media_artricles :: 2013

Honest truth about running clean

Garth Wattley :: Trinidad Express :: 23.06.2013

They are ordered to their blocks, the starter’s gun goes off and down the track they go. In Moscow next month, athletes from around the world will be following those instructions. But Tyson Gay will not be among them, neither will Asafa Powell, Veronica Campbell-Brown or Sherone Simpson.

Within the space of a month or so, track and field’s reputation as a sport that had recovered its lustre after the BALCO revelations that took down Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery, had taken a serious hit with the new positive tests for four of the sport’s high profile athletes. The Moscow World Championships will now begin in a subdued atmosphere; not like a year ago when London town was bright and buzzing with expectation; expectation fulfilled spectacularly by Usain Bolt and his Jamaican posse on the track and the British athletes just about in every discipline. They made the Olympics of 2012 a happy games.

It is an impossible act to follow for the track and field championships in the Russian capital. While the “Lightning Bolt” could strike at least twice again in Moscow, the latest proof that what track and field aficionados see, is not necessarily excellence pure and clean, will dampen some of the enthusiasm, at least for a while.

Everyone wants to believe that all those nine-point-somethings are just the result of natural talent, good nutrition and very hard work. That is what the sponsors and meet organisers of course hope for; or at least hope the public would accept.

But as other sports like baseball in the United States are finding out now, where there is big money to be made, there will always be athletes and their handlers willing to take their chances and cross the line. The boldface lying is what gets me. It is almost as if these people have become self delusional, so that their lies are now their reality.

Almost in every case, there is a “I didn’t know”, Sad Sack story; the illegal substances somehow finding themselves into the “innocents” through sabotage or an offending legal supplement.

I’m prepared to accept that some may be guilty of naivety, not that that exonerates them. But for seasoned athletes now getting on in years to offer such a defence doesn’t wash. Come again fellows.

I feel bad especially for the folks in Jamaica. It must be worrying, that in so short a space of time, as many as five of their representatives have failed dope tests

I remember being there last year for cricket, but seeing how the island was ravaged by Olympic fever. Not even the advance of a tropical storm could stop the partying in Halfway Tree, in supermarkets and wherever else Jamaicans were gathered when Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce were dashing to gold in the 100 metres. Fifty years of Independence seemed really an occasion for celebration to those people because of what their athletes were doing before the eyes of the world. So to have some of those heroes tainted by cheating must be painful.

So far, T&T’s latest achievers on the track have not found themselves in such difficulty. One can only hope things stay that way. But I have been thinking about them in another sense.

Have you noticed readers, a pattern with those who have stood on the podium in the past?

Well think about this. What have they done since?

Trailblazer Hasely Crawford never came close to the excellence of Montreal 1976 in the years that followed, which included further Olympic appearances in 1980 and 1984, although there were Commonwealth Games bronze medals in the 100 and 4x100 relay in 1978. But he is not singular in this. Take some of the more recent medal-winners.

Darrel Brown, at age 18 was second to Kim Collins in the 100 metres at the 2003 World Championships in Paris. He ran 10.08 then. At the National Championships in 2005, he clocked 9.99, which is still his personal best.

Now 28, when he should be in his prime, Brown’s best days seem behind him.

There is also 400 metres man Renny Quow who battled his way to bronze at the Berlin World Champs in 2009 in 45.02. At the next Worlds in Daegu, South Korea, Quow actually ran faster, clocking 44.84 in the first round, but he bowed out in the semifinals.

Injury kept him sidelined in London, but checking back since his bronze medal year in 2009, Quow has struggled to run sub-45. His best effort last year was 45.48, and so far this season, he has not gone faster than 45.65.

Richard Thompson made a name for himself in Beijing 2008, even though he was a long way second to Bolt in the Olympic 100m final. Thompson also got silver as part of T&T’s 4x100m relay team at those Games.

But as an individual since then, steady progress has eluded him.

In the four years that followed his breakthrough year, the “Torpedo” managed just five sub-ten times, this in an age when running 9.99 is considered slow. So far this year, his best legal effort has been 10.14 which he has done in Florida and Lausanne.

And the 2013 form so far of London 400m bronze medallist Lalonde Gordon has not encouraged hope of a repeat or better in Moscow. He was only fourth at the National Championships.

There have been exceptions of course.

Since winning bronze at the 2011 World Champs, Kelly-Ann Baptiste has continued to run like the police are in pursuit. She has established herself among the top female sprinters in the world even though she finished out of the medals in London, and should be a contender again in Moscow.

And while Ato Boldon has never been an Olympic champion, his collection of World Champs and Olympic medals speaks to his pedigree.

Why though have the others not managed to progress in the way the Jamaicans and Grenada’s Kirani James have done?

Neither James nor Yohan Blake have looked back as they say, since grabbing gold in Daegu.

Is the problem here therefore cultural; that a mental relaxation has come because the big medal has been won and the country has showered cash and gifts on the winners?

The case of each individual is different. Injury has played its part, as in the case of 2009 women’s 400 hurdles bronze medallist Josanne Lucas. But there does seem to be a pattern.

Javelin man Keshorn Walcott, just in his first full year as a senior thrower, has a great opportunity to start a different trend in the years to come.

But here is another thought.

Maybe we should be glad that Thompson and company are not running in the super fast lane.

I think I will be happy about that, since this may be a sign that the T&T boys and girls are doing their honest best. And running clean.

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