IN TRACK WE ARE BECOMING OUR OWN WORST EMEMY

I remember back in the 1980s and 1990s, when American athletes like Carl Lewis, Edwin Moses, Evelyn Ashford, Valrie Briscoe-Hookes, Jackie Joyner Kersee and Florence Griffith-Joyner as well as others, dominated the sport of athletics, many Jamaicans were annoyed by what we perceived to be their arrogance. I guess it’s because the athletes we revered, the Merlene Otteys, Grace Jacksons and Raymond Stewarts, were always coming up short against them but soon we began accusing the Americans of being drug cheats.

Our accusations were based mainly on the fact that the Americans were good, very good and they always seemed that much better than our athletes and that caused our frustrations to build like a water behind a dam. Then in 2003 along came Dr. Wade Exum. Dr Exum in over 30,000 pages of evidence released to Sports Illustrated and to several US newspapers that 19 Olympic medalists including Lewis as well as hundreds of other athletes had failed drug tests but were allowed to compete at major championships between 1988 and 2000. Suddenly there was validation to what many Jamaicans had ‘believed’.

The BALCo scandal a few years later further exposed what by then the world had come to know; Americans were systematic cheaters. Athletes like Regina Jacobs, Calvin and Alvin Harrison, Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Jerome Young, C.J. Hunter and others either made hasty exits or were forced into permanent retirement from the sport once it was discovered that they were on doping programmes under the supervision of one Victor Conte, who ran the Bay Are Laboratories in California.

Fast forward to the present and it is Jamaica that has the best sprinters in the world. It is Jamaica that has dominated the last two major international events – the 2008 Olympics and the 2009 World Championships. It is Jamaica that has two of the three fastest men in history and three of the fastest women of all time. It is Jamaica that holds the coveted world records in the 100 metres, 200 metres and sprint relay for men. Our women created history at the Olympics by getting a gold and two silvers in the women’s 100 metres. Veronica Campbell Brown became only the second woman in history to defend the Olympic 200-metre title. In short, we have in many ways become to the Americans what they were to us two decades ago.

But along with that success has come something that Jamaicans are refusing to accept but which we are no longer able to hide from. Steve Mullings positive test for a masking agent just two weeks before the start of the IAAF World Athletic Championships in Daegu, South Korea, is the latest in a growing list of doping test failures for Jamaican athletes – Julien Dunkley in 2008, Yohan Blake, Allodin Fothergill, Lansford Spence, Marvin Anderson and Sherri-Ann Brooks in 2009; Bobby Gay Wilkins and Shelly Ann Fraser in 2010 and now Mullings. No longer can it be said that Jamaican athletes don’t cheat. And even if you throw in the fact that Blake et al and Fraser were minor bans, suggesting that there was clearly no intention on their part to cheat, it is the perception that weighs more heavily on the reputation of Jamaica’s elite athletes.

So now we have the Americans, the British and the rest of the world now calling us cheats and what can we say? That we’re not cheats? That Mullings trains overseas with Tyson Gay? That local based athletes dont take drugs? For a while the latter argument was a valid one but it no longer holds water given what happened with Blake and company prior to the start of the Berlin championships.

Our doping troubles have even given credence to people like Victor Conte who despite never having been to Jamaica, has the gall to turn his nose up at our systems here in Jamaica despite the fact that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) praised us highly last year for the efforts that have been put in place to ensure the integrity of the local drug testing programme. That, and the fact that it was the Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission that caught Mullings, Blake and company as well as Dunkley.

The athletes, too, and their handlers have to take much of the blame. Blake and company tested positive for a mild stimulant that was contained in a supplement they were taking because while they claimed they checked the list of ingredients listed on the bottle, their diligence should have taken them beyond that, given that under the WADA Code they are responsible for whatever is found inside their bodies. Shelly Ann Fraser, too, after failing to notify testers in Shanghai that she had ingested Oxycodone in a desperate attempt to fight off intense pain she was experiencing following a denture procedure, admitted that she was not familiar with the list of banned substances. Now, as World and Olympic champion, how can that be? The titles she holds puts her under even greater scrutiny than most female athletes so how then could she not do what is absolutely necessary to ensure that her record remains spotless. Now, one more ‘mistake’ like that and her career could be over for good.

The best we can hope for now is that there are no further embarrassing results for our athletes in the years to come. Because of our size and the talent that exists across the Caribbean, it is not inconceivable that this dominance we now enjoy in the short sprints, wont last for more than a few more years, it is imperative that in that time that we have remaining at the top, our athletes and our administrators do what is absolutely necessary to ensure that Jamaica’s great legacy in the sport is not sullied any further.

