Were the experiences and competitive results I obtained with the help of doping worth the physical and mental anguish I’ve suffered during the past two years? The simple answer is “no”. While this probably seems like a no-brainer to the casual fan or weekend racer, it was not a conclusion I ever foresaw during those long nights spent hooked up to an IV or smarting from an intramuscular injection.
Doping can ruin your life...
and that’s the message I have for young athletes who might face similar choices
Don’t get me wrong - save from a few brief moments of clarity when I recoiled in disgust from my participation in systematic doping - I understand that I was willing to follow “the program” if it meant I could keep racing and practicing the sport I loved in an environment that seemed intoxicating to me.
Unbeknown to most, I had two significant opportunities to escape the system - one in the aftermath of a terrible crash in 2003 that almost cost me my left leg, and later in early 2006 after it was revealed publicly that a former teammate of mine had tested positive for EPO.
And though both times I took baby steps towards the door of mental and physical freedom from cheating, I lacked sufficient willpower, confidence and hope for a future without competitive cycling to break free. Maybe things would have been different if I’d had a stronger outside influence, or a better-calibrated moral compass, but the reality is that I didn’t, and I’m reminded of this each and every day of my life.
I don’t ask for sympathy from those of you who could never understand how a good person can make a fundamentally bad decision - or even a series of major mistakes - but I was amazed by the venomous hostility that characterized so much of the anonymous email sent to me care of my website.
I never realized that so many people felt so let down or angry with me for my own failings. I do offer my sincerest apologies to those people I directly harmed - my competitors who raced without the aid of performance enhancing drugs. I know you’re out there and I took food from your plate. (Though I met more dopers than clean professional cyclists during my time with a UCI license.)
Without cataloging the entire collection of woes that have befallen me as a result of doping, there are four that bear mentioning (in addition to almost having died after my last race), and which future professionals tempted by the needle should acknowledge:
The poisoning of personal and professional relationships that were incredibly important to me; separation from my family.
My inability to secure post-cycling work in the professional field for which I’d trained,
My subsequent financial ruin;
And the dual physical and mental anguish I’ve endured since being cast out of the sport I loved, which formed such a dominant part of my identity and sense of self.
I started cycling on May 25, 1989 - my 14th birthday, one day after the death of my father. Cycling was an escape from a shattered childhood, but also a means to supercharge my existence - to travel to exotic parts of the world, immerse myself in foreign cultures, represent my country, test myself physically and mentally and generally collect experiences that I thought would form a life tapestry rivaling that of my peers. In the end though, that tapestry is shredded. It hangs in tatters, and I’m left with little more than a few dusty trophies, fading stamps in my passport and vague notions of “what could have been”.
Unlike the authors of more than a few melodramatic letters that appeared in major cycling publications, I would never dissuade a young athlete from following his sporting dreams. I would, however, strongly encourage anyone choosing to pursue sport as a career to relentlessly analyze the long-term costs of his participation against the short-term benefits. Ruin lies in wait for dopers who are caught, but even clean sport can exact a significant toll.
There are two questions I wish I’d prepared answers for prior to leaving grad school to return to racing:
1) What would I choose to do if I couldn’t race a bicycle and
2) How would I support myself doing something I loved and construct an enjoyable life if professional cycling couldn’t be a part of it?
I’ve been forced to confront the fact that my answers to both questions are still incomplete, and that I’m running out of time to respond appropriately. I am humbled and contrite, and implore you - young athletes to avoid making the same mistakes that have consigned me to my present state.
by Joe Papp
tisdag 5 januari 2010
fredag 18 december 2009
From cheaters to leaders; Canada lost its innocence as a country with Ben Johnson's fall from grace...
Since then, we've been at the forefront of drug testing as cheating has become more and more common... It is a distinctive Canadian fantasy that we are all hoser cousins to Const. Benton Fraser, the overly polite, virtuous Mountie in the TV series Due South.After all, Vancouver Canucks fans have roundly booed the singing of the Star-Spangled Banner at playoff games, international speedskaters have complained of being shut out from access to the Richmond oval, and our single-minded Own the Podium, win-at-all-costs approach to the 2010 Winter Games tilts the playing field too much for some tastes.
"That, to me, is just not in the spirit of the Olympics," chided U.S. skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender.
It’s not the first time somebody has held a mirror up to us and we didn’t like the reflection.
In 1988, sprinter Ben Johnson was disqualified after winning 100-metre Olympic gold because a rival supposedly spiked his water bottle. As explanations go, it was lame —as plausible as Tiger Woods headed to the driving range when he crashed his Escalade at 2 a.m. Yet despite the messiness and the furor Johnson created, sparking a royal commission and passionate national hand-wringing, we were forever changed by it.
We grew up, lost our sense of virginity and reversed the ratio — long on rhetoric but short on action — to become world leaders in the anti-doping movement.
That position was cemented in place — literally — when the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) chose Montreal in 2001 as its home base. And it is no coincidence that Montreal is the hometown of lawyer Dick Pound, former International Olympic Committee vice-president, former chairman of WADA and one of the most strident critics of drug use in sports.
"I think there’s no question the Ben Johnson affair was a big shock to Canadians generally," Pound says. "It has propelled us into one of the leading countries in the anti-doping movement."
Even the name of Canada’s anti-doping body — the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport — has a moralistic, Benton Fraser ring to it, reflecting this country’s high-minded attitude to elite sport.Yet the watchdog agency responsible for administering our country’s anti-doping program seems to catch more "soft" drug takers than hardcore cheaters.
