A “Doh!” moment in Doha
Sharp-eyed Rusters may have noticed our ‘non-coverage’ of the World Athletics Championships currently taking place in Doha, Qatar, over the past few days.
No disrespect intended to those dedicated and hard-working individuals who devote themselves to participating in track & field – or to ‘giving back’ to it by mentoring or coaching others at any level from nervous novice to elite veteran – but frankly, from this organ’s point of view, it’s quite hard to take the sport seriously given its long and troubled historical background of systematic (and sometimes state-encouraged if not sponsored) doping and/or deliberate cheating by tampering with urine and other samples, all in the pursuit of fame, Olympic medals, world titles and national prestige.
Meanwhile, those with vested interests in the subject – the track & field governing bodies, those in charge of their nation’s athletic programmes, the athletes themselves, their coaches, agents, managers … plus all the attendant hangers-on, physios, medics and bag-carriers … never mind those who earn a crust from reporting upon major championship events and/or occupying television studios and filling up time in the broadcast schedules for the delectation of those of us watching or listening at home … all do their level best to explain, discuss authoritatively and present the sport to its best advantage.
And why not? Their livelihoods depend upon it.
Of course, the trouble is that none (well, few) of us are fooled.
The ‘insiders’ of any sport – whether participants or reporters – are all playing ‘the promotional game’. Whether it’s professional boxing or track & field, they’re all going to do their best to represent their sport in a favourable light.
You’re never going to get a pundit previewing a boxing promotion to state the reality – e.g. that four out of the five supporting bouts on the bill are likely to be uncompetitive opportunities for the promoters’ ‘darlings’ to impress the paying public, thereby persuading the latter to part with their hard-earned cash for future, also carefully-staged, bouts – because, if they did that, the promoters would never again given them the privileged access to their boxers … and do all the other stuff that ‘makes the world go around’.
With track & field, there are so many nations taking part – all with national bodies of varying degrees of efficiency, integrity and funding – that any amount of skulduggery, corruption and cheating is theoretically possible in their collective quest to see ‘their man’ (or woman) standing on some distant podium, with their national anthem playing, promoting both their sporting careers and their nation’s prestige to the world at large … with, in the background, their agent’s eyes rolling-over like one-armed bandit lottery machines in La Vegas as they calculate how much more money they’ll be able to charge next month for the individual’s appearance money, image rights and prize-winnings.
For all the pontificating-puffery of the ‘experts’ in the television studios – at times making the shoe-lace-tying of the Team GB second-string female before her first-round heat of the 200 metres seem as significant and exciting as a small preparatory act in the build up to the launch of of Apollo 11 from Cape Canaveral on its journey to the Moon – the onlooker knows that the spectre of performance-enhancing drugs hangs over the sport like a shroud.
As I understand it, Christian Coleman, the US winner of the Men’s 100 metres title, had only been able to compete at all in this World Championships because he (or rather his handlers) had managed to mount a successful technical defence to the charge of “failing to make himself available for three consecutive drugs tests” based upon some lapse of time or another between one stage of the process and another.
Then yesterday the story broke that Alberto Salazar – one of the most controversial athletic coaches in the world because of endless rumours about alleged connections between the athletes he coached and performance-enhancing drugs – has just been banned from athletics for four years by IAAF chairman Seb Coe following an investigation by the US Anti-Doping Agency.
I could scarcely believe my ears last night as I watched BBC2’s live coverage of the evening’s proceedings in Doha – excellently hosted by Gabbie Logan, by the way – as all-time great Olympian and good-sort Michael Johnson was asked his reaction to the news.
He came out with some guff patting the world of track and field heartily upon the back for its outstanding record in combating the use of performance-enhancing drugs – I cannot provide the exact quotation word for word, but the gist of his comments ran broadly as follows:
“You know what, although some people criticise our sport in the context of performance-enhancing drugs, in fact we’re doing really well.
The reason so many athletes and coaches are being punished for taking performance-enhancing drugs is not so much because so many of them are, but because we have the most stringent and unforgiving testing regimes in place and our record in of investigating and uncovering drugs cheats is the best in the entire sporting world.”
I don’t mind admitting, I shook my head upon hearing this and shortly afterwards then took myself off to bed.
Sorry, Michael – you’re kidding yourself if you think that, and you need to wise up.
I don’t doubt that at every level of the pyramid of hundreds of thousands around the world who participate in track & field there are honest people doing their best and who would never knowingly cheat.
However, the temptations, and the opportunities and rewards, are always there and inevitably those working to beat the system are always a page or two ahead of those trying to catch them.
Pass me my cannabis-resin infusion tea, Maude …
