The chase is done, though the recriminations have just begun. The self-righteous await hopefully ARod taking the record away, because they who remained willfully blind suddenly have decided that ARod was never part of the scandal they never saw when it was happening yet see so clearly in outrage-fueled hindsight.
Well, now we have this.
6 comments:
I just hope that none of the sportswriters who will pile in on A-Rod have tried to write off similar accusations made against Lance Armstrong as a French grudge. After all, they seem to be made on roughly the same basis.
Ken --
Other, I suppose you mean, than evidence. After all, I waited all of these years, based largely on spite, for evidence of ARod. Which we now irrefutably have. This ties to Lance Armstrong how?
(By the way -- I could care fuckall about bicycling. I admire Lance Armstrong absolutely. I also have never actually known a competetive cycler. Or cyclist. Or whatever the fuck they call themselves. Especially in the US where we priviledge a competition in France that is only a small pecrentage of the international biking scene. Every guy I knew growing up actually played baseball or football or basketball or ran track. And more people played hockey or swam. Being good at cycling was like being good at jacks, or checkers. Not unimpressive. But also not necessarily impressive. They did something I could never have done, but so did the guy in the Guiness Book of World Records who had all the bees on his beard.)
dcat
Dcat - Sorry that we always seem to clash on sports issues here (I do enjoy reading what you write, honest!)
The allegations against A-Rod seem to be based on leaks from tests that were supposedly done anonymously. No official lab has said that A-Rod has tested positive for drugs.
The allegations against Lance Armstrong have been made on leaks from French testing labs which were supposedly done anonymously or after the fact. (I'm leaving aside the stuff that clearly seems to be based on grudges).
Now, I happen to have no love for either A-Rod or Lance Armstrong. But it seems that both are having drugs allegations made against them based on tests that were done under different circumstances, and certainly not under WADA controls, but are having totally different reactions to them.
Ken --
No worries -- healthy disagreement is good.
I agree that the way we know this information is dubious and very troublesome. But the point is moot now with ARod's admissions today. he did it. At least he owned up to it, which so few before him have.
As for lance A4mstrong, if he failed tests, where ewree the consequences? Unlike baseball, cycling has had testing all along. Allegations of failures make less sense to me given that there was widespread testing and that there are consequences for failing those tests.
There was concrete evidence, and now certainly is, for ARod where there was not, and to my mind is not, for Armstrong.
In any case, as I say, today's ARod interview with Peter Gammons pretty much puts paid to any questions we might have about the veracity of the accusations.
Best --
dcat
Yes, indeed, my comments are rendered somewhat moot by A-Rod's admission today (though I'm glad he's admitted it rather than wait for drips of more evidence come out).
As far as Armstrong goes - old drug samples of his were tested for EPO, which couldn't be tested for at the time. It's somewhat like THG in both baseball and track and field - it was only at a late stage that the authorities realised what was going on.
I find the whole drugs issue in sport very confusing, actually. I feel bad, as it makes me feel like I'm endorsing cheating - but the laboratories always seem to be miles ahead of the authorities. Why then don't we let people make informed choices about doping under medical supervision? (I realise there are all sorts of problems with developing athletes here, but it seems like we have a policy at the elite level which only punishes the honest and the stupid).
Ken --
Arod actually got a bit of a raw deal on this one, whatever my schadenfreude. Those test results were supposed to be anonymous. Further, the only reason a testing deal happened in the first place was that the trial program was to be kept utterly secret. It really is bad faith on someone's part here. After al, ARod's was the only name leaked out of 103. I know I am not going to gloat too much, because as a Sox fan the odds are pretty decent that one or two of my guys is on that list as well, any maybe more.
Yes, the druggers are always ahead of the testers. And it is tempting to say that letting them all do what they will is fine, but of course someone should not have to risk their health to succeed at a sport -- that's sort of the antithesis of what sport is about. That said, some of the things that are banned have not been demonstrated to have deleterious effects -- blood doping, say?
My guess is that this question will be with us forever.
dcat
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