"The most common positive test [for a Canadian athlete] is marijuana," says Dr. Bob McCormack, Canada’s chief medical officer for the 2010 Olympics. "And pot is not exactly performance-enhancing."
But before we let our heads get as swelled up as baseball villain Barry Bonds’s transformed body, it’s naive to think there are no Canadians who accept performance enhancers as a means to a chemical edge.
Pound got into hot water with the National Hockey League in 2005 when he claimed about one-third of players, the majority of them Canadians, were taking advantage of »pharmaceutical assistance." It was a figure designed for shock value, though mild in comparison with Jose Canseco, the retired slugger who estimated that 85 per cent of major-leaguers were on steroids by the turn of the new millennium.
Pound is quick to point out that he is talking "stimulants," not "steroids," which can mean anything from caffeine intake (Wayne Gretzky gulped copious amounts of coffee before games), to Sudafed (an over-the-counter cold remedy players use to kick-start their motors) to heart-racing energy drink Red Bull.
"Just hearing [Alexander] Ovechkin say, ‘You don’t even need Red Bull to play in this building [Bell Centre in Montreal]’ tells you something," Pound says. "When players step out on the ice after ingesting these Sudafed and Red Bull cocktails, they’re just wired."
Still, what he says shouldn’t cause waves at all, not for anyone familiar with the Steroidal Era, and the hundreds of stories that remain buried. Did the fact that superhero Alex Rodriguez was unmasked as a cheat and admitted testing positive for steroids affect his already delicate relationship with Yankee fans? Not all, apparently, judging by the delirious throngs who lined the Canyon of Heroes in Manhattan to celebrate the Yankees’ 27th World Series title. A-Rod’s public rehabilitation might not be over, but he has at least reached first base compared to Bonds. Rarely does the topic of steroids go public in the Canadian Football League because there is no drug-testing policy. That is supposed to be rolled into a new collective bargaining agreement in 2010, promises commissioner Mark Cohon. But how necessary it is or how effective it can be is open to question, given the CFL’s working-class culture and the limited resources available to put real teeth into testing.A decade ago, there was a saying that to be a great Olympic athlete you need a great coach and a great chemist. Now you might need a great lawyer.
After years of discussion, WADA marked its 10th anniversary in November by ratifying the biological passport system, perhaps the most vigilant test yet in the detection of performance-enhancing drugs. The project involves collecting a sample of an athlete’s blood, storing the profile on WADA’s database and monitoring it over time to detect variations that could indicate doping. Long after traces of a banned substance have been purged from the system, an athlete’s passport could indict him for cheating through an abnormal blood profile, even without a positive drug test. It’s a reason you won’t see five-time Olympic gold medal speed skater Claudia Pechstein at the Winter Games in February. On Nov. 25, the German lost her appeal of a two-year ban based on an unusually high level of immature blood cells, though no actual trace of a drug was found.
"Because our athletes have been tested more severely, and we’ve stressed education, they are generally cleaner than [athletes in] some other countries," McCormack suggests. "It’s like tax filing. The more likelihood of an audit, the less of an incentive there is to cheat."
No doubt about it, since the mortifying spectacle of Ben Johnson, Canadian athletes have remained remarkably free from the whiff of scandal — the potent smoke of cannabis notwithstanding.
mbeamish@vancouversun.com
AFP/Getty Images files
Photograph by: ROMEO GACAD, AFP SUN
tisdag 8 december 2009
ATHLETE OF THE DECADE: Like him or not, Bonds drew all eyes - and most MVP votes
A month ago, during simpler times, Tiger Woods was presented with a tricky question: Who would he pick as the athlete of the decade?
Plenty of possible choices - Lance Armstrong, Roger Federer, Kobe Bryant, Barry Bonds, Tom Brady, among them. Tiger, too. Told the list of candidates, and leaving himself out of the mix, Woods contemplated their merits for two holes during a pro-am in China before he finally found himself torn between Federer and Bonds.
Federer set the record for Grand Slam victories. And what did he find appealing about Bonds?
"Take the scandal out of it," Woods said. "He changed the game."
So there you have it. The whole Barry Bonds case, summed up by one of sports' greatest hitters.
On the field, with his maple bat cocked and his body covered in black armour, Bonds was a beast. Off the field, well, perhaps he also epitomized exactly what the era meant in baseball.
"No matter what people were thinking, they still came out to the park to see Barry," said Dusty Baker, Bonds' longtime manager in San Francisco. "Accuse him, cheer him, boo him, whatever. He was turning those turnstiles."
MVP in 2001. MVP in 2002. MVP in 2003. MVP in 2004. Remember this: No other player has won more than three MVP trophies in an entire career.
Oh, and the home runs.
A whopping 73 in a season and a record 762 for his career. Cameras flashed all over the Giants' waterfront ballpark in 2007 when he broke Hank Aaron's lifetime mark by launching No. 756 deep into the August night.
Bonds thrust both arms over his head when he connected, and the celebration began. He didn't seem to mind that Aaron and commissioner Bud Selig were absent, further fuelling the debate about steroid accusations and asterisks.
"This record is not tainted at all. At all. Period," Bonds declared.
Baker wasn't with the Giants then, but he once got a firsthand look at a similarscene. He was on deck in Atlanta when Aaron hit No. 715 in 1974 and broke Babe Ruth's record.
"I saw Hank Aaron every day," Baker said. "But when Barry Bonds was at his peak, boy!"
Easy to see why Bonds' achievements put him among the candidates for The Associated Press' Athlete of the Decade. And who would the slugger choose if he had a vote?
Woods, Bonds picked a few weeks ago. "He is an amazing golfer," Bonds told the AP through his publicist, Lisa Nitta.
