Track and field is one of the greatest symbols of pride to Jamaicans and it is rather bothersome to entertain the notion that it seems as though the Jamaican delegation is being subjected to excessive anti-doping tests. Apparently, top Jamaican Olympic team official, Don Anderson, has complained that unusually frequent anti-doping tests are upsetting preparations by his nation’s sprinters ahead of Friday’s opening races.
“We have never seen this level of testing,” Don Anderson, Jamaica’s delegation head, said in a telephone interview one day after men’s 100-meter gold medal contender Asafa Powell complained he has been excessively tested. “It could affect the performance of our athletes.” What is worrisome to me is that over the past seven days the Jamaicans have been tested 32 times. Somehow, it seems as though they are being profiled, but which country has a history of cheating in recent Olympics in track and field? Isn’t is the Americans? So why has Tyson Gay, according to news reports, been tested once?
Asafa Powell, who is part of a voluntary anti-doping program, said that the number of tests upset him.”They took blood – a lot of blood,” said Powell, adding he has been tested four times.
The IAAF has dismissed such complaints, arguing it’s only logical that medal contenders undergo a lot of tests. But is the same level of testing being done to all athletes?
Qualifying for the men’s 100 begins Friday; the final is Saturday. With Powell and world record-holder Usain Bolt, Jamaica has a shot at a one-two finish, though Tyson Gay of the United States is a strong contender. Bolt alone could haul in more gold medals than the whole Jamaican team brought home four years ago, when it won two races and five overall. He’s favoured to win the 200 and is in line for a golden triple if the strong sprint squad holds off the United States in the 4×100 relay.
In a conversation with a small group of U.S. reporters, IAAF president Lamine Diack praised the anti-drug work of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, including a voluntary testing program that has attracted several top athletes.
“You see your boy Tyson Gay saying ‘OK, I want to be a clean athlete. I’ll give you blood. I’m ready to do that to prove that we are clean,”‘ Diack said. Your boy? Is that how an official is supposed to speak, as though he was hanging with his homeboys?
The International Olympic Committee has made a point of going after dopers at the Beijing Games, increasing the number of tests to about 4,500 – up from 3,600 in Athens. More than 50 athletes already are missing these Olympics because of doping accusations.
The bulk of the drug-testing done from the weeks leading up to the Olympics, through the games and for a few weeks afterward is conducted by the IOC. However, the IOC gave the IAAF permission to continue its own blood-testing program through the Olympics, IAAF secretary general Pierre Weiss said Wednesday.
I don’t have a problem with the testing, because there has been too much incidents of doping by many athletes, notably, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Andruw Pettigrew, among others. The bottom line is that the same level of scrutiny needs to be meted out to all the athletes and there should not be any allegations of profiling in the Olympics.
Filed under: Anti-doping, Asafa Powell, Marion Jones, Tyson Gay, Usain Bolt
Black Political Thought 