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By Zach Bigake

We’re going so far off the beaten path that the event I am about to recount is not even on the calendar of major international sporting events for April, but it nonetheless brings up an important discussion as to how technology has affected the way in which sports around the globe are performed and the level at which achievements are realized. At the French National Swimming Championships in Montpellier on Friday, the Olympic gold-medal holder Alain Bernard broke the 100-meter freestyle world record. In the process, he became the first human to eclipse the 47-second barrier at the distance...

Numbers have been plummeting over the past year in swimming as technology has advanced into the twenty-first century proper. First, we saw Speedo’s release of the LZR Racer prior to the Beijing Olympics spark a controversy as twenty-three of the sport’s twenty-five world records fell during the Games. Once the suit was recognized as legitimate by world governing body FINA as well as the IOC, other companies stepped into the void and began aggressively looking for new ways to shave milliseconds off swimmers’ times.

The controversy has come to a head in Montpellier. Bernard set his record in a suit specially created by swimsuit clothier Arena. This technology, first pioneered by upstart manufacturer Jaked, has arrived on the scene in the form of a revolutionary new fully-coated polyurethane exterior suit that improves upon the old method of polyurethane plating. Jaked representatives have been reported on the scene in France pushing their wares on athletes both in the VIP areas and at the back of the pool. Arena won the world record race, putting Bernard in the top spot of 46.94 seconds in his semifinal heat. But in the final, Jaked took the gold medal as Frederick Bousquet upset the record holder as Bernard had technical difficulties with his goggles in addition to switching back to his old suit. Bousquet then followed his 100-meter triumph by eclipsing the world-record mark in 50 meters with his Jaked suit.

Technology is one of those inevitable things in sport. Athletes by and large are getting fitter all the time, but in the end the human physique sans dopage can only accomplish so much strain. Whether it is the bicycle clip-in pedal or a better ski binding or second-shaving swimsuits, technology is always improving in sports in an effort to achieve victories and put man in position to go faster, stronger, and higher than he ever has before. Traditionalists will balk, but just as football players no longer suit up in leather helmets, so too is the march toward progress inevitable across the athletic spectrum...

But not every technological advance is for the better, it seems. The right swimsuit -- or an aerodynamic skinsuit for those on land -- can make an athlete go faster. But so too can the latest and greatest biomedical advances. These drugs, which in the right hands save lives, are far too often being utilized by otherwise healthy sportsmen and sportswomen to enhance their performance in the interest not of saving, but rather in order to destroy the records on the books...

Last week, as the treble of Ardennes classics was underway in Belgium and the Netherlands, I sat here and praised Davide Rebellin, the first man to sweep the trio of the Amstel Gold Race, Fleche Wallone and Liege-Bastogne-Liege. Also the silver medalist in the road race at this past summer's Beijing Olympics, Rebellin is perhaps one of the best one-day riders of his generation. Now, though, all that comes tumbling down to reality as a retesting of Rebellin's sample reveals that he was taking the new designer recombitant form of synthetic erythropoietin known as CERA. Just a week ago Rebellin was on a high as he took his third victory in the Fleche Wallone; now, he has been temporarily suspended from his team and must work to reclear his now-tainted name.

What a shame... but at the same time, where does one draw the line between what is fair and foul? Both types of advancement -- the use of new technology to produce faster clothing, and the use of new biotechnology to produce faster physiques -- are inevitable, human nature manifested as it always has been during over a century of modern sport. What Rebellin did -- using medical technology which, at the time of his competition, had no viable test to detect it -- is something which many an athlete in every sport has tried at some point in his or her career. Does that make it right? No...

At the same time, though, what it does do is make it ever harder for fans to determine who is and is not under the influence of chemical enhancement. But those doubts are not just in the realm of the current; as human nature reveals, time and time again, that even in the face of stringent and even retroactive testing protocols athletes are prone to try to find their elixir of success, we become even more wary of past as well as present and future accomplishments.