Bonds' accomplishments may be equally amazing.
In 2001, he broke Mark McGwire's single-season home run record of 70. In 2002, he capped a monster post-season performance with his only World Series appearance - Bonds hit .356 with eight homers and 27 walks in 17 games that October, only to see the Giants fall short in Game 7 against the Angels.
In 2004, at age 40, Bonds became the oldest player to win an MVP award in North America's four major pro sports. He hit .362 with 45 home runs and 101 RBIs, yet those were hardly his most impressive stats.
His true dominance showed up in how teams pitched to him. Or rather, didn't pitch to him. Bonds drew 232 walks that year, 120 of them intentional passes. The Pittsburgh Pirates once gave him an intentional walk when he led off an inning - the 10th inning, that is.
Boosted by all those walks, Bonds reached base nearly 61 per cent of the time in 2004. Chances are, he didn't even do that as a kid playing Wiffle Ball in the backyard with his famous father. Who could?
Some pitchers basically decided to never fool around with Bonds. Consider Bonds' lifetime stats against reliever Guillermo Mota: 1-for-1, which was a home run, and eight walks. Arizona manager Buck Showalter took the same approach several years earlier, ordering Bonds to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded.
"Teams would try to take him out of the game, and he'd still find a way to beat you," Baker said.
Bonds missed most of 2005 because of knee trouble and couldn't find a club to sign him after 2007, when he led the majors in on-base average for the sixth time in seven years.
After winning three MVPs in the '90s, Bonds' totals for his shortened 2000s: 317 home runs with a .322 batting average, .517 on-base average and .724 slugging percentage.
Whether all of that will eventually lead Bonds to the Hall of Fame is uncertain. To some fans, he was the face of baseball's drug scandal, mentioned 103 times in the Mitchell Report.
Bonds steadfastly said he never knowingly used steroids - and he wasn't penalized by baseball - but still faces legal issues. In a case stemming from his testimony before a federal grand jury in December 2003, he pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice.
The cloud of suspicion certainly cost Bonds an opportunity to play longer, he was indicted seven weeks after his final game, and could cut down his chance of being elected to Cooperstown.
His agent, Jeff Borris, contacted teams for more than a year trying to find Bonds a job. Now 45, Bonds has not officially announced his retirement.
"He was run out of Major League Baseball. Barry's been unfairly vilified in the Steroid Era," Borris asserted. "If he had been allowed to keep playing, he would've hit 800-plus home runs in his sleep."
AP Golf Writer Doug Ferguson contributed to this report.
Plenty of possible choices - Lance Armstrong, Roger Federer, Kobe Bryant, Barry Bonds, Tom Brady, among them. Tiger, too. Told the list of candidates, and leaving himself out of the mix, Woods contemplated their merits for two holes during a pro-am in China before he finally found himself torn between Federer and Bonds.
Federer set the record for Grand Slam victories. And what did he find appealing about Bonds?
"Take the scandal out of it," Woods said. "He changed the game."
So there you have it. The whole Barry Bonds case, summed up by one of sports' greatest hitters.
On the field, with his maple bat cocked and his body covered in black armour, Bonds was a beast. Off the field, well, perhaps he also epitomized exactly what the era meant in baseball.
"No matter what people were thinking, they still came out to the park to see Barry," said Dusty Baker, Bonds' longtime manager in San Francisco. "Accuse him, cheer him, boo him, whatever. He was turning those turnstiles."
MVP in 2001. MVP in 2002. MVP in 2003. MVP in 2004. Remember this: No other player has won more than three MVP trophies in an entire career.
Oh, and the home runs.
A whopping 73 in a season and a record 762 for his career. Cameras flashed all over the Giants' waterfront ballpark in 2007 when he broke Hank Aaron's lifetime mark by launching No. 756 deep into the August night.
Bonds thrust both arms over his head when he connected, and the celebration began. He didn't seem to mind that Aaron and commissioner Bud Selig were absent, further fuelling the debate about steroid accusations and asterisks.
"This record is not tainted at all. At all. Period," Bonds declared.
Baker wasn't with the Giants then, but he once got a firsthand look at a similarscene. He was on deck in Atlanta when Aaron hit No. 715 in 1974 and broke Babe Ruth's record.
"I saw Hank Aaron every day," Baker said. "But when Barry Bonds was at his peak, boy!"
Easy to see why Bonds' achievements put him among the candidates for The Associated Press' Athlete of the Decade. And who would the slugger choose if he had a vote?
Woods, Bonds picked a few weeks ago. "He is an amazing golfer," Bonds told the AP through his publicist, Lisa Nitta.
Bonds' accomplishments may be equally amazing.
In 2001, he broke Mark McGwire's single-season home run record of 70. In 2002, he capped a monster post-season performance with his only World Series appearance - Bonds hit .356 with eight homers and 27 walks in 17 games that October, only to see the Giants fall short in Game 7 against the Angels.
In 2004, at age 40, Bonds became the oldest player to win an MVP award in North America's four major pro sports. He hit .362 with 45 home runs and 101 RBIs, yet those were hardly his most impressive stats.
His true dominance showed up in how teams pitched to him. Or rather, didn't pitch to him. Bonds drew 232 walks that year, 120 of them intentional passes. The Pittsburgh Pirates once gave him an intentional walk when he led off an inning - the 10th inning, that is.
Boosted by all those walks, Bonds reached base nearly 61 per cent of the time in 2004. Chances are, he didn't even do that as a kid playing Wiffle Ball in the backyard with his famous father. Who could?
