Volume XXII

Before I move on to the joys of the sports week, I unfortunately must touch once again on a subject about which our writers here at Informative Sports have proven expert on far too many occasions. Performance enhancement in sports is nothing new, as Jay Matthews can attest -- he and I are currently in the process of compiling a book about the human side of doping’s history. As Joe Cantiello, the author of The Needle and the Damage Done, can attest, there is real fiscal incentive to take these substances. But while I have long faced a paradox with the subject, it nevertheless pains me to have to explain once again to a perplexed audience why another positive test has emerged. 

No, today we are not discussing Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz and more leaks from baseball’s “anonymous” 2003 test. Plenty of other writers -- including our own -- have covered the subject already, and it doesn’t deserve the overkill. But while I ignore that story for the moment, there’s no deficit of positive tests on which to report. Unfortunately, this result comes courtesy of one event which assumed it had finally weathered the storm and emerged cleanly on the other side. 

The Tour de France is no stranger to drug use. From les forçats de la route to Operacion Puerto, the Tour has long been associated with one form or another of supplement which the athletes have taken merely to survive this race of attrition. The Pelissier Brothers, Charly Gaul, Tom Simpson, Michel Pollentier, Gert-Jan Theunisse, Richard Virenque, Jan Ullrich, Floyd Landis, Alexandre Vinokourov, Riccardo Ricco... the list of names is a veritable roster of superstars from the sport. And now we can add another name to the rolls -- Mikel Astarloza, who soloed into Bourg-Saint-Maurice on stage 16 of the 2009 Tour to take the first stage victory of his career and set up his eleventh-place finish in Paris. It turns out that Astarloza tested positive for the ubiquitous EPO, an endurance athlete’s drug of choice as it boosts oxygen-carrying red blood cell production. 

The sample which tested positive was taken out of competition on June 26 just before the start of the Tour de France in Monaco. After verification in the WADA-accredited laboratory in Madrid, it was announced on the last day of July that Astarloza achieved his success in France with artificial aid. The Basque rider, protesting his innocence, now has the right to have his B-sample analyzed. Should it too test positive, the Euskaltel-Euskadi rider risks receiving a two-year ban. But while this is the first blow to this edition of the Tour, which had survived its entirety this year without a single doping revelation, it is not cycling which should be blasted at this point. 

For while baseball and football drag their feet on substantive, regular testing of its athletes both in and out of competition, regularly fail to reveal positives in a timely manner, and then hand out a pittance of a punishment when positives are revealed, cycling and other international sports have emerged from their checkered pasts to head the charge toward fighting for drug-free sport. Cycling, as the most vilified of sports, has faced the most scrutiny; and because of this perpetual suspicion, the UCI has headed the field when it comes to testing its athletes and cracking down on those who use performance enhancers. 

So far, we haven’t seen the results of indomitable champion Alberto Contador, fresh-faced runner-up Andy Schleck or grizzled podium finisher Lance Armstrong tainted with the stain of modern medicine. But even if we do, it will be proof that this sport has come a long way from the days of obfuscation. We can applaud the transparency of cycling, which takes every step available and is constantly improving its testing procedures to catch those who would attempt to usurp the spirit of fair play that we’ve come to inherently demand from our sports... 
 

Hopefully, the upcoming IAAF World Championships have passed their suspect moments already. They experienced their own EPO moment when five Brazilian athletes -- sprinters Bruno Lins Tenorio, Jorge Celio Sena, Josiane Tito and Luciana Franca, and heptathlete Lucimara Silvestre -- tested positive and were forced out of the championships. The five athletes headed home to await the results from their B-samples, but there is no way, even if the second test proves their innocence, that they will be cleared in time for the worlds. It’s obvious, as we have seen in cycling, that erythropoietin has real benefits for athletes in endurance events. Just like pedaling a bicycle, running many a mile requires as much oxygen as possible. This ruling is evidence that the IAAF, just like the UCI, takes its anti-doping stance seriously. 

We’ve also witnessed the expulsion of five Jamaican track stars that tested positive for the stimulant methylxanthine. The Jamaican national team was forced to keep these four men and one woman off their roster prior to Berlin despite the fact that no proof of guilt has been established. But the mere fact that this quintet is being ostracized, especially given the product for which they are being denied a slot on the team, is further evidence that international sports have far outpaced their American counterparts in testing for indiscretions. 

After all, what is methylxanthine? It turns out that the drug, which is a derivative of the naturally-occurring xanthine, is a diuretic which is found in such everyday products as coffee, tea, cocoa and cola. The three main methylxanthines are caffeine, theophylline, and theobromine. Methylxanthines are regularly used in many bronchodilators to aid in respiration. And it does NOT directly appear on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s list of banned products. It turns out that its ban is based on its stimulant properties, as it is classified amongst other products like pseudoephedrine and salbutamol, other drugs with legitimate pharmaceutical applications which can be found in a wide range of broncodilators and decongestants. 

We have already seen Alessandro Petacchi face a ban for using his inhaler too many times. We know that these sports are cracking down more than ever before. While you hear from many athletes that they eschew even the most seemingly-benign of cold medicines when they get sick, lest an item contained therein send up the tester’s red flags, there will always be a contingent for whom attempting to beat the testing system is simply part of the competition. All we can ask for in the end is transparency, some honesty that when a positive result emerges it will be punished... 
 

