Main Stream Sports Columnists

I've written before that American sports columnists don't know anything about other sports except for Football, Basketball, and Baseball. They are so totally out of their depth when it comes to commenting on soccer, hockey, the Olympics, and any endurance sports. The big three sports in America have the laxest doping controls in the world, and consequently, the reporters who cover them have the least exposure to how important doping controls are in the worlds of weight lifting, track and field, triathlons, and pro cycling. As I've said before, not one main stream sports columnist has ever mentioned that it makes no sense to take synthetic testosterone for a one day recovery. I don't think they ever will, although there might be slight chance of this happening if they cover the legal proceedings with the USADA. That's why seeing this kind of stuff really annoys me. Now, Floyd Landis should have just kept his mouth shut instead of offering all kinds conjecture on the test results. All he can do is offer conjecture, because the test results are odd, and I predict that the final investigation will show an inconclusive decision on the doping question. Even taking synthetic testosterone would not have produced the strange results that came up in the A and B samples. But what made me laugh most bitterly in this Whine of the Week story was this bit of "reasoning:"

The lab used by the Tour de France to test urine and blood samples is licensed by the World Anti-Doping Agency and must adhere to rigid standards. The testers don’t even know whose samples they are working with — all they see are code numbers.

This is an outright lie, when it comes to this particular lab. Even Pat McQuaid, president of the UCI, has admitted that they broke their own rules on athlete notification because they did not want this lab to leak the results to the French paper L'Equipe. Here's a direct quote from Pat: "Also, we know that the French laboratory has a close connection with L'Equipe, and we did not want this news to come through the press, because we are sure they would have leaked it." So, please, regular sports columnists, do your own research before you come up with drivel. Most of us have such low expectations of your colleagues in the other departments, don't drive it down further with shoddy performance in the sports department.

Update: Dick Pound loses it. Why is this man still in charge? There is no way to look at his latest rant and believe that he supports the clean athletes. He thinks every athlete is dirty. I can see the spittle on his keyboard as he wrote this:

"Who knows, USADA may subscribe to a suggestion that both athletes (Landis & Gatlin), in separate sports, were ambushed by a roving squad of Nazi frogmen and injected against their will with the prohibited substances."

Or this:

"Take cycling in 2006. If 2006 were to be measured in the Chinese cycle, it would be the Year of the Excrement".

For a more measured response, read the whole roundup for Bobby Julich's reaction to the Floyd Landis situation.