From The Independent:

In the 100m quarter-finals in the Bird’s Nest, Usain Bolt flew down the track to the 50-metre mark, then shut down his engine and coasted to victory in 9.92sec. Breaking 10 seconds is still considered a sporting feat of note, but Bolt did it without breaking sweat. It was obvious then that the 9.70sec barrier would not survive the final.

And so it proved, although nobody could have envisaged the breathtaking manner in which Bolt would shatter it. Some suggested it was as stunning as Ben Johnson’s 9.79sec win in Seoul back in 1988. But, even pumped up to the yellowing eyeballs on anabolic steroids, Big Bad Ben did not produce quite such a jaw-dropping performance in the most notorious Olympic 100m final. He was flat to the boards until he raised an index finger in celebration as the finish line approached. His winning margin over Carl Lewis was 0.13sec.

Bolt started his celebrations some 20m from the line, stretching out both arms in a “Hey, get me” statement, then beating his right fist against his chest. He still managed to stop the digits on the trackside clock at 9.69, and won by a margin of 0.20sec – a veritable street in sprinting terms.

The clowning that followed was far from the preening arrogance of so many American speed merchants down the years. It was a joyous, natural breath of fresh air from a young man who has redefined the term Cool Runnings.

In an event that looked to be in terminal decline from a barrage of drug scandals, the Lightning Bolt was just what the doctor might have ordered for the mens’ 100m, and for track and field. He had fueled himself on chicken nuggets, and he proceeded to have Michael Johnson’s treasured 200m world record for breakfast. With a little help from his Jamaican friends, he also consigned the 4 x 100m relay world record to history.

Bolt’s impressive performance on the track in Beijing had not only yielded accolades but scrutiny as well.

BALCO founder Victor Conte voiced out his concern in connection with athletes like Bolt who hail from Caribbean countries. Most of these countries lack independent anti-doping agencies to check the cleanliness of these athletes according to confessed and jailed steroid supplier Conte.

American sprint star Carl Lewis similarly expressed his disbelief of Bolt’s performance with this statement: “I’m still working with the fact he dropped from 10-flat to 9.6 in one year,” American Lewis was quoted as saying. “I think there are some issues … countries like Jamaica do not have a random (dope control) program so they can go months without being tested.”

Bolt, in response, said: “I know I’m clean. I work hard for what I want,”

“I know what he said. To me it doesn’t really matter what he said, a lot of people were saying that.

“Carl Lewis can say whatever he wants. That’s just his opinion,” Lewis said

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One Times Online article labeled International Olympic president Jacques Rogge as a “deluded individual” when Rogge expressed his displeasure of Usain Bolt’s celebration of his victory at Beijing. Usain earned Rogge’s rebuke when the Jamaican sprinter failed to shake hands with his co-competitors after his impressive win at the 100 meters.

However, Rogge’s recent interview with the BBC’s Inside Sport, as related by AFP, portrayed a very pragmatic man. The IOC president said those who aspire for a 100 percent drug-free Olympics were out of touch with reality. He added cheating will always be part of human nature.

“I think one has to be realistic,” Rogge said.

“Drug-free sport in general is Utopia. It will be naive to believe that no-one will take drugs.

“There are about 400 million people practicing sport on this globe, there are not 400 million saints on earth.

“Cheating is embedded in human nature and doping is to sport what criminality is to society.

“You will always need cops and judges and prisons and jails and rules and regulations.”

IOC is planning to catch more users of anabolic steroids and other performance enhancers as it’s currently implementing re-testing of the samples taken at the Beijing Olympics. The IOC head “expects further positive doping cases to emerge from these” up to 2016 Games.

Rogge said all the samples they obtained from Beijing – more than 5,000 screenings, including nearly 1,000 blood samples – will be available for retroactive testing. The blood samples will be screened for new generation performance-enhancing drugs CERA and insulin. And if new testing techniques will emerge between now and 2016, the same samples will go through re-testing.

“We are keeping the samples for eight years and we are going to re-test them,” said Rogge.

“And ultimately the judgment on the Beijing Games will be given in eight years’ time, because each time a new scientific test is coming up we are going to re-test.”