Wait... most people want to affix asterisks or expunge records when a positive test is revealed. But just as we cannot assume that any one athlete is clean or dirty, so too must we refrain from exonerating the athletes of the past. Because there has always been some form of performance-enhancing drug since the birth of the modern sports era in the 1800s, we must hold back from vilifying one person and foisting platitudes on another. What Rebellin did was admittedly out of line, if indeed it is verified that he took CERA. However, what he did is something which countless athletes across the spectrum of athletic pursuits has done since as far back as the ancient Olympics -- use some form of external means of increasing internal ability.

The list coming out of the retroactive testing of samples from Beijing is extensive for the use of CERA (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator), a third-generation synthetic erythropoietin for which tests have only recently been developed with the assistance of Roche Pharmaceuticals, the originator of the drug via the proprietary name Micera. In addition to Rebellin, fellow cyclist Stefan Schumacher of Germany was red-flagged along with 1500-meter track gold medalist Rashid Ramzi of Bahrain, 2004 Athens 20-kilometer walk champion Athanasia Tsoumeleka of Greece (who took ninth in Beijing) and Croatian 800-meter track runner Vanja Perisic have been named. Not all were champions, but all were Olympians -- all too human, in the end.

So as we move on to the rest of the week, remember the cautionary tale of so many that have come before and popped the pill or plunged the needle. Even as we learn that the feats might have been fueled by more than manpower, we nevertheless must realize that what has happened and is happening will continue to happen, no matter what we do. Temper your fanaticism with a healthy dose of skepticism, but don’t let it sour you on the action itself in real time. Hindsight cannot cheapen the memories of the moment itself...

For there is the chance that these moments might be all we have left. Life can take odd twists and turns; Usain Bolt can attest to that. The double gold-medalist in the 100-meter and 200-meter track races at the Beijing Olympics -- the man who set the record in the 100 while still managing to celebrate... and left China with two more reasons to smile, breaking Michael Johnson’s time in the 200 and setting a final world record in the 4x100-meter relay with his Jamaican teammates -- is fortunate to be alive after a car accident in his native Highway 2000.

Bolt, driving his Puma-provided BMW down one of Jamaica’s newest thoroughfares, skidded on the wet road and flipped the car. Taken to the hospital in St. Catherine, the sprinter appears to have mercifully emerged relatively unscathed save some bruising. He will certainly not appear at the IAAF meet in Kingston this weekend, but fortunately for Bolt and for us fans of achievement and the sheer exuberance of sport, he should be back on the track relatively soon. Olivia Grange, the Sports Minister of Jamaica, has visited Bolt and reported that the extent of his injuries is yet unknown but that they appear to be relatively minor in nature.

That’s the point, though... even had we been less lucky and lost Bolt in this wreck, we’d still have the unbridled joy exhibited by an athlete running on all cylinders in a flow of motion that translates as visual poetry in spikes. It is moments like Bolt’s treble in Beijing which fuel my passions as a spectator and journalist...

More moments like these seem to be just upon the horizon. Cycling is nearing the grand-tour season with May’s Giro d’Italia. Barcelona and the trio of English sides are still well within range of reaching the Champions League final after only Manchester United managed a goal in first-leg action over the past two days. And, perhaps most memorably, Rafael Nadal is asserting himself in a manner which makes it ever more possible to imagine the calendar Grand Slam occurring this season. He has swept through the opening two tournaments of clay-court season, winning his fifth consecutive titles in both Monte Carlo and Barcelona. Now he easily finds himself in the third round at the Italian Open along with the man from whom he has assumed number-one status, Roger Federer.

One man who will not join them, though, is British sensation Andy Murray, who fell in the second round in Rome to Argentine qualifier Juan Monaco. Murray has been right there along the way with Nadal as the clay season has brought out another level in the 21-year-old Scottish star. It appeared at first that he would still be there with the rest of the elite, taking the first set 6-1. But Monaco, currently outside the top hundred male players in the world but as recently as last February among the top fifteen, proved resilient against the man four years his junior. Monaco, a specialist on the clay where Murray has merely survived on his talent alone, chipped away at the Scotsman’s façade, taking the second and third sets 6-3, 7-5.

