In This Issue - Michigan Runner

Notes on the Run: Doping Doubts
By Daniel G. Kelsey
The 15K race over hills in chilly weather
had been gruelling. The socializing
during a buffet and awards afterward
had been a strain too. When a friend and I
headed for the parking lot, I was ready to
take a nap, preferably on the way home.
Since I'd never ridden with her I had no
idea her car was a rolling pharmacy. Before
she got behind the wheel she offered to fill
any prescription for the race-weary from an
assortment of painkillers, supplements, vitamins,
salves and creams.
Since I declined, I didn't get a look at the
extent of her stash. I didn't speak the thought
that came to mind.
“You're quite the child of the drug culture.
You'd better watch yourself, girl, or
pretty soon you'll be taking steroids and
human-growth hormones.”
My attitude is casual about pharmacology.
While I choose to pop pills or take injections
only as a last recourse, it's neither here
nor there to me if others treat themselves
with medicines and analgesics.
No one would fault the diabetic his
insulin or the asthmatic her inhaler. It's neither
here nor there to me if others fiddle with
Jennifer Hughes, in the article “The Wiki
Defense” in the Columbia Journalism Review
for May/June 2007, noted the science of testing
for doping is inexact at best.
According to Hughes, the first of two
tests of a urine sample from Landis during his
stage for the ages gave a result for his ratio of
testosterone to epitestosterone outside a 4:1
limit set by the World Anti-Doping Agency.
“It later emerged that Landis's testosterone
levels were well within normal ranges
but that low epitestosterone levels had
skewed the ratio,” Hughes wrote.
Her thesis was that early reports of the
case in the media, mirror of public opinion,
compounded an injustice.
“Landis's results were released prematurely,
which only added to the confusion.
Samples are divided into A and B units, and
only if an A sample shows something suspicious
will the B sample be tested. The rules
state that an adverse finding is announced
only after the results of the B sample are
known, but Landis's test was made public
after just the A sample had been tested.”
His “Wiki” defense, a posting online of
his test documents in an attempt to attract
experts to bolster his case, piqued the interest
of scientists but remained undefinitive, or so
the Hughes report reflects.
“The nature of the science makes it
impossible to arrive at a definitive
finding of innocence or culpability.”
Doubts about fair play and level playing
fields creep into every corner of the sports
world. If Justin Gatlin could use a little help
from his friends to get stronger in sprinting,
then maybe Raphael Nadal could do the
same to get more muscle, or Roger Federer to
get more stamina, in whacking tennis balls.
If Barry Bonds, breathing down the neck
of Henry Aaron (at this writing) for most
Major League home runs, could use help
from his friends in whacking baseballs, then
maybe Omar Infante could do the same to
get quicker fielding a grounder, or Macay
McBride to get sharper breaking off a slider.
It makes me cringe to think one day the
latter two and other Detroit Tigers could be
implicated in cheating to bring about my
favorite club's resurgence these past two seasons.
It makes me cringe to think that one day
I could grow cynical enough to look around
at the starting line and wonder if Bob or
Dennis or Loren or Dave or Morris or Scott
had a little help from their friends.
Maybe everyone who beat me in a race
travels in a rolling pharmacy. MR
St. Johns Lions & Lioness Clubs
present the 9th annual
Pumpkin Trot
10K Run - 5K Run/Walk
Inline Skates
special races: kids 11 & under
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interdicted substances, if they don't become a
danger to or a burden on society.
Nevertheless my friend's pharmacy got
me thinking of a point where the drug culture
crosses a line for me. It would piss me off to
find out an age mate had deprived me of a
medal in a race by taking performanceenhancing
drugs to get faster.
There's hardly a big-time, professional
sport that isn't tarnished in the modern world
by the shadow of interdicted substances.
Cycling, Siamese twin of running, suffers
from guilt by association of its heroes with
doping.
The assumption has gotten so bad that
Floyd Landis, winner of the 2006 Tour de
France when he turned in a stage for the ages
a day after cracking on a mountain climb,
has been judged guilty by public opinion until
he proves himself innocent.
He faces a tough jury. And offers nebulous
evidence.
Landis's revelations about the different
criteria of different labs for deciding whether
a test was abnormal carried more weight
than his explanations that cortisone, beer and
whiskey might have tainted his urinalysis.
The nature of the science makes it impossible
to arrive at a definitive finding of innocence
or culpability. Which leaves the layman
to opine for himself.
At this writing the 2007 Tour de France
has just begun (in England, oddly enough).
It's a marathon, like baseball, with a rebirth
of drama each day, keeping me riveted to the
television.
Yet from one year to the next my pleasure
with the spectacle succumbs to voices at
the back of my head. Which of the heroes
sprinting at finishes, or powering ahead over
mountains, are juiced? Which of the riders
straggling behind the peloton on flats, or
flaking off the back on climbs, are turning
down injections?
Sunday, October 14, 2007
1:30 pm
registration - 12 noon
St. Johns City Park
for info contact George Campbell
(989) 224-6464 • FAX (989) 224-5080
geokathc@charter.net
M I C H I G A N R U N N E R
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