To stem more shame…?
Anchoring the men’s 4x100m, he had a few meters to make up. And no doubt the young Bolt would have. But this one
suddenly screamed and stumbled as he came down with his golden farewell shattered by the first injury he has experienced at a major competition.
(NBC Sports, August 12, 2017)
With apologies to T.S. Eliot, I cannot resist this homage to Bolt – who looked like such a hollow shell of himself at these championships:
This is the way his career ends
This is the way his career ends
This is the way his career ends
Not with a bolt but a cramp.
Truth be told, I think of Bolt’s performance on this occasion exactly what I thought of Liu Xiang’s at the 2008 Beijing Games. Here is how I commented in “Chinese Hero, Liu Xiang Comes Up Lame,” August 19, 2008.
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Easily the most dramatic moment of the day came when Liu Xiang, China’s only hope for a gold medal in Track and Field, pulled up lame in his first qualifying race of the Men’s 110 Hurdles. He then hobbled out of the stadium without saying a word.
In fact, television commentators observed that – when this happened – you could hear a pin drop in the Bird’s Nest Olympic stadium. … After all, Xiang’s gold medal in this race was to have been the crowning achievement of these Olympic Games for over 1.3 billion Chinese. …
[C]all me cynical but I believe Xiang decided it was better to claim injury, which might inspire sympathy, than to lose this race, which would incite national shame.
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But enough about Usain! Except that, for the record, Team Great Britain out-leaned Team USA to win gold in this relay; Team Japan won bronze.
On a far more interesting closing note, my related commentaries show that I have harbored no illusions about the use of PEDs in Track. More to the point, I have been unabashed in expressing suspicions over the improbable way tiny Jamaica was outperforming the United States at international competitions.
I wonder if it’s a testament to their national training methods or the performance-enhancing ‘herbs’ they use to flavor their sports drinks that make these Jamaicans so incredibly fast.
(“2008 Beijing Olympic Games – the Phelpsian Touch … Pure Gold,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 16, 2008)
Well, a “natural” reordering of performances seems afoot. It stems from a recent IAAF decision to not only test athletes more aggressively but also store samples for years for further testing as methods become more advanced.
In “Doping Charge Strikes Usain Like a Lightning Bolt,” February 3, 2017, I highlighted the fact that re-analysis of samples from the 2008 Beijing Games led to the IAAF stripping Bolt of one of his gold medals. Reports are that it has stripped and reallocated eleven World Championship medals based on similar re-analysis since 2007.
That backdrop probably explains why this year’s World Championships played out as follows:
Final figures from the medals standings at the world championships that wrapped up Sunday offered evidence that track and field’s attempt to crack down on a global doping crisis could be making a direct impact on the results themselves.
Exhibit A: The United States won 30 medals, while athletes from four countries that have been under the doping microscope — Kenya (11), Russia (6), Ethiopia (5) and Jamaica (4) — combined for 26.
Two years ago, the results looked like this: United States 17, Kenya 16, Jamaica 12, Ethiopia 8, Russia 4.
(Associated Press, August 14, 2017)
It speaks volumes that, under this doping microscope, Jamaica’s performance has fallen off even more than Russia’s. Recall that the World Anti-Doping agency found state-sponsored doping in Russia so insidious that it banned Russian athletes who trained/train there from participating in international competition.
Only those who could prove they subjected themselves to “credible and consistent testing” outside Russia were eligible to compete, and even then not under the Russian flag.
It was easy to feel sympathy for Maria Lasitskene, Darya Klishina and the other athletes from Russia who won medals at the world track and field championships without the customary trappings.
They were in a form of limbo, not competing officially for their home country, which is still suspended because of a widespread doping scandal.
Instead they were here as ‘authorized neutral athletes,’ which meant that they could only watch wistfully — and surely with some resentment — as their rivals wrapped their national flags around their shoulders and took their laps of honor.
(New York Times, August 13, 2017)
In any event, one could be forgiven the suspicion that Jamaica’s poor showing had everything to do with Bolt and his teammates refraining from taking their performance-enhancing “herbs” for fear of being caught – if not today then perhaps after re-analysis in the future.
Related commentaries:
Gatlin wins 100m…
Doping strikes Usain Bolt…
2008 Beijing Games…
Russia doping…