Here’s a pretty strong — but we must say not unfounded — statement by British athlete Jason Gardener on the drug scandals that has engulfed athletics in recent years.
“If Maurice Greene is proved to be a cheat then, apart from Kim Collins, every winner of the world and Olympic titles I tried to win from 1999 to 2005 will have been shown to be frauds.It’s so disappointing. You can’t help thinking what might have been. My childhood dreams have been destroyed by cheats time after time.
As a teenager, I remember the build-up to the 1988 Olympic final between Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis in Seoul and Johnson just blew the field away. It was amazing and an inspiration to me.
Then it came out that he had failed a dope test. I can remember him saying that everyone was on drugs and the outcry in the sport. Now when I look back at that 100m final, with all the people with a question-mark beside their names, he was right, wasn’t he?
Our sport needs to wake up. Maybe in other events drug-taking may not be as rife, but certainly in the sprints it seems to be the case.”
As a member of Britain’s sprint relay team, Gardener won a gold medal during the 2004 Athens Olympiad but his career quest for an individual gold has been frustrated by Maurice Greene (who’s now suspected of doping) and “proven cheats as American Justin Gatlin and Britain’s Dwain Chambers“.
INFO/PHOTO SOURCE: Dailymail
It’s been criminal and individuals who don’t cheat (at any point in their career, specifically) are mistreated and injured by the brazen juicers and their enablers in a big way. Just think of them scooping up the cash and accolades! And it’s not over yet; the sport is going down for the count …