Some pitchers basically decided to never fool around with Bonds. Consider Bonds' lifetime stats against reliever Guillermo Mota: 1-for-1, which was a home run, and eight walks. Arizona manager Buck Showalter took the same approach several years earlier, ordering Bonds to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded.
"Teams would try to take him out of the game, and he'd still find a way to beat you," Baker said.
Bonds missed most of 2005 because of knee trouble and couldn't find a club to sign him after 2007, when he led the majors in on-base average for the sixth time in seven years.
After winning three MVPs in the '90s, Bonds' totals for his shortened 2000s: 317 home runs with a .322 batting average, .517 on-base average and .724 slugging percentage.
Whether all of that will eventually lead Bonds to the Hall of Fame is uncertain. To some fans, he was the face of baseball's drug scandal, mentioned 103 times in the Mitchell Report.
Bonds steadfastly said he never knowingly used steroids - and he wasn't penalized by baseball - but still faces legal issues. In a case stemming from his testimony before a federal grand jury in December 2003, he pleaded not guilty to 10 counts of making false statements and one count of obstruction of justice.
The cloud of suspicion certainly cost Bonds an opportunity to play longer, he was indicted seven weeks after his final game, and could cut down his chance of being elected to Cooperstown.
His agent, Jeff Borris, contacted teams for more than a year trying to find Bonds a job. Now 45, Bonds has not officially announced his retirement.
"He was run out of Major League Baseball. Barry's been unfairly vilified in the Steroid Era," Borris asserted. "If he had been allowed to keep playing, he would've hit 800-plus home runs in his sleep."
AP Golf Writer Doug Ferguson contributed to this report.
torsdag 3 december 2009
Olympic athletes breaking drug rules should face lifetime ban: poll
OTTAWA — Olympic athletes caught taking illegal drugs should face harsh penalties such as a lifetime ban from competing in sports, according to a national poll released Tuesday.
An overwhelming majority of Canadians polled (92.8 per cent) said there should be "severe sanctions" on Olympic athletes who test positive for using performance-enhancing drugs.
The poll, done by the Ottawa-based Nanos Research, found that about one-third (32.7 per cent) wanted a lifetime ban placed on doping athletes.
Another third (33.7 per cent) want a penalty of at least four years, while the remainder (26.4 per cent) favoured a one-year suspension, according to the results.
"In essence, there is virtually zero tolerance among Canadians for athletes using performance-enhancing drugs at the Olympics," says pollster president Nik Nanos in a statement.
Only 3.2 per cent said there should not be any kind of penalty while 4.1 per cent said they were unsure about their opinion.
"I think it's a clear statement that Canadians continue to stand up for clean sport and a level playing field," added Paul Melia, CEO of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), one of the organizations involved in drug testing for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.
Melia said Olympic athletes now face a two-year ban for a first-time offence, and a lifetime ban if caught a second time.
Organizers at the upcoming Games say they plan on taking nearly 2,500 urine and blood samples from athletes during the competitions. Those tests — both random and targeted — will begin Feb. 4. Athletes will be checked to see if they have unusually high levels of testosterone or growth hormones in their bodies.
The $16.4-million drug-testing program, which includes an $8.9-million state-of-the-art lab, is the toughest stance organizers have ever taken at the Winter Olympic Games.
In 2006, organizers at the Turin Games tested only 1,200 athletes while only 800 tests were done in Salt Lake City.
Melia said the stronger anti-doping push in Vancouver is an effort to curb microdosing — using a banned substance well in advance of competition so that performance is enhanced, but the substance has cleared an athlete's body by the time of post-event testing — and to establish a larger sample database, since new technologies now allow blood samples to be stored for up to eight years.
"In Canada, we have been at it for a long time," Melia said. "Even before the world anti-doping code came into effect, we had a program that the code was based and modelled on."
Meanwhile, a quarter of the Canadians polled said they believed that drug use rates in the Olympics was still on the rise. Only one in five (19.6 per cent) believed the rates were falling.
The poll reported that Canadians had little faith in the World Anti-Doping Agency, which was developed 10 years ago to combat rampant drug use among athletes.
A spokesman with the Montreal-based agency could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The Olympics have been plagued by a number of drug scandals.
In 1988, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal and world records at the 1988 Seoul Olympics after it was discovered he had been taking anabolic steroids.
Officials at the 1998 Nagano Olympics took away Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati's gold medal after he tested positive for marijuana use. The medal, the first to be won in the sport, eventually was returned to Rebagliati because marijuana was not on the banned drug list.
In 2007, U.S. track athlete Marion Jones admitted that she had taken steroids while at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Jones forfeited the five medals she had won at the Games after her confession.
The survey also found that the majority (73.8 per cent) of those polled said they will watch some of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games in February, meaning it could be among the most-watched sporting events in Canadian history.
"Another way to contextualize the research? More Canadians are likely planning to watch the opening ceremonies in Vancouver than voted in the last federal election," said Nanos.
Nearly two-thirds (66.3 per cent) said they will tune into the opening ceremony on Feb. 12, while 68.4 per cent of Canadians polled said they were likely to follow daily recaps of events. Fewer (58.6 per cent) said they would watch the Games' closing ceremony.
The poll results were taken from a random telephone survey of 1,005 adults between Nov. 7 to Nov. 10.
It is accurate within 3.1 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.
BY LINDA NGUYEN, CANWEST NEWS SERVICEDECEMBER 1, 2009
An overwhelming majority of Canadians polled (92.8 per cent) said there should be "severe sanctions" on Olympic athletes who test positive for using performance-enhancing drugs.
The poll, done by the Ottawa-based Nanos Research, found that about one-third (32.7 per cent) wanted a lifetime ban placed on doping athletes.
