Justin Gatlin

Posted on Tuesday, August 15, 2006

I don’t mean this to be offensive. Is that all right? No offence intended. I was just wondering how you qualify to compete in the Special Olympics. There’s probably a very simple answer to this, and no doubt somebody will reply with all the details, but for now, I’m still unclear. To be more specific, I was wondering what sort of a disability you’d need to have. For instance, if Justin Gatlin went deaf, could he enter the 100 metres in the Special Olympics? He might win a medal without taking drugs and wouldn’t that be great?

Floyd Landis was recently kicked off the Tour de France roll of honour for having excessive testosterone. More testosterone than an East German woman swimmer from the seventies. A lot of testosterone. Just like myself. I think it’s a damn shame that normal virile men such as Floyd and me should be victimised just because we happen to have that extra oooompphh. I mean, what next? Sorry, Fred. Your langer’s too big. You’re fucking disqualified! Jesus, where would that have left poor Linford Christie?

Something has been bothering me.

The argument against doping is that it gives one athlete an unfair advantage over another. (I think). It gives, to the athlete who has more money and access to better drugs, an unfair competitive edge. (I think that’s it). It’s banned, because the ones with all the money will be taking the drugs and winning all the prizes and the poor ones will win fuck-all, because they can’t afford the really clever drugs that the big guys can buy. And it will fuck up sport, and everybody should just fucking train, and we’ll see who’s best on the day, man to man.

I have only one thing to say to this: altitude.

Some of the wealthier athletes can afford to go and train for months in the Andes or the Western Highlands of Kenya, thereby greatly increasing their bodies’ capacity to use oxygen efficiently. I think it increases the number of red cells in their blood so that they can take in more oxygen. This is a very expensive way to increase the number of red blood cells in your body. It uses huge amounts of money and air-miles, but it’s legal.

A far cheaper way to achieve the same result is to extract a pint of your own blood, put it in the fridge and reinject it later when your body has recovered. Cheaper, and it doesn’t damage the environment, but it’s illegal.

Why?

Apart from the thousands of dollars Method One costs, what’s the difference?

Fucked if I know.

Share and Enjoy: