Scales Drop From Eyes

[poliphilo]

So Sharapova has been drugging....

Call me naive but I'd never bothered to consider whether tennis was clean or not. I just sort of assumed it was. Silly me.

And now, having done my homework, I'm aware of all the rumours (and more than rumours) swirling around about the top players. How do the big stars manage to remain so dominant? Why do they perform so averagely on the circuit but so strongly at the slams? How do they manage to have both the bulk of heavyweights and the speed of lightweights?  Well...

I may not bother to watch Wimbledon this year...

Comments

[matrixmann]

Just as I like to put it - also in regard to the war of political systems that is always attached with this: If you know one or more of the top athletes did take substances to enhance their physical skills, then the other ones who lost to them in the championships also must have also been on something.
Biochemistry can only be beat by biochemistry, all other things are illusions.

Actually a lively example of this is the younger history of the Tour de France.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You compare today's athletes with yesterday's athletes and the difference is enormous. The old tennis champs- like Borg and McEnroe were wiry little guys.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

Uh. They may not have been enhanced, but I had the good fortune to attend a match between Mr. Borg and Mr. McEnroe. They were thin, yes, very muscular. But wiry little guys? They were both 5 ft 11. Maybe that just seems tall to me because I'm a little over 5 ft. As for Ms. Sharapova, I am NOT a fan and never have been, but she does have a defense here.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

You're right, of course, it's just that looking at footage of the old-time players they just seem so much smaller than today's top players.

I believe McEnroe has said he took steroids and never knew it- because his trainer or whoever gave him some tonic or other and it was only later that he got curious about what may have been in it.

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

have you read Andre Agassi's autobiography? It's very enlightening, if not exactly truthful.

It wasn't so many years ago that there was a player failed the drug test and claimed that the person he'd been kissing had laced their lipstick with cocaine.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Agassi was confirmed to be a drugs cheat, wasn't he?

Yeah, I remember the lipstick...

[halfmoon-mollie.livejournal.com]

He admittted to having taken something, but he was 'pardoned' and continued to play. To be fair, the amount of pain he was in, not surprising at all. Oh...and I love Andre so be careful what you say. :)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I suspect things have got much worse since Agassi's heyday.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

To be fair, Even if they're not cheating, athletes save themselves for the competitions that really matter. It's part of my argument about how we can't be "excellent" all the time, which is what the education inspection system asks of teachers.

But regarding cheating, it's what happens when you put too much pressure on people to be excellent all the time and/or when big money becomes involved and there's too much pressure to win.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've never been much of a sports fan- and I'm glad- because if I had been all this would have broken my heart.

[matrixmann]

Latter, I think, plays a big role in this.
If looking at how many sponsors you can find printed on each sports suit or on the outside of each tribune, you can find a million reasons for why things run as they run.
And this doesn't even include the bets on who wins and who wo loses.

[athenais.livejournal.com]

It was no news at all to me, but I don't think any professional sports are clean. It's simply no longer how the games are played. Is it sad? It really is. Will performance enhancement supplements continue to be part of pro sports? Oh yes, they'll ban one and two more will come along. I still enjoy watching professional baseball, I probably always will.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Tennis is the only sport I pay much attention to- and after these revelations I think I may just turn on my heel and walk away.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

As a teenager I had my doctor change my asthma medication because I wanted to compete - for fun, with no chance in hell of winning and no ambition to do so, either. But I wanted to loose the Danish Championship in 500 metre kayak fair and square, without the use of proscribed substances.

And I did so spectacularly... When the second-to-last in the race crossed the finish line, I was still more than 100 metres from it! (But then, I was the only one doing it because the kids I was training said they would only compete in their categories if I competed... The rest were trying to qualify for the Nordic Championship, the European Championship, the Olympics and stuff like that, while I just wanted to survive.)

What I mean to say is, if I as a non-ambitious teenager thought about checking the contents of my medication against lists of proscribed substances, I'm afraid I don't think there's any defence for Sharapova. And she was given explicit advance warnings from September last year.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Sharapova's only excuse is the stuff she was taking wasn't on the banned list until recently, but, no, I can't believe she wasn't aware of the change in the rules.

But Sharapova is just the one who has been foolish enough to get caught. I'm afraid most- if not all- of the others are doing it too.

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Actually, 60-something athletes have been caught using this drug since January 1st... She's just the most famous/prettiest/something.

It all just makes me really happy that I'm not too much of a sports fan, because this means there is no disenchantment for me. I can appreciate some sports where elegance plays a role, simply from an aesthetic point of view - and that can actually include football and American football - but I'll never be a "fan" any more than I will be a fan of any artists.

[howlin-wolf-66.livejournal.com]

If EVERYBODY is doping, then nobody has an advantage...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I sometimes think they should just tear up the rulebook and say, "OK, take whatever you like- and die early; why should we care?"

[howlin-wolf-66.livejournal.com]

Yep. It only really bothers me if the innocent get screwed over… but if all the top players are at it, then there are few innocents left to worry about.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a Faustian pact- get very rich and very famous- but put self respect to one side and pile up health problems for your old age.