To be honest, I'm not even sure what "high levels of testosterone" really means, other than, well, high levels of testosterone. Just how bad is that? On cheating's scale of 1-10, is it a "4" (juice happens) or a "9" (Syringes R Us)?
A couple of weeks ago,
Floyd Landis, The Man Who Would Be Lance Armstrong, won cycling's Super Bowl by mounting a superhero-like recovery on the 17th stage of the race and cruising into L'Arc de Triomphe in Paris as the newest winner of the
Tour de France. Days later we learned Landis' drug test, one taken after that all-important and penultimate 17th stage when Landis overcame a huge deficit to pull himself back into contention, had shown higher levels of testosterone than is allowed. Now we're all waiting on a second test to either confirm the first test, or … whatever.
In a press conference, Landis disavowed any wrong-doing and implored us to wait until he had a chance to prove his innocence because, well, that's the American way: "We will explain to the world why this is not a doping case but a natural occurrence," he said.
Then over the weekend, we learned that
Justin Gatlin, the co-world's fastest man, had been told that a drug test he took in April had also turned up dirty. The test was administered following a relay race in Kansas City, about a month before he tied the 100-meter world record.
Following the word-record performance Gatlin became track & field's poster boy for good behavior. He failed a drug test years ago, but it was long explained as being due to a medication he'd taken for a condition he'd had since childhood. After he tied Jamaican
Asafa Powell's world record in May, Gatlin was touted as track's first superstar of its new, "clean" era. He had two strong parents -- whom I met when Gatlin joined me for a live appearance on CNBC -- and appeared to embody all that should be right about track & field. Oops?
I sincerely hope not.
Gatlin was said to have been distraught over the failed test and, in a statement, said he had no idea why the test for "testosterone or its precursors" came up positive. "I cannot account for these results, because I have never knowingly used any banned substance or authorized anyone else to administer such a substance to me," his statement said. "Since learning of the positive test, I have been doing everything in my power to find out what caused this to happen. I have been and will continue to cooperate fully with [drug testing authorities as they move] forward with the process … and hope that when all the facts are revealed it will be determined that I have done nothing wrong.”
In an interview on Jamaican television, Gatlin's coach,
Trevor Graham, himself under a cloud of drug suspicion (is anyone in track not under such a cloud?), claimed Gatlin's test was the result of sabotage. "We are 100 percent sure who it is," Graham said on TV. "The individual what did it, it's an individual that we fired and we went back and hired … he came to the Kansas relay and was [upset] with Justin."
What-ever!
Gatlin's attorney, Cameron Myler, says she and Gatlin have suspicions about why the test turned up positive but would not go so far as to support Graham's vendetta theory.
If Gatlin's test is confirmed, he could be banned from the sport for life and his record would be expunged. Surprisingly, the sport's honchos did not immediately come to Gatlin's defense. In an interview on BBC Radio Five Love, Dick Pound, who heads the World Anti-Doping Agency, the outfit that claims to have garnered the tainted April test, said Gatlin should be banned forever if his test is conformed.
"He needs to be banned for up to life," Pound was to have said to listeners. "There may be some extenuating circumstances to come out but I think if he just continues to come out with some bland denial that 'I never did anything, I can't imagine how this result occurred' that will not help him when it comes to sentencing. If they can find someone who did, in fact spike [the test,] then it is up to them to prove, but short of something like that then I think he has a serious problem."
I am soooo confused.
So much so that I'm pretty much ready to draw a line in the sports sand and say any record, accomplishment or noteworthy achievement in almost any sport since the arrival of the new millennium is tainted until I can make since of this drug mess.
I don't know anyone who believes cycling is "Mr. Clean" clean. Not after nine cyclists – including 1997 Tour winner Jan Ullrich - were banned after being implicated by a Spanish inquiry whose results were revealed just before the start of Le Tour, and now after Landis.
Track was beginning to pull itself out from under its own stench. We were even starting to cheer for Olympic champion
Marion Jones again. But now … whom to believe?
Baseball can pretty much fork an entire generation of records. I don't believe in asterisks but anything achieved during baseball's sure-to-be-named Steroid Era will be viewed for years with a raised eyebrow. Home run records. Pitching records. Fair or not, almost anything accomplished between the late ‘90s and now will long be viewed with suspicion because we'll wonder if performances were enhanced with chemicals.
My 12-year-old son is just starting to be introduced to young-manhood. His body and voice are changing. His shoulders are broadening, his abs are tightening and all evidence of baby fat has long disappeared. Just the other day he and some friends were sitting in the back of our SUV and chatting about "steroids" and how
Barry Bonds had "cheated." I just listened, knowing they didn't have the full picture of what Bonds may or may not have done, but glad they equated "steroids" with "cheating."
My hope is that the sports heroes for my son and his friends will be athletes who don't cheat, as far as we know. And I hope they'll soon be able to cheer for any athlete without worrying whether or not he or she doped up or had "high levels of testosterone," whatever that really means.
Whom to believe?