Rogge assumed the IOC position on July 2001, replacing Juan Antonio Samaranch. Rogge has his share of criticisms and the most recent of these were his disapproval of Bolt’s behavior (mentioned above) and his statement regarding Greek athletes. He allegedly stated that “Greece won the gold medal in doping” because of a spate of failed dope tests of Greek athletes.

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We’ve posted Carl Lewis’ controversial comments on the Caribbean athletes’ possible use of anabolic steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs. According to Lewis, his suspicion is based on the fact that Caribbean nations do not have adequate anti-doping program.

Former BALCO boss Victor Conte has pretty much hinted the same thing that the superior performance of Caribbean athletes on the track could be partly due to illegal compounds.

Both were particularly suspicious of Usain Bolt’s impressive performance in Beijing.

Now, it’s Jamaica-strikes-back scenario.

In Jamaica, it is now Carl Lewis trashing season. Allegations on Lewis’ doping activity are splayed on the local media.

In a recent telephone interview, Bolt has shrugged off Lewis’ comments in a recent telephone interview.

“I know I’m clean. I work hard for what I want,” said the Jamaican track superstar.

“I know what he said. To me it doesn’t really matter what he said, a lot of people were saying that.”

When Veronica Campbell-Brown, the five-time Olympic medalist from Jamaica, recently talked about the possibility of use of PEDs during the 1980s, the name of American track icon Florence Griffith-Joyner has come up. Campbell-Brown said that it was not for her to say that the world records set at that period when Flo-Jo has reigned were tainted, but acknowledged that it was a possibility.

Campbell-Brown has retained her Olympic title in the 200m in Beijing, but her run of 21.74 seconds – her personal best – is still slower by 0.4 seconds of Flo-Jo’s 1988 record. This is a very, very significant margin which has prompted many women athletes to consider Flo-Jo’s times as “men’s” records.

Excerpts from Caymanian Compass’ report:

“Everybody wants to watch a world record,” Campbell–Brown told BBC Sport. “The men enjoy all the glamour because they’re capable of breaking world records. Women don’t have that luxury.”

In Olympic track and field disciplines, the only women’s world records to have been set in the last 20 years have come in modified or recently added events.

Today’s competitors, in fact, are not even threatening the majority of records from the 1980s.

This has led many observers to suggest those records are suspicious and may have been achieved with the use of illegal, performance–enhancing drugs.

Perhaps the most suspicious, and iconic, of those records is Griffith–Joyner’s 10.49 for the 100m.

The American smashed the previous mark by a staggering 0.27 seconds in the quarter–finals of the US Olympic Trials in 1988.

It was also a half–second faster than she had ever run prior to that season, and it came after a three–year break from the sport.

Aged 28 at the time, she would quit athletics two months later, shortly before the introduction of out–of–competition drug testing.

At the age of 38, Flo-Jo died and her unexpected demise has fuelled the rumors that she was using illicit drugs. It was reported the cause of her death was that she had suffocated in her pillow during a severe epileptic seizure.

Many believed that Flo-Jo’s world record at the 100m event could have been wind-aided or steroid-assisted, or both. The remarkable development of her physique and performance had raised many eyebrows. In 1988, she displayed dramatic gains in muscle mass and definition. It was noted that prior to the 1988 season, Flo-Jo’s best at the 100m was 10.96; in 1988 she upgraded that by 0.47 seconds. Likewise, her pre-1988 best at 200m was 21.96; in1988 she improved that to 21.34.

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In a recent telephone interview with Reuters, Usain Bolt insists he is squeaky clean and that he has gained track stardom due to hard training.

Bolt also answers back to American sprint superstar Carl Lewis’ scrutiny that he may be on some performance boosters when he smashed world records at the recently concluded Beijing Olympics.

Lewis has dropped some controversial comments during his interview with Sports Illustrated. His comments have sparked indignation in Jamaica, Lightning Bolt’s country.

“I’m still working with the fact he dropped from 10-flat to 9.6 in one year,” American Lewis was quoted as saying. “I think there are some issues … countries like Jamaica do not have a random (dope control) programme so they can go months without being tested.”

But Bolt attempts to negate Lewis’ insinuation.

“I know I’m clean. I work hard for what I want,” said the 6-foot-5 sprinter.

