Just replying to this thread, but since Dan and I have shared a variety of opinions on anti doping well here goes:
All you guys (including the ones in the stadium) booing Gatlin, did almost nothing to “oppose” Gatlin’s presence at any track meets recently. Everyone is outraged because he actually won. Last time I checked he was racing at Rio Olympics and Beijing 2015 worlds. Either you are against him regardless or outcome or you’re not. Selectively booing when he actually wins just feels hypocrticalDan’s post about Jamaica anti doping officials. See what I posted in the IAAF thread. This entire system is broken. You can’t have people from your own country busting your own athletes. It does not work when Russians are entrusted with busting Russians, Americans entrusted to bust Americans, Brits to bust Brits. You really need foreign nationals doing out of competition on your own athletes. Why? Because if I am a Canadian, if I can find a way to bust the entire Russian or Swedish hockey team, by god, I am going to leave no stoned unturned to legally take out my competition. If I am entrusted to bust the likes of Andre DeGrasse (Rio silver in the 200m, bronze in the 100m) or Sydney Crosby, I’m likely not really going to want to bust my own man. Give me the job to bust the Russian or Chinese doper and give the Chinese guy the job to bust American or Canadian dopers and just watch how many get busted…the problem is out of competition is done by your local guys. We need foreign guys in charge of busting athletes globally in every jurisdiction other than their own.I kind of hated Gatlin until right after Rio. I can’t really pinpoint why I hated him compared to other dopers, but I did. But around the time of Rio, I just felt I was being hypocritical with myself. He did his time, let him race. I got over the protour riders who did their times in the sin bin and watch them noting that they are probably max enhanced under the blood passport. Basically I treat Track, FINA Swimming, Pro Cycling and Pro triathlon as varying degrees of low octane doping vs the high octane NFL and WWE doping. I love Contador as an example if it was not clear from the TdF threads, and I am kind of semi fan of Vino…loved the way he raced, didn’t really love the Kazakh doping regime, but I totally get why they do it. Choice is to be a protour rider with a 7 figure contract, or an infantry soldier, or bricklayer. So Gatlin is in the same club in my viewBolt never testing positive ever is awesome, but if he was busted, I’d be as surprised as if Chris Froome is winning the TdF on bread and water and not doing everything he can get away with under the blood passport. If both of these men test positive, no big deal to me. I am just assuming they probably have not been caught. If they are actually clean and mutants who genetically one in 7 Billion specimen (which Bolt just may well be), well then the fairytale I am watching is actually reality. Whether it is reality or fairytale, I am OK with it.Finally, follow the money. The Caesars want the gladiators to be doped and put on a better show in the Coloseum. Replace Caesar with NFL, UCI, MLB, IAAF, FINA, Premier League…the list is endless. The only reason these leagues pay lip service to doping is because they cannot deal with the negative PR of a free for all at the high school/junior level. Then the sponsor money dries up. So they need to act like they car about anti doping, and throw a few guys under the bus, or slap their hands and make them sit in the sin bin for a short while and then they actually want these athletes back. The higher the collective performances, the better. Beating up on Gatlin is taking out frustrations on the wrong target. The Gladiators, also following the money will do whatever they can to win the prize that they can get away with within the written and unwritten rules. I tried an interesting test at work at a team building offsite and created a game in which it was “easy to cheat” to win. Every team was implicitly given the option to cheat to beat the other teams, but also had the option to play clean. No one was going to get ‘caught’ but it was pretty easy to figure out which teams cheated just based on outcomes. The entire thing happens and the results across the board were too awesome at which point I had to bust the entire set of teams and tell them they all cheated. Everyone laughed, but you could just see the human competitiveness in action for nothing but one upmanship. Add in 7 figures of greenbacks and no policing (or limited policing) and its amazing the behaviours you see from very ethical and professional people. Gatlin’s behavior is identical to a long line of elite athletes with lots of $$$$ at stake. Did you guys ever hear the names Jacques Antequil, Eddy Merckx, Laurent Fignon (edit to remove Hinault) …all with positive drug tests all multiple time winners of the Tour de France?
OK all that to say, the problem is not the athletes…it’s the system and officials in charge we need to take our outrage out on. Or just stop watching big $$$ pro sport. I’m just going to sit back and enjoy the show knowing all these dynamics are at play. I enjoy watching sport too much to turn it off…and hopefully the threat of sponsors walking away form doping scandals is just enough to keep the testing, blood passport and other measures sufficient to keep all parties in check so we just see low octane enhancement.