I cannot believe that there are some people in the United States who are still up-in-arms about Usain Bolt’s hat-trick at the Beijing Olympics. Well, has-been Carl Lewis is the latest US athlete to criticize Bolt. Doesn’t this seem suspect? Just because the U.S. track team self-destructed, nobody else could have won fairly, in Carl Lewis’ eyes. This smacks of jealousy and hypocrisy to me.
Of all the people, Carl Lewis is seeking his 10 minutes in the spotlight. Didn’t he win nine Olympic medals? Did anyone accuse him of doping? Oh yeah, he was accused and was allowed to compete in the 1988 Games in Seoul having been cleared by the IAAF after being accused of testing positive for banned stimulants. How quickly do we forget how it feels to be wrongfully accused of doping. So, now I wonder, was he ever doped up like Marion Jones and he just had something more sophisticated at the time? He said that he was not singling out Bolt and also questioned the performance of Jamaica’s female sprinters. Yes, after they routed the Americans. Let me add, that the IOC targeted the Jamaica sprinters for blood-testing when they were in Beijing and none of them tested positive.
In an incendiary interview in Sports Illustrated, Lewis said: “When people ask me about Bolt I say he could be the greatest athlete of all time. But for someone to run 10.03 one year and 9.69 the next, if you don’t question that in a sport that has the reputation it has right now, you’re a fool. Period.”Carl Le
wis, you are an even bigger fool to spread that kind of falsehood.
Like many others, Lewis pointed to Jamaica’s perceived lack of testing as the foundation for his suspicion. “I’m proud of America right now because we have the best random and most comprehensive drug-testing program. Countries like Jamaica do not have a random program, so they can go months without being tested. No one is accusing Bolt, but don’t live by a different rule and expect the same kind of respect. How dare anybody feel that there shouldn’t be scrutiny, especially in our sport?”The point is, they were tested, perhaps, more than any other athletes at the games and nothing was found.
Lewis also expressed his anger that Antonio Pettigrew, the American who testified this year to doping when part of the United States Olympic title-winning 4 x 400 metres relay team in 2000, had kept his job as a coach.Yes, pick the speck out of your own eyes before you look at another. Herb Elliott, the Jamaica team doctor and a member of the IAAF antidoping commission, accused the US of peddling “condescending crap” at the Olympics. “They still think we don’t know anything down in Jamaica,” he said. As I have written, track and field is ingrained in the culture of Jamaica. Children start running on the island at an early age, so this level of success is nothing new. Carl Lewis needs to go back under rock from whence he came. Not everyone cheats. You know, this is funny. Michael Phelps has won a myriad of gold medals at the Olympics and I have yet to hear one person insinuate that he cheated.
Filed under: Antonio Pettigrew, Carl Lewis, Marion Jones, Michael Phelps, Usain Bolt
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