“I know what he said,” said the Jamaican. “To me it doesn’t really matter what he said, a lot of people were saying that.

“When you run the 100 metres that’s what you get. As long as you’re fast they start saying that.

“It’s like a trend. I’m trying to change that. It’s a bad image for the sport.

“Carl Lewis can say whatever he wants. That’s just his opinion.”

Indeed, a lot of tongues went a-wagging when Bolt won the gold in 100m, 200m, and 4×100 relay events – quite easily in the view of many observers. Thus, the suspicion that Bolt maybe using steroids and other performance-enhancing drugs for such an impressive runs.

But Bolt says he owed it all to strict training.

“The 200 is also sprinting, that was key,” he said. “The only thing I had to do was get my start right and I got my start right.

“That’s why my last 50 metres are so good because I’ve got speed and endurance.”

Bolt also denies the accusations thrown at him by many of his naysayers that there is inadequate testing program in his country, as well as in other Caribbean nations.

“For sure we get tested in the Caribbean,” he said. “They like to come to your house early in the morning.

“It’s not cool getting up at six, seven in the morning when you’re just trying to enjoy your sleep. But I know what it’s for and it’s fair. We get tested all the time.

“When you’re in the top 20 in the world you get random tested. They get to know your whereabouts.”

Further, Bolt talks about his career path. He says he would definitely defend his records at the London Olympics in 2012.

I’ll be in London … I hope it isn’t cold,” he said. “I’m looking forward to that. “I can be champion again. I’ll be 26 then. I have a lot of time on my hands. All I have to do is stay focused, train hard and be ready.”

And track fans would probably see him in the 400 meters.

“In the future I’ll probably step up to 400 metres,” he said. “But it’s a lot of work. I’m not ready for that kind of work.”

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So, it’s now down to trash-talking instead of track-running.

The word war steams up between Carl Lewis and Usain Bolt, or at least Bolt’s nation, Jamaica. Suffice it to say that Lewis will not be welcomed in Jamaica with open arms but with a barrage of the now world-renowned Trelawny yams. Here are some excerpts from a scathing editorial which appeared on the Jamaican Observer. The editorial basically sums up Jamaicans’ sentiment on Carl Lewis.

No sooner had the world slapped down Mr Jacques Rogge for his reprimand of Mr Bolt’s celebration on winning the 100 metres in a new world record, we now have the xenophobic US Olympian, Mr Carl Lewis, raising doubts about the authenticity of Mr Bolt’s outstanding achievements.

According to a Caribbean Media Corporation report published in last Saturday’s Observer magazine, Sporting World, Mr Lewis, in an interview with Sports Illustrated, raised strong doubts about Mr Bolt’s performances in the 100 metres, 200 metres and 4×100 metres relay - all won in world record times - but cleverly stopped short of accusing the Jamaican sprinter of taking performance-enhancing drugs.

Lewis, himself an Olympic medalist – nine gold medals out of 10 Olympic medals – dropped some controversial comments at his recent interview with Sports Illustrated.

“When people ask me about Bolt, I say he could be the greatest athlete of all time. But to run 10.03 seconds one year and 9.69 the next, if you don’t question that in a sport with the reputation it has right now, you’re a fool. Period,” Lewis said.

Mr Lewis who, in the past, has used his stature as an Olympic champion to oppose the acceptance of Caribbean athletes, particularly Jamaicans, by American colleges, went further to try and smear Jamaica’s drug-testing programme.

“Countries like Jamaica do not have a random programme, so they can go months without being tested,” he fumed.

Then he delivered what he obviously believed would be regarded as some form of objectivity by saying: “No one is accusing Bolt, but don’t live by a different rule and expect the same kind of respect. How dare anybody feel that there shouldn’t be scrutiny, especially in our sport.”

The editorial defends that Jamaica has ‘never felt itself beyond inspection’ and that they are, in fact, under the International Association of Athletic Federations’ random drug screening program.

All this, of course, exposes Mr Lewis’s lies which, we believe, are driven by envy and the fact that his own athletics career - during which he won nine Olympic gold medals - has been shrouded in suspicion.

Ouch, that hurts!