But despite Murray’s ouster, that has been perhaps the most exciting story of the early part of the tennis season. A year ago, it was Novak Djokovic who was showing the ability to contend with Nadal and Federer, sweeping into the third spot in the rankings on the strength of results like his Australian Open victory. This year, it has been Murray who is making all the waves and breathing down Djokovic’s neck as he sets sight on overtaking number three in the ATP.

In fact Djokovic, as the defending champion of this tournament here in Rome after he defeated Stanislas Wawrinka last year in the final, must win again here due to the points system which runs on a twelve-month cycle or he will drop below Murray in the rankings. The points system in the ATP works in such a way that each result replaces the points of the preceding year. Murray’s tear of early 2009 has amassed enough points so that, despite his early departure from Rome, he still has enough to surpass Djokovic without the Serbian’s victory. This tournament, thus, becomes even more exciting to watch than before -- Nadal turns up the gas as he prepares for Paris while Djokovic races to save his place in the pecking order...

The pecking order is now set for the 135th Run for the Roses at Churchill Downs. The Kentucky Derby field is officially set and the starting positions are determined. Early favorite I Want Revenge, from the IEAH Stables which produced 2008 Derby winner Big Brown, is installed in post thirteen at 3-1 odds. Trained by David J. Lanzman and piloted by Joe Talamo -- who will be riding his first Kentucky Derby -- I Want Revenge has won his last two races, the Wood Memorial and Gotham (both at Aqueduct). Dunkirk, in the fifteen spot, and Pioneerof the Nile, next door at sixteen, are both right behind I Want Revenge with 4-1 odds. Friesan Fire, riding out of post six, is another heavily-favored horse after taking the Louisiana Derby in his last race before Churchill Downs, carrying 5-1 odds. These four horses are so far ahead of the field that no other horse comes in at less than 15-1 odds.

One horse who could’ve seriously challenged this quartet was Quality Road, the progeny of sire Elusive Quality who is the sibling of 2004 Kentucky Derby winner Smarty Jones. The winner of the Florida Derby, Quality Road was set to be ridden by top rider John Velasquez, who had his most historic victory back in 2007 when he rode Rags To Riches to the win at the Belmont Stakes, making her the first filly to take the race since 1905 -- a century-long gap that delighted horse-racing fans around the globe. But trainer Jimmy Jerkins had to call off the race for Quality Road on Monday when it was revealed that persistent hoof problems following that Florida Derby win had resulted in a split hoof wall (quarter crack) on his right front foot.

Thus we are left with what is seemingly going to line up as a battle of four. But there’s other horses to watch as well. Sentimental favorite will undoubtedly be General Quarters, trained by former high-school principal Thomas R. McCarthy of Louisville. The septuagenarian McCarthy has been training horses for a quarter-century, but has never reached the pinnacle of his sport until General Quarters fell into his lap eight months after previous bids had fallen through. For $20,000, McCarthy has brought to the Derby a horse capable of making waves, as evidenced by his Blue Grass Stakes victory at Keeneland on April 11. Jockey Julien Leparoux, managed by former McCarthy pupil Steve Bass, will take on the other nineteen horses at the Derby Saturday with hopes of making his horse and its trainer an upset for the ages...

Of course, the best action will be reserved for the debauchery far away from the track. Here’s to hoping native son Hunter S. Thompson is looking down with a tall glass of bourbon and reveling in the festivities... but alas, I’ve got to pick somebody. I had really liked Quality Road before he went out with the hoof injury, so I’m going say the betting man should take the trifecta of Friesan Fire-I Want Revenge-Dunkirk and hope the two dollars grow...

See? There’s still light at the end of the tunnel. Horses still run, swimmers still swim (despite the suits they don), cyclists still pedal... and the memories, the indelible images etched on the mind as we witness these sports spectacles, are no less real regardless of the technology -- legitimate or otherwise -- which helps the athlete achieve these feats. Decry the means, if you must... but don’t disparage the moment...

Submitted 4/30/2009

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