Last week, the world of professional track and field was rocked by another doping scandal, as Tyson Gay, the fastest American sprinter ever at 100 meters and three time gold medalist at the 2007 world championships, and Asafa Powell of Jamaica, former world record holder at 100 meters and also owner of 88 sub-10 second finishes in the 100 meters. The positive tests, Powell's for a stimulant and Gay's of a still unknown substance, set of a hale storm of of media vitriol deriding track and field as a sideshow sport with false times and world records fueled by performance enhancing drugs. Nearly every sports talk radio show I listened to last week at one point accused Usain Bolt, by far the greatest talent that track and field has ever seen, of being a cheater.
It is a sad state of affairs for track and field, leaving even the truest of fans, including myself, questioning the direction of the sport. How long until the sport is controlled by a team of doctors, testing concoctions on their guinea pig athletes? Of the 12 fastest men in US history at 100 meters, 7 have been linked to some type of doping scandal. One of our nation's top female sprinters, Carmelita Jeter nicknamed Pharmalita Jeter by many, continues to associate herself with people tied to doping. Marion Jones, the Olympic darling of the 2000 Sydney games, was embroiled in the BALCO scandal and was ultimately stripped of her five Olympic medals. No one wanted to believe Jones could possibly be cheating as she was trumped up as a role model for young girls everywhere, but we should have seen it coming, as she was accused of doping in high school!
The one athlete drawing the most scrutiny, and the one I most believe to be competing clean, is Usain Bolt. Those accusing Bolt of doping, specifically the sports talk hosts who have never watched a professional track race in their life, do not understand just how special an athlete he is. As a skin and bones 17 year old, he ran 20.13 for 200 meters.
Bolt is simply a once in a lifetime athlete. A 6'-5" sprinter dominating a world of 5'-11" to 6-1" sprinters. Most sprinters at the world class level are short, compact balls of muscle. Being small and compact makes it easier to come away from the blocks well, and this is the one thing that has always held Bolt back. It just takes him longer to get up to top speed, but when he does, his stride is one of the most impressive things I have ever seen. His utter domination of the 100 meter final at the 2008 Olympics remains one of the most indelible sporting images of my life, and I am praying it is never tainted by a doping scandal.
As a distance runner, I would be mistaken if I only addressed the doping problem in the sprinting world. Distance running also has its fair share of doping problems to address, perhaps more so than sprinting. Sprinting success is largely inherent to the talents you were born with and technique, but in distance running, success is governed by continued accumulation of mileage and workouts, all geared towards equipping your body with the ability to function aerobically while in an extreme state of physical distress. This can all be accomplished through years and years of hard work, or the process can be speeded up through the use of a nifty little substance called EPO, which is a naturally occuring hormone in the body. Just by looking, you could never detect the use of EPO in a runner on the surface. You do not grow gills while on it and your muscles do not pop out of your skin. Your body just produces more red blood cells and more red blood cells equals more oxygen to the muscles. Just ask Lance Armstrong - EPO works wonders for an endurance athlete.
I believe, more so than any other sport, track and field is a science. It is unlike football, baseball, or basketball in that way. Pitchers have been throwing the ball at about the same velocity for years. We are not on the verge of seeing a pitcher throw the ball 110 mph. We will never see a quarterback capable of lofting 100 yard spirals or a basketball player discovering a jump shot that never misses. All of those skills are governed largely by your natural talent. Humans are not born with the ability to run 9.8 seconds in the 100 meters or 12:50 in the 5k. Those marks require specific training, and we are still learning what type of training leads to those performances. This is why records gradually fall in distance races. We have come a long way since the days of Emil Zatopek training for his races by running 100 meter sprints in combat boots!
This is also why I believe track and field will always have problems with doping. Athletes always want an edge. This is true in every sport. In baseball pitchers doctor the baseball with illegal substances. Linemen in football are always looking for creative ways to hold without getting caught. That is the nature of competition.
Steroids and other performance enhancing drugs have been used for years in all other sports as well, most notably in baseball. But these are team sports, and one player juicing up does not guarantee success. Barry Bonds never won a World Series and neither did Mark McGwire or Sammy Sosa during the height of their steroid use. Did they make millions more than they would have otherwise? The answer to that is a resounding yes, but they did not drastically affect the outcome of the entire season. In an individual sport like track and field, one doped athlete can alter the entire landscape of an Olympic Games, a la Marion Jones or Ben Johnson.
I cannot quite explain the outrage over the use of performance enhancing drugs in endurance sports like track or cycling. There was hardly outrage over the use of drugs in baseball in the late nineties, and even today, a positive drug test by a baseball player sparks a day of fire and brimstone rhetoric by the talking heads on ESPN before the player goes onto his next multimillion dollar contract (Melky Cabrera anyone?). No one questions the rapidly growing size and speed of NFL linebackers. If you think all of those 6'-5" 260 pounders with 5% body fat are not using something than I've got some nice real estate on the moon you might like to purchase. Why then, should it be seen as indicative that the sport of track and field is dying or failing when a couple of sprinters test positive?
I believe what is at the core of such beliefs is the fact that track and field is such an organic sport. It is one of the oldest and most primal sports in the world. It is two men lining up to see who is fastest, who can jump the farthest, or who can throw the farthest. We have all engaged in these activities ourselves. Racing one another is one of the best ways that children assert their dominance. Everyone wants to see where they stack up against each other physically. When we watch track and field, we want to believe that we are watching the best in the world push their bodies to the brink against each other. Naturally and without the aid of any drugs that we ourselves could not take. Track and field record books are not just an homage to those whose names grace the pages, they are an homage to what the human body is capable of when pushed to its utter limits. When records are falsely held by dopers the entire human race has been cheated. Without strict enforcement of doping rules our record books will not be a true measuring stick of what our species is capable of.
Sadly, I believe track and field will always have a doping problem. Doping has been an issue in the sport since the East German and Russian she-men dominated the sport in the seventies and eighties. Doctors and scientists will always have a hand in who wins the Olympic gold. Again, if you think Mo Farah became a transcendent distance runner at the age of 30 after stagnating for years we can talk about that lunar property I mentioned before. The rewards are simply too great for those who choose to take drugs, and the risks not great enough. Most runners make little to nothing competing in the sport. One good season, fueled by drugs, could provide enough winnings to live off for the rest of a young Kenyan's life. Get busted, and you just head back to your home country to sit out your ban, making just about as much money as you would have anyway.
My enjoyment of the sport comes largely from watching the athletes fight and claw their way to the finish. I want to see fast times just as much as the next person, but I would rather watch a race in which 10 men battle the entire length of the bell lap than a sub 12:30 5k in which the winner is doped to the gills. That is not what the sport is all about, but I fear that without the strictest enforcement of drug testing rules, that is what it will devolve into. I long for a day when world records can be set and fast times run without red flags being raised. Or the day when a previously unheralded athlete can emerge from obscurity to win a gold medal without scrutiny. I hate the fact that even as a die hard fan of the sport, I still take world leading performances with a grain of salt. I want to believe that someone like Farah could drastically improve from second rate to world beater through hard work alone or that an unknown like last years 1500 Olympic champ Taoufik Makhloufi could shock the world. Things like that inspire me to pursue my own personal greatness. Instead Makhloufi's victory came with a widespread helping of disbelief. Sadly, he has not been heard from this year, and I fear what many believed about him was true.
I will continue watching track and field no matter how many positive drug tests there are. It is the sport I love the most, despite its warts. What I fear, is that I will be among the few, lost in a sea of doubters and disinterested. Those who love the sport most must fight to keep it clean, be they athletes, fans, or drug testers.
