kartik kannan's space on the web

The Tour de Farce

The Tour de France, is supposed to be the world's most gruelling cycling event, one that had evoked a lot of respect from me after I read Lance Armstrong's book "Its not about the bike...".
Suprisingly it lies enmeshed now in the world of spurious drugs,after the 2006 event's winner Floyd Landis, was tested positive for high levels of Testosterone.Landis seems to deny claims that he took drugs, but as ET puts it " only one of them can be positive, either Landis or the sample" and by deductive reasoning, it slowly looks like Landis might have indeed played foul.

I guess its the sheer pressure of performance that makes sportpersons to have drugs, as with each victory, the equations of pay cheques and sponsors drastically change.The pressure percolates down to the player deciding whether his sweat at the end of the day was worth all the effort, incase he did not win at his sport.Todays dog eat dog world of professionalism has made people insecure about their careers and though most dont take such disastrous moves like taking to drugs, a few sportsmen, decide to bypass the rules and go for the jugular and end up in shambles.

Justin Gatlin, the 100 m chamopin is one and of course during my "kiddo" days in the early 90's I remember the sprinter Ben Johnson, having an anabolic steroid twice, once in the 88 seoul olympics and once later in the 90's.Needless to say,Ben Johnson, who was all set to make history,was history...in athletics. What really muses me is the fact that knowing fully well,that technology mechanisms for judging samples are too good, and it takes quite a bit to actually escapethese tests,with what verve are sportspersons getting the feel that they would be llet of scott free. If I were giving my urine sample,and I had had drugs on that day, I'd have a chilling feeling of things impending.I guess it must be the same for any sportsman who makes suchj mistakes and goes through routine false media denials, that these are rumours and slowly but steadily they start to cave in to the mounting pressure of the questions asked, like a Ben Johnson, Hansie Cronje or a Kavya Vishwanathan (Kaavya and Hansie were wronged in other cases of personal wrongdoing, not drugs)

But since these sports have mechanisms for drug checking, people are getting caught,what about the other high energy sports competition where dope testing is not mandataory? I for one know that Cricket is yet to come under the scanner.I guess Cricket is the only sport that doesnt involve drug testing.I remember a widely spread rumour a week after India lost the 2003 World Cup final,the Indian media was accusing Ricky Ponting to have taken drugs during that masterful 141 in the finals. That muderous innings of 141 in statistics may not tell the whole picture, but the pugnacious charge that Ricky ponting assaulted on the hapless Indian bowling was all too sudden,as he was coasting along at less than run a ball, and then as the slog overs came by Ricky strode like a colussus over the sumptous feast provided by the likes of Nehra, Srinath and Zaheer.The innings stood out for attention simply because one felt unless Ricky's body parts were on fire, he could not have launches such a missive against the Indian bowlers and thus the claim that Ricly ponting may have taken drugs.

I personally felt that the Australians have in their blood levels, an unending supply of adrenalin, that keeps them pumped up,and its pretty normal "Australian" thing to be behave rough and tough and be aggressive when it comes to competing. If cricket were to have drug testing mandatory after the match, would that open a new can of worms?, well only time would tell