Saturday, August 13, 2005

Drugs In Sports

Why do we read so many embarrassing reports like this one from BBC: Discus thrower fails drugs test ?

Indian discus thrower Neelam Jaswant Singh is the first athlete to test positive at the World Championships ... Singh managed a best throw of 56.70m in Helsinki and failed to qualify for the discus final.

What a singular disgrace. How come India has ended up inheriting the East European practice of drugs-abetted cheating in sports?

3 comments:

Queasy Rider said...

PR, I agree with Patrix that the singular aspect of the whole thing is, she failed to even qualify for the final and was well below her personal best. May be a timing issue :)

As regards the 'East European' practice, it does seem as if the abuse is on the rise since we started hiring out-of-work coaches from the former Soviet-bloc nations.

Drug abuse was prevalent no doubt in the former East Germany etc. But it is by no means an East European phenomenon, as the West would have us believe. I'm sure you have followed the BALCO scandal. American pro sports, for example, have been plagued by the same malaise and it's only because they had little or no testing that athletes were never caught. It's only the threat of congressional action that plodded MLB into action. My knowledge of these things indicates that no sport, no country is immune to this vile practice. It is not just a communist conspiracy.

- Nanda Kishore

Primary Red said...

The administration of sports in India is a complete blackbox (to us anyway). What happens, if anything, when such scandals are reported?

Does anyone get punished, other than the athlete?

Anonymous said...

Haven't seen a single person - of the administration punished.
Thats to be expected. When you have Suresh Kalmadi - who is nothing but a Sonia loyalist as head of the IOC. Its always the politicians who get to head it, small wonder they go scot-free.

Havent followed this case very much though. Does she have a grouse like Sunita Rani did?

I agree with Nanda Kishore, it started off with us hiring East European coaches.

Little improvement on the face of it, and lots of drug scandals.

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