Maria Sharapova Just Latest Superstar Athlete Caught Using PEDs -The iPINIONS Journal

This headline speaks volumes. Therefore, what follows is mere epilogue.

Maria Sharapova, a five-time Grand Slam champion and the world’s highest-paid female athlete, announced Monday that she had tested positive for the recently banned drug meldonium at the Australian Open.

The tennis antidoping program confirmed the positive test, which occurred Jan. 26, the day Sharapova lost to Serena Williams in the quarterfinals…

The commercial fallout was swift.

(New York Times, March 7, 2016)

Frankly, the only thing shocking about this report is that so many people are shocked by it. Here’s why:

[Marion] Jones is just the latest professional athlete to be caught in a web of lies about using performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Unfortunately, her fall from grace will leave fans of every sport wondering, quite rightly: If Marion wasn’t clean, who is?

(“Jones Admits Using Steroids…,” The iPINIONS Journal, October 12, 2007)

Indeed, credible allegations linked NFL quarterback Peyton Manning to PEDs just weeks before he led the Denver Broncos to victory in last month’s Super Bowl. I duly commented in “Steroids: Peyton Manning Caught on the ‘Dark Side,'” December 29, 2015. The point is that it might be more sobering to wonder, quite rightly: If Peyton wasn’t clean, who is?

Perhaps his consciousness of guilt caused him to call a press conference on Monday to announce his retirement around the same time Sharapova called one to announce her failed drug test. But he got off scot-free; she did not.

She is now the latest superstar to vindicate my cynicism, entering a rogues’ gallery that includes the likes of Ben Johnson, Alex Rodriguez, and perhaps most shamefully, Lance Armstrong.

To be fair, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) only banned meldonium in January of this year. And Sharapova took pains during her public confessional to point out that she had been taking it for 10 years for medicinal reasons as prescribed.

These would constitute mitigating factors if not for reports that, according to the manufacturer, patients are supposed to take this drug for only six weeks. Not to mention reports that Russian troops used it to boost stamina, which is clearly the off-label use that would have enhanced Sharapova’s performance….

Ironically, most damning might be her guilt by association with the Russian Tennis Federation. After all, just months ago, WADA implicated all Russian athletes in an epidemic of doping unparalleled in sports history. This compelled my indignant commentary, “In Putin’s Russia Even Athletics Is a Criminal Doping Enterprise,” November 9, 2015.

All of the above explains why Sharapova should be suspended for at least the two years WADA recommends for “unintentional” doping. This, of course, would effectively end her career. But so be it. Here’s why:

Given the way advertisers are lavishing lucrative endorsements on Maria Sharapova, you’d think she were the one chasing this history [of surpassing Steffi Graf’s 22 Grand Slam titles]. In fact, she’s heading into the sunset of her career still chasing after her sixth Grand Slam.

Serena is clearly too classy these days to complain about this egregious (and arguably racist) oversight, which is all the more admirable considering the tens of millions of dollars it represents. But the rest of us should.

(“Hail, Serena! Queen of Ace,” The iPINIONS Journal, July 11, 2015)

I made this snarky, albeit prescient, observation after Serena won her twenty-first Grand Slam. Accordingly, she would have been forgiven a little schadenfreude over Sharapova’s fall from grace. Instead, she merely displayed the class I attributed to her.

Specifically, Serena expressed admiration on Tuesday for the forthcoming way Sharapova took responsibility. She also hailed her courage and dedication to their sport, and wished her well as she tries to salvage what remains of her career. By instructive contrast, three-time Grand Slam champion Jennifer Capriati blasted Sharapova, in effect, as a sacred cow who got away with cheating her entire career.

Meanwhile, Sharapova’s top sponsors wasted no time relegating her to pariah status. No doubt because they have facts which indicate that she was not as forthcoming as Serena thinks.

Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer said on Tuesday it was severing ties with Maria Sharapova as the world’s highest-paid female athlete started to count the cost of a failed drug test and likely ban from tennis.

Sports firm Nike and German luxury car maker Porsche also said they were suspending their relationship with the five-times Grand Slam champion as the 28-year-old Russian until a decision is taken on banning her.

(France 24, March 7, 2016)

It can only be a matter of time before other major sponsors, like American Express, Avon, and Evian, follow suit.

To give you a sense of how much she stands to lose, reports are that Sharapova makes $30 million in endorsements each year. For a little perspective, she has made a relatively paltry $37 million in prize money for her entire career.

This is why she probably expected to emulate Michael Jordan who, 13 years after retiring from the NBA, makes more in endorsements each year ($100 million in 2015 according to Forbes) than he made in salary his entire career ($94 million). That now seems unlikely.

Still, given the way Serena has dominated Tennis over the past 10 years, we should demand explanations from the corporate heads who continually chose Sharapova instead of Serena to endorse their products. Think of the message this sent, especially to young black girls about unfair treatment and to young white girls about preferential treatment.

In fact, the racism inherent in this is every bit as insidious and self-perpetuating as the racism inherent in black girls choosing white dolls over black ones, which sociologists Kenneth and Mamie Clark demonstrated 55 years ago in experiments to raise racial consciousness.

Perhaps major sponsors will now sign Serena and make her the world’s highest-paid female athlete, belatedly. To be honest, though, my only hope is that she wins two more Grand Slams to dethrone Graf as holder of the most titles, and then retires … before she’s exposed for taking PEDs too.

In any event, don’t cry for Maria. She deserves to be relegated to the dustbin of sports history, just like Marion, And good riddance to her!

That said, I repeat my abiding plea:

Policing drugs in professional sports is not only Orwellian, it’s utterly futile. After all [athletes] have always, and will always, do or take anything that might give them a competitive advantage. And if what they do or take poses no harm to anyone except themselves, who cares?!

This enlightened attitude towards performance-enhancing drugs would have precluded the ‘scandals’ that now threaten the professional careers of Tour de France Champion Floyd Landis and Olympic Champion Justin Gatlin; to say nothing of sparing them international ridicule as pathetic liars and cheaters.

(“A Plea for Landis, Gatlin, et al: Legalize Drugs…Especially in Sports,” The iPINIONS Journal, August 3, 2006)