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More shame has been thrust upon the nation of Turkey today, as nine more track and field athletes have had their drug tests return positive for banned performance enhancing substances. This time the drugs have been named, both of them are anabolic steroids that harken back to the long dark past of state-sponsored East German doping system as well as the days of the ultimate martyr, Ben Johnson.
Three athletes tested positive for turinabol, the drug of choice of the old and gaudy East German sports regime. Six athletes tested positive for stanozolol. The press release said that stanozolol is the drug that Canadian sprinter Johnson tested positive for during the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Poor Ben Johnson, he cannot escape his past. Perhaps he will be the unintended eternal martyr. So far, he is. For the East Germans? The women look like ugly men; purgatory has become them and it wasn’t even their doing, it was a state-run programme. This is why I suggest the Turkish Athletics Federation should be suspended from all international competition, at least until they clean up their own act or the act of their athletes.
Martyrdom
I have no proof however, I maintain that if you, as an athlete, shove your drug-assisted performances in the face of the authorities you will not escape the wrath of the World Anti Doping Agency or the International Association of Athletics Federations. If you are going to be careless, or if your need for faster, higher, stronger outstrips the number of cells remaining in your addled brain, you will be martyred.
The list of martyred athletes is telling, the aforementioned Johnson shoved his performances in the face of the authorities with his yellowing eyes, ballooned-up body and the Charlie Brown head composition was a dead giveaway. And of course the famous act of looking around as he crossed the line to break the world record and take an Olympic gold medal, that fateful day in Seoul. He set the benchmark for useless bravado. Add: Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong amongst many others caught in the act of wagging the dog with their egos.
Armstrong made Johnson look like a child amongst monsters; a stumbling, knuckle-dragging dope. In fact Armstrong was the ultimate monster and will forever be known not as the boy who beat cancer, raised 100s of millions of dollars to fight the horrible disease while winning an unprecedented seven consecutive Tour de France titles, no, he will be remembered as the athlete who shoved his performances in the face of the authorities. That’s his legacy. Queue that fateful day Armstrong was caught on camera turning back to give Ullrich that terrible stare, then disappeared up the mountain, as if he was apparating through a portkey in an athletics version of the Deathly Hallows. What an arrogant, mindless boob.
The very sports that feed these so-called athletes the fame, the money and the glory that they lust for (and the fans cheer for) are being killed by their carelessness and buffoonery, not so much as proverbially biting the hand that feeds them, but chewing it up and ripping it apart. At this rate, the fan attrition will kill the sports and the sociopaths like Armstrong will have to resort to mainstream anti-social behavior.
And Ben Johnson will forever be referenced as the boy who stumbled into false glory and then stupidly, stumbled right back out again. That’s his legacy; that’s his purgatory.
Here is the latest press release on the Turkish nine:
MONACO (AP) – Nine Turkish track and field athletes have been banned after testing positive for anabolic steroids, the latest doping scandal there during Istanbul’s campaign to win 2020 Olympics hosting rights.
The IAAF said Wednesday all had received two-year bans and that six are women, including two teenagers.
Six cases involved field athletes testing positive for stanozolol at Turkey’s national university championships held in May at Bursa. Stanozolol is the steroid used by Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
Among those six, three athletes also tested positive for oral turinabol, the steroid used in state-sponsored East German doping programs in the 1970s and 1980s.
The IAAF confirmed the disciplinary cases days after its president, Lamine Diack, suggested Turkish athletics officials “need to clean their house.”