For that matter, we’ve now come to demand it from every facet of our sports. Now we not only want to censor what our athletes put in their bodies, but we are looking to restrict the advancement of the technology going into what these sports figures put on their bodies. While certain instances have existed where authorities attempted to maintain some semblance of uniformity in the equipment used to compete -- stock car designs, bicycle weight restrictions -- rarely is the clothing on an athlete’s back subject to scrutiny. Sure, some leagues will attempt to regulate uniformity within a team’s attire for aesthetic purposes. But as athletic attire has evolved from the wool and cotton of yesteryear to the composite synthetics designed to keep athletes at an optimum physical state, a collective yawn has echoed from the masses. 

After the recently completed FINA World Championships in Rome, no longer will we look at an athlete’s garb in the same way. With records tumbling one after the other in the pool at swimming’s showcase event, the international governing body has decided the time is long overdue to crack down on the swimwear revolution. After the LZR Racer from Speedo burst on the scene before the Beijing Olympics, swimming designers scrambled for an answer to the sleek full-body suit which propelled Michael Phelps and many others to a stunning haul of medals. Both Arena and Jaked came out with designs which went beyond Speedo’s strategically-placed polyurethane panels to incorporate the slick synthetic across the entire exterior. 

This development has led to the virtual obliteration of the record books, as the buoyant and glide-assisting material has shaved seconds off national and world records. I am certainly not against technological innovation -- the emergence of time-trial technology in cycling, from aerodynamic helmets and seat and handlebar positions to form-fitting seamless uniforms, has helped make the discipline more exciting. And for a time, the development of new suits in swimming was the same way. But once the suits allowed mere mortals to compete on the same level as Olympic legends, it went beyond merely the nature of the business into a corporate Cold War in the pool. When sponsors were forced to allow their swimmers to use competitor technology because to refuse would lead to certain failure, it stopped being a test of the athlete’s ability to propel him- or herself faster and started to become a test of the clothier’s ability to create the fastest material possible. 

So while it sure was fun watching guys like Paul Biedermann and Milorad Cavid and Alain Bernard glide like cigarette boats over the water in their supernatural suits, I had a much better time watching a guy like Eric Shanteau take silver in the 200-meter breaststroke just one-hundredth of a second behind Hungarian winner Daniel Gyurta while bare-chested and racing in an old-school TYR suit. The testicular cancer survivor, who was the revelation of last year’s Olympics when he qualified ahead of American favorite Brendan Hansen for the second spot in Beijing, shows how good the sport of swimming can be -- without cheap gimmicks like floating polymers which turn freestyle and butterfly specialists into marine mammals. I for one won’t be crying when the swimmers go back to material and length restrictions come January. Just as we desire that our athletes compete on a level playing field when it comes to what they put in their system, so too should attire play only a passive role. Once equipment starts deciding who wins and who loses, we all lose for the experience... 
 

The rules, after all, should be sacrosanct. If you are going to codify something, then adhering to those defined boundaries is essential if we wish to assert their legitimacy. Once one exception is acknowledged as legitimate, the floodgates are open. Before you know it, an ever-expanding list of loopholes cracks the façade of fairness. So I had no choice but to side with the Williams and Red Bull teams in Formula 1 as they refused to allow returned racer Michael Schumacher to test out the new Ferrari technology in his return to the sport after an abridged three-year retirement. 

After Felipe Massa suffered a head injury after being hit from debris flying off of Rubens Barrichello’s car during a pre-race practice session at the Hungarian Grand Prix, Schumacher decided to return to take interim control of the vacant car. After having won seven world titles with the Ferrari team, Schumacher once again will team up with the manufacturer while Massa recovers from his injury. The team had hoped that Schumacher would get the opportunity to experience the new technology ahead of the European Grand Prix in Valencia at the end of the month. 

But rules are rules, and in-season testing is expressly forbidden regardless of the circumstance. Ferrari had petitioned the other Formula 1 teams to give Schumacher permission to climb in the cockpit for a test session, but Williams and Red Bull both refused that permission. Citing the fact that Spanish teenager Jaime Alguersuari was unable to track test prior to his inaugural race in Hungary after his midseason call-up to the top ranks by his Toro Rosso team, the two teams denied Schumacher his ability to test. 

And you know what? For all the bellyaching coming from Ferrari about the decision, it is the right one. Schumacher is one of the most gifted drivers of any generation, and his ability on the track is still keen after having stayed active in motorcycle racing following his open-wheel retirement. His aptitude for adapting to new technology is second to none, and he has been able to get back behind the wheel in the 2007 edition of the Ferrari racer to at least experience the speed once again. So there is no need to shed one tear for Schumacher or the racing team; he will still be in the hunt when the Spanish roads clear for the speedsters. If a rookie can adapt to the machine, an accomplished champion should have no problem at all... 
 

Well, time’s up and it appears that this sports week was filled more with reasons to recoil than to rejoice. Sometimes that is how things work, though -- sports, after all, are a microcosm of life itself, and we cannot always feel sublime joy in our everyday travels. But we continue to watch nonetheless, because we can feel the entire spectrum of emotion as we watch. Being a spectator is to actively suffer or celebrate that which we cannot even passively control. In that respect, being a spectator is to live. So climb aboard, enjoy the ride in all its facets, and be sure to view things with a critical eye...