhancements. Sport is a livelihood and for some a source of greatness, so the urge to maintain or improve performance illegally must be a powerful one.

So with the current knowledge, it’s a little more difficult to be judgemental and perhaps it’s even time to right past injustices.

How is life now for poor Ben Johnson? Impoverished, disgraced, and Canadian.

Why?

We now know that Carl Lewis was on drugs, too. Johnson beat Lewis with that scintillating display in the 1988 Olympic final. It was a performance that should have led to the Olympic recall of the 60 metres – the real sprint.

Unfortunately, the sight of its runners at the indoor event slamming into a mattress on the wall hasn’t done it any favours.

Johnson had the explosive power of the true sprinter. Lewis had the wind up action of a two legged giraffe in white socks.

The French sports daily L’Equipe claims it has EPO samples from Lance Armstrong taken during the 1999 Tour de France.

It is highly likely that Armstrong was using EPO when it couldn’t be detected but then so was everyone else. The French don’t like Armstrong because he’s so un-European (and Texan). He dominated their race with the meticulousness and mind-numbing banality of a NASA mission.

He even looks like Buzz Aldrin.

It’s more likely that Armstrong’s survival from cancer (strengthening his resolve, changing his personality and body shape) was the reason a one-day Classics specialist was transformed into a Tour legend.

Now, while ‘recreational’ drugs like crystal meth and cocaine taken prior to a game can assist a player by enhancing concentration and reducing fatigue, long term use is actually performance inhibiting. It is only a matter of time before your career comes crashing down in shards of … crystal.

If a long term user of recreational drugs can win an elite event it is, in fact, a great achievement.

Perhaps, as with the Special Olympics, categories can be introduced to highlight this fact. The legacy of Andre Agassi would have been even greater if there had been an Olympic Mens Singles – Crystal Methamphetamine Affected.

It’s also hard not to be impressed, and sickened at the same time, by some of these drugs and doping methods.

Crystal meth. A great sounding name, if you ignore the meth (too like metho). So gorgeously twinkly, like something Willy Wonka would have dreamed up (what were they on in that boat tunnel?)

I’ve always loved the name of Crystal Palace for a team (Tottenham Hotspurs is a good one too) and imagine them prancing around inside a glistening gilded dome, instead of the concrete and wet brick dive of South London they actually play in.

The major practise in most sports appears to be the use of EPO, a hormone that can be used to increase red blood cell production.

Clever, and highly paid, doctors have continually altered the molecular structure of the hormone to avoid detection by the prevailing anti-doping tests.

As Dr No said: “The successful criminal brain is always superior. It has to be”.

The other known methods are testosterone injection (with his annoyingly whiny voice and constant whingeing you would think Cadel Evans has been injecting female hormones),and blood doping. The latter involves injecting your own,or someones elses, blood.

To do this you need to keep the blood satchels in the refrigerator and be wary of raids by doping officials and family members eg Mrs Vinokourov: “Alexander, those raspberry pops I found hanging in the fridge taste absolutely AWFUL!”

A legal form of blood treatment used on Daniel Mortimer’s injured hip involved withdrawing blood, infusing it with an increased concentration of platelets “rich in healing properties” (mmm!)and reinjecting it into the hip tendon.

That brings to mind unfortunate images of Manly players slurping on their calves’ blood smoothies: “Hey can I have some soy milk in this Des?”

So, for anyone presently struggling in suburban sporting competitions remember to embrace your ordinariness because apparently the only way to sporting greatness is to have one, or a combination, of the following: a) a terrible upbringing b) drugs or c) a terminal cancer prognosis.

P.S. If you can’t afford crystal meth is there are a glass version?

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