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9 Responses to “IN TRACK WE ARE BECOMING OUR OWN WORST EMEMY”

Professor Trevor Hall says:

August 15, 2011 at 3:08 pm

The article “In Track we are becoming our worst enemy,” is not logical and makes little sense. First, the author is comparing athletes who took performance enhancing drugs with those who took vitamins containing mild stimulants, or Ms. Shelly Ann Fraser who took a pain killer for a severe tooth ache. World class Track and Field athletes are teenagers and young people in their 20s and early 30s. They train hard day-after-day, in rain and shine.
Yet, the media paints the only group of Jamaicans who are consistently the best in the world in a negative light. In America, not one newspaper suggests that since Steve Mullings trains with Tyson Gay–than Mr. Gay is dirty. Furthermore, wait for the “B” sample of Mr. Mullings test to come back before you crucify the athlete. Was he taking a doctor’s prescription for Asthma? Except for athletes, other people are innocent until proven guilty. I do not support any athlete who uses performance enhancing drugs; however, if you look at WADA and the list of banned substances, then you would eat nothing but white bread and water.
TrackCoach says:

August 15, 2011 at 7:13 pm

I get the point you are trying to make, but to be fair, some of the names mentioned in the beginning of your article have had no doping issues associated with their careers. It might help if you explained the complications in why USATF did not submit the names of certain athletes who failed drug tests back in 1988 and 2000, to blatantly call it a cover up is too simplistic. You might want to mention that Jamaica did not have an anti-doping program at that time and that there is evidence that several Jamaican athletes would have fallen into the same situation as some of the U.S. athletes 12 years ago. This includes Merlene Ottey whose name you mention implicitly as someone who was perhaps cheated out of a medal. To be clear, I don’t think Merlene Ottey’s incredible career was made possible by drugs or Jamaican or Americans in general from a decade ago, there are athletes who were clearly tainted on both sides and very few athletes get a complete pass.

Also, Carl Lewis was jumping close to 27 feet as an 18 teen year old and 2 years later he was running 10 flat in the 100m and long jumping 28 feet; unless you think Carl Lewis was taking drugs as a college sophomore, don’t insinuate his career was chemically enhanced. Carl Lewis was obviously extremely talented, he came up positive for a stimulant late in his career, this was a stimulant found in many over the counter medicines, diet pills and supplements at that time and had only been added to the banned list a few months before he was caught. The predecessor to the WADA labeled Carl’s case as inadvertent use. It is a fair debate whether it was truly inadvertent, but if we are going assume it was not inadvertent, then we also have to assume Fraser, Blake and several other Jamaican are cheaters as well. Dopers tend to be athletes close to the top and trying to get to the top; someone who had been great since the beginning of their career and had as long and consistent a career as Carl Lewis, didn’t achieve that by cheating. – Americans have dominated sprinting for over 100 years…long before doping was ever heard of; we didn’t just become good with the advent of PEDs…we have always been good. Remove the words BALCO, Trevor Graham and Don Catlin from the U.S. track & field lexicon and 90% of our doping problems go away. Doping is something individuals and groups of individuals do, it is not an American thing, no more so than Steve Mullins’ doping is a Jamaican thing.

Like I said, I get the point you are trying to make, but you need to be fair in how you explain things.
kne says:

August 16, 2011 at 5:16 am

I dare say not just in track but in other aspects of life as well. It is really sad to see this happening. We are no longer trusted in anything we do despite the efforts of the majority. Ignorance is no excuse.
Dean says:

August 16, 2011 at 8:17 am

In total agreement with your article, as the old saying goes, same knife wey stick goat stick sheep, and cock mouth kill cock. Guy be very careful, take no one for granted, trust no one, as simple as that.
Wayne says:

August 16, 2011 at 9:07 am

I admire your objectivity. Certainly we need to accept that anyone can cheat… even Jamaicans! I hope that no Jamaican is cheating, but I hope even more that if any of them are that they are caught and appropriately punished. Just as I expect athletes from other countries to be punished if they are caught cheating.
Cleve Berry says:

August 18, 2011 at 11:34 am

As a Jamaican living in the US it is important to note that track and field in the US is a nitche sport and is mostly supported by immigrated Jamaicans. In Jamaica it has replaced cricket as the top sport. It has helped pulled otherwise poor kids out of poverty and provide lots of frequent flyer miles to Oliver Grange (sic). Jamaicans expell so much patriotic ferver that it is hard for them to believe their athletes use unbanned substance. In the US for the most part it is people who can’t make it in other sports do track.This article is well written and demonstrate that people with balanced views do exist.
veevee says:

August 24, 2011 at 2:13 am

shelly did not take no drugs ,what she took for her toothache actually would make her run slower,listen jamaicans has always been the fastest they just dont compete for us
marjorie barnett says:

September 1, 2011 at 8:54 pm

well said point well taken
errol golding says:

September 10, 2011 at 8:01 am

dear editer,I do concur with your reasoning.In the era of Merlene Ottey i was convinced her defeats were assisted by drug cheats in both europe & usa,i think of another of our athletes namely Lennox Miller a man of integrity it is difficult for me to ever believe our athletes are cheaters simply because our little island seems to breath athletics I’ll stauchly defend them when my synical colleagues implies that it’s drugs that makes this era of sprinters so amazing.We’er truely blessed and should be dilligent in mentaining integrity in the sport.Respect.Errol golding