Tym Glaser, Associate Editor - Sport
FORGIVE MY cynicism, but I just can't get overly excited about another track and field record tumbling.
Well done 'Mr. 9.76', Justin Gatlin, I wholeheartedly applaud you with one hand, but I simply can't trust what you and your sprint predecessors have done in my journalistic lifetime.
It's unfair to claim that all the record breakers since 1980 are chemical by-products, but my skepticism about these freakish performances continues to grow.
From Donald Lippincott's hand-timed 10.6 in 1912 through to the great Jim Hines' electronic 9.95 in 1968, the men's 100m record tumbled all of six times. From 1983 through to Friday, the mark has been reduced, officially, eight times and, of course, that's not including Messrs. Ben Johnson and Timmy Montgomery.
Sure, we're all eating better nowadays and the training regimens are more refined, but c'mon, give me a break, those figures must be suspect - just like the home run surge in American baseball in the late '90s.
ONE OF THE DIRTIEST
Track and field should be the purest of all sports due to its simplicity, but sadly it's one of the dirtiest, ranking only behind weightlifting and bodybuilding and alongside cycling in the drug-cheat department.
At the most élite level, few 'honest' athletes can compete and many get sucked into the drug culture because "Everybody is doing it, so why shouldn't I?"
They are then aided and abetted by ambitious coaches and chemists who plan strict drug-taking charts designed to have them peak at specific times while being able to remain undetected to the authorities.
Don't kid yourself. Despite the stringent and random drug testing in the sport, the testers are way behind the chemists and the only real way an athlete gets caught is if he or she becomes too sloppy or greedy and doesn't follow the schedule or is 'dobbed in' by jealous rivals.
Tell me Flo-Jo was clean when she broke all those records in the late '80s and I'll tell you I'm the Pied Piper.
DRUGS
Tell me Marion Jones is a clean athlete and I'll ask you: Why did she deal with drug Svengali Victor Conti of the infamous Balco lab?
Maybe she just kept bad company like super-juiced ex-hubby C.J. Hunter and her baby father, Montgomery, the former world record holder for 100m and the poster child for synthetic achievement. By the by, I hear their pickney is running sub-11s already. Better watch out Asafa and Justin.
Quite frankly, I really don't give a sod's toss what athletes put in their bodies nowadays. Heck, a boxer last week tested positive for the diuretic Lasix, which is used to stop horses from bleeding!
I understand a boxer not wanting to bleed but, really, what was the imbecile thinking?
There's a train of thought that maybe we should just let them all cheat and let them bear the consequences later. Some die young and some women have actually turned into men. Others can hardly walk nowadays, but I'm sure if you asked 'em they'd do it all again for the glory and the prizes.
Next month 'our' Powell and 'their' Gatlin are destined to meet at Gateshead in England and the world record could topple again.
For just turning up, the pair will get US$100,000 each. That breaks down to about US$10,000 per second of work - wish I got paid like that. I'd retire yesterday.
It promises to be the most compelling sporting clash of the year outside of the World Cup final in Germany. I'll watch, but I don't know if I can truly believe what I see.
