Doping Accusations Begin for Bolt
The men’s 100 meter is the race of all races, where the winner is crowned the “fastest man on earth.” Two Olympic Games ago, 2004 in Athens, Jamaica barely showed up for this race. They were an also-ran in track. They had one participant make the final, Asafa Powell who placed 5th with a 9.94.
Fast forward to 2012. Jamaica goes gold-silver in the men’s 100 meter, and they added a bevy of other medals in similar track events, men and women. Usain Bolt and Johan Blake, two Jamaicans, are now ranked the first and fourth fastest men ever recorded in the 100 meter race. Did this tiny, low-populated island in the Caribbean suddenly start producing world class athletes, or is some other shit going on? Many think the latter.
American track icon Carl Lewis is one of them.
“When people ask me about Bolt, I say he could be the greatest athlete of all time,” Carl Lewis told the Times of London. “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.”
It’s not just in the numbers, though. These guys are legitimately connected to performance enhancers, including a trainer, Angel Hernandez, who is directly connected to BALCO (Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative, a business at the epicenter of the enormous steroid scandal of 2002). He had a shocking revelation to share prior to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
Jamaica’s Yohan Blake, who just won the silver in the 100 and 200, tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug prior to the 2009 World Championships. Teammates Julian Dunkley and Steve Mullings have also been caught doping. Bolt reportedly has been working with Angel Hernandez, too. Hernandez used to be called Angel Heredia, back when he was a chemist for BALCO and later “Source A,” who supplied the documents that helped convict Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, C.J. Hunter and Justin Gatlin. Gatlin just took bronze in the 100, behind Bolt and Blake.
Before the games in Beijing, Heredia told Germany’s Der Spiegel that, regarding the 100-meter final, “the winner will not be clean. Not even any of the contestants will be clean. There is no doubt about it, the difference between 10.0 and 9.7 seconds is the drugs.”
Some valid points for sure. Where do you come in on this?
- [via CBS Chicago]
eh who cares. Getting paid millions of dollars in endorsements to run for a few seconds? Deal.
12 years ago at 10:27 amfuck that gangly freakshow
12 years ago at 10:27 amIs this Lil B?
12 years ago at 10:31 amI could really care less about foreigners and track events in general. My stance on steroids in baseball, however, is if there is any possible way to make the game more entertaining, do it. I don’t know if shaving a couple of seconds off the 100m is ever going to give me a hard on, but there hasn’t been anything more satisfying than seeing guys like McGwire, Sosa, and Bonds annihilate balls into neighboring zip codes thanks to their mutated, chemically enhanced bodies.
12 years ago at 10:42 am^This, but I do love watching the olympics
12 years ago at 10:55 amThey’ve got a legitimate point, but I don’t think that Bolt is doping. Seems to me that he’s a legitimate athlete
12 years ago at 10:47 am^Is that your professional opinion Mr. “Fratter” ?
12 years ago at 11:12 amTiger Woods seemed like a legitimate athlete to me too, but how did that work out…
12 years ago at 11:17 am^Tiger couldn’t hear you over the sound of his “skin-on-skin” slapping.
12 years ago at 12:30 pmFuck canada.
12 years ago at 2:14 pm^This
12 years ago at 3:12 pmblack people are just fast.I’m pretty sure they have one or two extra muscles in their legs than white people.
12 years ago at 3:15 pmWas Bolt clean when he ran 9.58 at the 2009 World Championship? If yes then this is a useless article. Was he tested?
12 years ago at 6:06 pm