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Donovan Bailey devolved toward the lowest common denominator regarding the treatment of former elite sprinters by the athletics community. The Canadian sprint legend joined Asafa Powell, Justin Gatlin and Tyson Gay in decrying the treatment of sprint legends. Allegedly, the outcry comes from the former athletes having trouble gaining access to venues at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games.
Jamaican-born Canadian sprinter, Donovan Bailey, says he once contemplated competing for the country of his birth.https://t.co/UXzcSLRDxe
— Nationwide90FM (@NationwideRadio) November 1, 2024
Bailey should pick his battles more carefully.
The dopers cry foul
Asafa Powell was suspended for doping. His own Jamaican Anti-Doping Commission suspended him for 18 months but was later reduced to six months. Powell claimed that a supplement was unknowingly containing the offending oxilofrine. However, it is common knowledge that it is the athlete’s responsibility it know what they are consuming.
In 2013, Tyson Gay served a one-year ban after testing positive for a banned anabolic steroid. He blamed someone else close to him, for massaging his legs with a cream containing a banned product.
Justin Gatlin, like Gay, an American sprint champion, also tested positive for banned substances, twice. Twice he blamed outside sources, one a massage therapist, for rubbing cream into his buttocks, and another that was used to battle his attention deficit disorder. None of the athletes took ownership of the issue.
Gatlin was associated with coach Trevor Graham, who had at least eight other athletes test positive for PEDs.
If Bailey is attempting to gain support for alleged ill-treatment as a so-called “legend” of the sport, perhaps he could behave more like a legend with decorum and diplomacy.
Bailey trash-talked Johnson
After the “World’s Fastest Man” race, 25 years ago, Bailey looked back at Michael Johnson.
Bailey won the race and the title with a time of 14.99 seconds over 150 metres, the halfway between their two best events, Bailey’s 100m and Johnson’s 200m. Johnson didn’t finish. A few minutes later, with cameras and a microphone, Bailey let go.
“(Johnson) didn’t pull up,” Bailey said, then accused him of faking the injury because Bailey was leading at the turn, where Johnson seemed to specialize at. “He’s a coward.”
Bailey would later apologize for the gaff, but like his comments about “slavery mentality,” he clearly was not demonstrating legend-like courtesy.
Bailey would add, that Johnson “wasn’t a sprinter” and that they should “run this race again so I can kick his ass again.” Interestingly, as Bailey had gone into the race claiming that he was the world’s fastest man because he was the fastest over 100 metres and that the race was unnecessary.
In supporting the Gay, Gatlin and Powell, Bailey said, “The problem that we have is a slavery mentality, the problem that we have is ego check and again I’m going to give props to Asafa Powell for sitting down with Tyson Gay and Justin and having a conversation.”
Bailey had also said, “I know that I represent terrible days at his (Johnson’s) office, every time he stepped up, I mean, I knocked him down.”
“Michael and I ran together for the first time in 1994 in Germany and he was trying to step down and I think he was actually doing a couple of rounds. My coach and agent told me that Michael Johnson would be running the 100m final but not the heats or any other race…the people were there to see the fastest guys run and I was like he’s sitting in the stands watching us run. I ran and won my heat and then the finals came and I murdered them,” he added.