Another third (33.7 per cent) want a penalty of at least four years, while the remainder (26.4 per cent) favoured a one-year suspension, according to the results.
"In essence, there is virtually zero tolerance among Canadians for athletes using performance-enhancing drugs at the Olympics," says pollster president Nik Nanos in a statement.
Only 3.2 per cent said there should not be any kind of penalty while 4.1 per cent said they were unsure about their opinion.
"I think it's a clear statement that Canadians continue to stand up for clean sport and a level playing field," added Paul Melia, CEO of the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES), one of the organizations involved in drug testing for the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games.
Melia said Olympic athletes now face a two-year ban for a first-time offence, and a lifetime ban if caught a second time.
Organizers at the upcoming Games say they plan on taking nearly 2,500 urine and blood samples from athletes during the competitions. Those tests — both random and targeted — will begin Feb. 4. Athletes will be checked to see if they have unusually high levels of testosterone or growth hormones in their bodies.
The $16.4-million drug-testing program, which includes an $8.9-million state-of-the-art lab, is the toughest stance organizers have ever taken at the Winter Olympic Games.
In 2006, organizers at the Turin Games tested only 1,200 athletes while only 800 tests were done in Salt Lake City.
Melia said the stronger anti-doping push in Vancouver is an effort to curb microdosing — using a banned substance well in advance of competition so that performance is enhanced, but the substance has cleared an athlete's body by the time of post-event testing — and to establish a larger sample database, since new technologies now allow blood samples to be stored for up to eight years.
"In Canada, we have been at it for a long time," Melia said. "Even before the world anti-doping code came into effect, we had a program that the code was based and modelled on."
Meanwhile, a quarter of the Canadians polled said they believed that drug use rates in the Olympics was still on the rise. Only one in five (19.6 per cent) believed the rates were falling.
The poll reported that Canadians had little faith in the World Anti-Doping Agency, which was developed 10 years ago to combat rampant drug use among athletes.
A spokesman with the Montreal-based agency could not be reached for comment Tuesday.
The Olympics have been plagued by a number of drug scandals.
In 1988, Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson was stripped of his gold medal and world records at the 1988 Seoul Olympics after it was discovered he had been taking anabolic steroids.
Officials at the 1998 Nagano Olympics took away Canadian snowboarder Ross Rebagliati's gold medal after he tested positive for marijuana use. The medal, the first to be won in the sport, eventually was returned to Rebagliati because marijuana was not on the banned drug list.
In 2007, U.S. track athlete Marion Jones admitted that she had taken steroids while at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Jones forfeited the five medals she had won at the Games after her confession.
The survey also found that the majority (73.8 per cent) of those polled said they will watch some of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games in February, meaning it could be among the most-watched sporting events in Canadian history.
"Another way to contextualize the research? More Canadians are likely planning to watch the opening ceremonies in Vancouver than voted in the last federal election," said Nanos.
Nearly two-thirds (66.3 per cent) said they will tune into the opening ceremony on Feb. 12, while 68.4 per cent of Canadians polled said they were likely to follow daily recaps of events. Fewer (58.6 per cent) said they would watch the Games' closing ceremony.
The poll results were taken from a random telephone survey of 1,005 adults between Nov. 7 to Nov. 10.
It is accurate within 3.1 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.
BY LINDA NGUYEN, CANWEST NEWS SERVICEDECEMBER 1, 2009
tisdag 17 november 2009
Ren Idrott hos IF Linneá
Det var som att kliva in i en svettig dimma. Det slog emot en lika hårt som de ungdomar som befann sig därinne smällde på upphängda fighterbags och villiga och mottagliga instruktörer. Pam!! Det kändes laddat, pam!pam!Pam! - det luktade testosteron och vinnarskallar men ochså ...mycket välkommet. Ren Idrott var igårkväll på besök hos Linnea Boxningsklubb i Stockholm. Innästlad precis mellan Mosebacke och Gamla Stadsteatern på söder ligger deras träningslokal och det råder febril aktivitet. Gamla som unga, killar och tjejer. Fokuseringen är enorm och när fikabordet dukades upp för den nödvändiga mackan och yogurt till återhämtningen fick ungdomar och tränare inta detta, som en god apertiff, inför och under en spännande föreläsning av RI och Tommy Moberg. AAS, Doping, kosttillskott, känsla och förstående. Föreläsningen ger bredd och kunskap. Många kommenterade. Många var frågorna. Han gör ett mycket bra jobb, Tommy. På ungdomars nivå lägger han informationen och blandat med en kuslig verklighet och realförankring invaggas förståelsen för konsekvenserna av att använda doping. Att beblanda sig i fel gäng eller att bara "pröva". Mixen mellan fakta, verklighet och "tänk om" är väl genomtänkt. På vägen hem gav jag Tommy en vänskaplig och uppskattande höger på axeln. Pam! Han var nöjd och till belöning blev det "världens största räkmacka"... "dé du Mia, världens bästa omega3"...
torsdag 12 november 2009
Hardy beats own world record in 50 breaststroke
STOCKHOLM — Wearing a torn swimsuit, Jessica Hardy broke her own world record in the women's 50-meter breaststroke by nearly half a second Wednesday at a short-course World Cup meet.
The American finished in 28.96 seconds in a qualifying heat to beat her mark of 29.36 set four days ago in Moscow.
"I'm really happy to go under 29," said Hardy. "It's been a goal all year. I didn't ever think I would do it and I didn't think it would be that easy."
Hardy returned to competition in August after serving a one-year doping ban. Leading up to the Olympic trials in July last year, Hardy had been taking a powdered supplement that she mixed in water called Arginine Extreme.
U.S. authorities successfully argued that she should have special exemption to serve only a one-year ban because it was due to the contaminated supplements. However, Hardy could be stripped of Wednesday's world record if that ruling is overturned.
The World Anti-Doping Agency and FINA have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, saying she should be banned for two years.
"I've been training my butt off because of the stuff I've been through," Hardy said. "The only thing I have control over in my life is swimming and how hard I work. I have really enjoyed working hard and I guess to reap the benefits now is just kind of fun."
The 22-year-old wore a suit with a four-inch tear across her back but said she would put on a new one for the final later Wednesday.
"It's old. I did it a while ago," Hardy said. "They tear pretty easily."
It was the fifth world record set at the meet. On Tuesday, Jing Zhao of China twice set records in the women's 50 backstroke. Records were also set by Felicity Galvez of Australia in the women's 100 butterfly and Kaio Almeida of Brazil in the men's 200 butterfly.
By MALIN RISING (AP) – 1 day ago
The American finished in 28.96 seconds in a qualifying heat to beat her mark of 29.36 set four days ago in Moscow.
"I'm really happy to go under 29," said Hardy. "It's been a goal all year. I didn't ever think I would do it and I didn't think it would be that easy."
Hardy returned to competition in August after serving a one-year doping ban. Leading up to the Olympic trials in July last year, Hardy had been taking a powdered supplement that she mixed in water called Arginine Extreme.
U.S. authorities successfully argued that she should have special exemption to serve only a one-year ban because it was due to the contaminated supplements. However, Hardy could be stripped of Wednesday's world record if that ruling is overturned.
The World Anti-Doping Agency and FINA have appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, saying she should be banned for two years.
"I've been training my butt off because of the stuff I've been through," Hardy said. "The only thing I have control over in my life is swimming and how hard I work. I have really enjoyed working hard and I guess to reap the benefits now is just kind of fun."
The 22-year-old wore a suit with a four-inch tear across her back but said she would put on a new one for the final later Wednesday.
"It's old. I did it a while ago," Hardy said. "They tear pretty easily."
It was the fifth world record set at the meet. On Tuesday, Jing Zhao of China twice set records in the women's 50 backstroke. Records were also set by Felicity Galvez of Australia in the women's 100 butterfly and Kaio Almeida of Brazil in the men's 200 butterfly.
By MALIN RISING (AP) – 1 day ago
fredag 6 november 2009
Doping-Major cases in WADA's first decade
MONTREAL, Nov 6 (Reuters) - The following are 10 significant events that have helped to shape the fight against the use of performance-enhancing drugs in sport in the decade since the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was formed:
Tim Montgomery (United States, Athletics)
Montgomery's case is regarded as a landmark in the fight against doping as it introduced the non-analytical positive.
Once the world's fastest man, Montgomery never returned a positive test for a banned substance but admitted under oath to a U.S. Federal grand jury investigating BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative) that he had used steroids and human growth hormone.
Montgomery, who helped the United States to win gold in the 4x100 metres relay at the Sydney Olympics, was stripped of his medal and his 100 metres world record of 9.78 seconds set in 2002 in Paris was wiped from the record books based on the evidence given during his testimony. He was barred from competition in 2005 and retired the following year.
Montgomery, who has a son with disgraced sprint queen Marion Jones, was later sentenced to 46 months in prison for cheque fraud and money laundering and last October had five years added to his sentence after being convicted of possessing heroin with the intent to distribute it.
BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative)
In 2003, a little laboratory on the outskirts of San Francisco became the epicentre of a huge doping scandal that continues to reverberate around the sporting world.
BALCO head Victor Conte, a former bass guitarist who switched careers and opened the laboratory, used a gregarious personality and self-taught knowledge of nutrition to gain access to some of the top names in athletics, baseball and American football.
Conte's operation was exposed after a syringe containing the designer steroid known as "The Clear" or THG (tetrahydrogestrinone) was handed over to doping authorities by disgruntled coach Trevor Graham.
The list of athletes linked to the laboratory included sprinters Montgomery, Jones and Dwain Chambers and baseball sluggers Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball's all-time home run king.
Bonds has denied knowingly taking steroids and has never failed a drug test but the seven-time National League Most Valuable Player has been indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges based on his grand jury testimony in the BALCO investigation.
Marion Jones (U.S., Athletics)
The biggest scalp taken by anti-doping crusaders, Jones was the world's best known and most successful female athlete before her career ended in disgrace and jail.
Winner of five medals, including three golds, at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Jones had been the darling of the sporting world until a federal probe into the BALCO laboratory revealed her feats had been powered by performance-enhancing drugs.
After confessing her steroid use, Jones, who earned millions in product endorsements, prize money and appearance fees, was stripped of the five medals and all her results from September 2000 were erased from the record books.
Humiliated and in financial ruin, Jones was sentenced to six months in prison in January 2008 for lying to federal prosecutors about her drug use.
Major League Baseball (MLB)
WADA gained a valuable ally in the fight against drugs in sport when the U.S. Congress used its muscle to force MLB to confront the doping issue.
Under threat from U.S. Congress to clean up the 'national pastime', MLB brought in highly respected Senator George Mitchell to conduct an independent investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Major Leagues.
The result was a 20-month probe and an explosive, 409-page document known as "The Mitchell Report" released in 2007 that detailed a deep-rooted drug culture within baseball, identifying 89 players, including pitching great Roger Clemens, as alleged users of performance-enhancing drugs.
Commissioner Bud Selig termed the report "a call to action" and vowed to clean up baseball but two years later MLB continues to be battered by doping scandals.
In 2003, when MLB was debating the need to impose mandatory drug-testing, it conducted confidential tests on players with 104 returning positive results.
While those results were meant to remain anonymous they were leaked to the media ahead of the current season with baseball's highest-paid player, New York Yankees slugging third baseman Alex Rodriguez, featured at the top of the list.
Baseball's tainted reputation took another hit in May when Los Angeles Dodgers slugger and 12-times All-Star Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games after a positive test.
Rio Ferdinand (Britain, Soccer)
Ferdinand never failed a drug test but he did fail to appear for one in 2003, resulting in the Manchester United and England defender being given an eight-month suspension.
Ferdinand said he had simply forgotten about the scheduled test and took another one two days later that came back clean but, under the hard-line position of the Football Association, missing or refusing to be tested is the equivalent to testing positive.
It proved to be a costly slip for Ferdinand who was also fined 50,000 pounds ($82,600) and missed the rest of the league season and Euro 2004.
Although FIFA sought harsher sanctions in this case, world soccer's governing body and WADA have continued to bump heads over the contentious whereabouts rule that requires players to make testers aware of where they will be for a certain period each day.
Cycling
While the doping scandal that consumed the 1998 Tour de France and became known as the Festina Affair preceded WADA, the events of that year provided the catalyst for the formation of a world anti-doping agency.
After watching the ugly scenes on television of police raiding team hotels searching for performance-enhancing drugs the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided that doping was an issue that could no longer be ignored and convened a World Conference on Doping, bringing together all parties involved in the fight against doping.
The conference produced the Lausanne Declaration on Doping in Sport that provided the framework for the creation of an independent international anti-doping agency to be fully operational for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Kostas Kenteris/Ekaterini Thanou (Athletics, Greece)
Greek sprinters Kenteris and Thanou were expected to produce the biggest headlines at the 2004 Athens Olympics. They did, but for all the wrong reasons, plunging the host nation into a embarrassing doping scandal.
Kenteris, the 2000 Olympic 200 metres champion, and Thanou, who won silver in the women's 100 metres at Sydney behind admitted drug cheat Jones, were due to undergo doping tests the day before the opening ceremony but failed to appear, saying they had been involved in a motorcycle crash.
Thanou and Kenteris later withdrew from the Games amid speculation over whether there ever was an accident. They were later suspended by the IAAF for missing three drug tests.
Floyd Landis (U.S. cycling)
Landis became the first winner of the Tour de France to be stripped of the title after failing a dope test but for WADA the true victory came when the American's appeal was rejected and the ban upheld.
A day after a poor performance in the 16th stage of the 2006 race appeared to put him out of contention, Landis staged an astounding fight back, winning the final mountain stage in spectacular style to reclaim the yellow jersey.
A drug test after the 17th-stage win revealed Landis's dramatic charge was fuelled by performance-enhancing drugs when he tested positive for synthetic testosterone.
Landis denied using drugs and blamed the positive tests on procedural mistakes by the French laboratory, assembling a high-powered team of experts and lawyers to dispute the results.
Shane Warne (Cricket, Australia)
Widely regarded as the greatest leg spin bowler of all-time, Warne's career was interrupted by a one-year suspension from the Australian Cricket Board in 2003 after testing positive for a banned diuretic that could be used to mask other prohibited substances.
Warne admitted using the banned substance but said it was given to him by his mother so he would not look overweight on television.
Martina Hingis/Andre Agassi (Tennis, Switzerland/U.S.)
Hingis's return to competitive tennis was cut short in 2007 when the five-time Grand Slam winner announced she had tested positive for cocaine following her third-round match at Wimbledon.
The former world number one denied ever using cocaine but immediately retired for a second time saying she had "no desire to spend the next several years of my life reduced to fighting against the doping officials".
Eight-times Grand Slam champion Agassi shocked the tennis world last month when he admitted using the recreational drug crystal meth during his career and lying to men's governing body the ATP to escape a ban. WADA said it planned to investigate to see if any charges could be brought. (
Fri Nov 6, 2009 5:32am IST By Steve Keating/Editing by Clare Fallon
Tim Montgomery (United States, Athletics)
Montgomery's case is regarded as a landmark in the fight against doping as it introduced the non-analytical positive.
Once the world's fastest man, Montgomery never returned a positive test for a banned substance but admitted under oath to a U.S. Federal grand jury investigating BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative) that he had used steroids and human growth hormone.
Montgomery, who helped the United States to win gold in the 4x100 metres relay at the Sydney Olympics, was stripped of his medal and his 100 metres world record of 9.78 seconds set in 2002 in Paris was wiped from the record books based on the evidence given during his testimony. He was barred from competition in 2005 and retired the following year.
Montgomery, who has a son with disgraced sprint queen Marion Jones, was later sentenced to 46 months in prison for cheque fraud and money laundering and last October had five years added to his sentence after being convicted of possessing heroin with the intent to distribute it.
BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative)
In 2003, a little laboratory on the outskirts of San Francisco became the epicentre of a huge doping scandal that continues to reverberate around the sporting world.
BALCO head Victor Conte, a former bass guitarist who switched careers and opened the laboratory, used a gregarious personality and self-taught knowledge of nutrition to gain access to some of the top names in athletics, baseball and American football.
Conte's operation was exposed after a syringe containing the designer steroid known as "The Clear" or THG (tetrahydrogestrinone) was handed over to doping authorities by disgruntled coach Trevor Graham.
The list of athletes linked to the laboratory included sprinters Montgomery, Jones and Dwain Chambers and baseball sluggers Jason Giambi, Gary Sheffield and Barry Bonds, Major League Baseball's all-time home run king.
Bonds has denied knowingly taking steroids and has never failed a drug test but the seven-time National League Most Valuable Player has been indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges based on his grand jury testimony in the BALCO investigation.
Marion Jones (U.S., Athletics)
The biggest scalp taken by anti-doping crusaders, Jones was the world's best known and most successful female athlete before her career ended in disgrace and jail.
Winner of five medals, including three golds, at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Jones had been the darling of the sporting world until a federal probe into the BALCO laboratory revealed her feats had been powered by performance-enhancing drugs.
After confessing her steroid use, Jones, who earned millions in product endorsements, prize money and appearance fees, was stripped of the five medals and all her results from September 2000 were erased from the record books.
Humiliated and in financial ruin, Jones was sentenced to six months in prison in January 2008 for lying to federal prosecutors about her drug use.
Major League Baseball (MLB)
WADA gained a valuable ally in the fight against drugs in sport when the U.S. Congress used its muscle to force MLB to confront the doping issue.
Under threat from U.S. Congress to clean up the 'national pastime', MLB brought in highly respected Senator George Mitchell to conduct an independent investigation into the use of performance-enhancing drugs in the Major Leagues.
The result was a 20-month probe and an explosive, 409-page document known as "The Mitchell Report" released in 2007 that detailed a deep-rooted drug culture within baseball, identifying 89 players, including pitching great Roger Clemens, as alleged users of performance-enhancing drugs.
Commissioner Bud Selig termed the report "a call to action" and vowed to clean up baseball but two years later MLB continues to be battered by doping scandals.
In 2003, when MLB was debating the need to impose mandatory drug-testing, it conducted confidential tests on players with 104 returning positive results.
While those results were meant to remain anonymous they were leaked to the media ahead of the current season with baseball's highest-paid player, New York Yankees slugging third baseman Alex Rodriguez, featured at the top of the list.
Baseball's tainted reputation took another hit in May when Los Angeles Dodgers slugger and 12-times All-Star Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games after a positive test.
Rio Ferdinand (Britain, Soccer)
Ferdinand never failed a drug test but he did fail to appear for one in 2003, resulting in the Manchester United and England defender being given an eight-month suspension.
Ferdinand said he had simply forgotten about the scheduled test and took another one two days later that came back clean but, under the hard-line position of the Football Association, missing or refusing to be tested is the equivalent to testing positive.
It proved to be a costly slip for Ferdinand who was also fined 50,000 pounds ($82,600) and missed the rest of the league season and Euro 2004.
Although FIFA sought harsher sanctions in this case, world soccer's governing body and WADA have continued to bump heads over the contentious whereabouts rule that requires players to make testers aware of where they will be for a certain period each day.
Cycling
While the doping scandal that consumed the 1998 Tour de France and became known as the Festina Affair preceded WADA, the events of that year provided the catalyst for the formation of a world anti-doping agency.
After watching the ugly scenes on television of police raiding team hotels searching for performance-enhancing drugs the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided that doping was an issue that could no longer be ignored and convened a World Conference on Doping, bringing together all parties involved in the fight against doping.
The conference produced the Lausanne Declaration on Doping in Sport that provided the framework for the creation of an independent international anti-doping agency to be fully operational for the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Kostas Kenteris/Ekaterini Thanou (Athletics, Greece)
Greek sprinters Kenteris and Thanou were expected to produce the biggest headlines at the 2004 Athens Olympics. They did, but for all the wrong reasons, plunging the host nation into a embarrassing doping scandal.
Kenteris, the 2000 Olympic 200 metres champion, and Thanou, who won silver in the women's 100 metres at Sydney behind admitted drug cheat Jones, were due to undergo doping tests the day before the opening ceremony but failed to appear, saying they had been involved in a motorcycle crash.
Thanou and Kenteris later withdrew from the Games amid speculation over whether there ever was an accident. They were later suspended by the IAAF for missing three drug tests.
Floyd Landis (U.S. cycling)
Landis became the first winner of the Tour de France to be stripped of the title after failing a dope test but for WADA the true victory came when the American's appeal was rejected and the ban upheld.
A day after a poor performance in the 16th stage of the 2006 race appeared to put him out of contention, Landis staged an astounding fight back, winning the final mountain stage in spectacular style to reclaim the yellow jersey.
A drug test after the 17th-stage win revealed Landis's dramatic charge was fuelled by performance-enhancing drugs when he tested positive for synthetic testosterone.
Landis denied using drugs and blamed the positive tests on procedural mistakes by the French laboratory, assembling a high-powered team of experts and lawyers to dispute the results.
Shane Warne (Cricket, Australia)
Widely regarded as the greatest leg spin bowler of all-time, Warne's career was interrupted by a one-year suspension from the Australian Cricket Board in 2003 after testing positive for a banned diuretic that could be used to mask other prohibited substances.
Warne admitted using the banned substance but said it was given to him by his mother so he would not look overweight on television.
Martina Hingis/Andre Agassi (Tennis, Switzerland/U.S.)
Hingis's return to competitive tennis was cut short in 2007 when the five-time Grand Slam winner announced she had tested positive for cocaine following her third-round match at Wimbledon.
The former world number one denied ever using cocaine but immediately retired for a second time saying she had "no desire to spend the next several years of my life reduced to fighting against the doping officials".
Eight-times Grand Slam champion Agassi shocked the tennis world last month when he admitted using the recreational drug crystal meth during his career and lying to men's governing body the ATP to escape a ban. WADA said it planned to investigate to see if any charges could be brought. (
Fri Nov 6, 2009 5:32am IST By Steve Keating/Editing by Clare Fallon
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