Lewis has, indeed, gotten embroiled in a steroid scandal himself. If you remember that back in 2003, Dr. Wade Exum suggested of some anomalous activity within the United States Olympic Committee. Exum, director of the drug control administration of USOC from 1991 to 2000, provided documents to support his claim with the names of around 100 athletes who had failed anti-doping tests but were later cleared to compete at the Seoul Olympics. Among the athletes was Carl Lewis.

It was further revealed that Lewis tested positive three times before the 1988 Olympics for three banned stimulants pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine. The initial decision was to ban him from said Olympics and slap him with a six-month suspension but that decision was later overturned when USOC accepted Lewis’ excuse of inadvertently using said banned compounds. Subsequently, Lewis was cleared to compete in Seoul.

At the Seoul Olympics in 1988, Carl Lewis received the silver in the 100-meter event, falling behind Canadian Ben Johnson. He was awarded the gold, however, when Johnson was later disqualified for failing a doping test. Lewis was awarded world record for running the 100 metres at 9.93 seconds.

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Carl Lewis and Victor Conte are two prominent personalities who have been engaged in running – the former running on the athletic track, the latter running a steroid ring. These two ‘runners’ suspect sprint superstar Usain Bolt’s performance at the recently concluded Beijing Olympics could not only be due to his diet of homemade yams but to steroids and other performance enhancers as well.

From Times Online:

It has been a Jamaican love-in since Usain Bolt bestrode the Olympic Games and won a hat-trick of gold medals, but a voice from the past urged caution as the new sprint sensation was heralded as the king of Kingston. With Bolt in the throes of a national party after his homecoming this week, Carl Lewis said that his achievements are questionable.

The American, 47, who won nine Olympic golds, stopped short of accusing Bolt of doping, but his remarks were the most damning yet from a track insider. In an incendiary interview in Sports Illustrated, Lewis said: “When people ask me about Bolt I say he could be the greatest athlete of all time. But for someone to run 10.03 one year and 9.69 the next, if you don’t question that in a sport that has the reputation it has right now, you’re a fool. Period.”

Conte has recently expressed his misgivings about the impressive performance of athletes coming from the Caribbean countries like Jamaica. Conte’s suspicion is based on the fact that these countries lack or have inadequate testing programs for steroids and performance-enhancing drugs. This is also the basis of Lewis’ skepticism; that unlike the United States, Jamaica has humungous task ahead regarding its anti-doping policy.

“I’m proud of America right now because we have the best random and most comprehensive drug-testing program. Countries like Jamaica do not have a random program, so they can go months without being tested. No one is accusing Bolt, but don’t live by a different rule and expect the same kind of respect. How dare anybody feel that there shouldn’t be scrutiny, especially in our sport?”

Understandably, Lewis’ comments has raised some hackles in Bolt’s country, particularly Herb Elliot, Jamaica team doctor and a member of the IAAF antidoping commission. Elliot stated that the US was circulating “condescending crap” at the Olympics. “They still think we don’t know anything down in Jamaica,” he said.

In 2003, Lewis was one of the athletes whose names appeared in the documents provided by Dr. Wade Exum to Sports Illustrated. Exum was the United States Olympic Committee from 1991 to 2000.

The American athletes, numbering to about 100, failed anti-doping screenings and should have been disqualified from participating in the Olympics but were nevertheless got clearance to compete. The documents said Lewis tested positive three times prior to the 1988 Seoul Olympics for three banned stimulants – pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine. He was banned from said Olympics and was suspended for six months. Lewis denied he consciously used the banned substances, a claim which USOC had believed and prompted them to clear Lewis for future competitions.

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The number of athletes who tested positive for steroids and other banned substances had hit 12-year low in the recently concluded Beijing Olympics and yet more and more athletes are being doubted for winning through legitimate means.

Take a look at the case of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt and American swimming sensation Michael Phelps.

Bolt, who now currently holds both the Olympic and world records for the 100 meters, elicits some suspicion on his superb performance at the Bird’s Nest Stadium as he broke three world records in Beijing, way too easy in the opinions of fans and sports observers alike. This despite the fact that Bolt underwent rigorous and multiple drug screenings and passed them all.

Phelps, on the other hand, raked in eight gold medals in swimming and is now the proud holder of seven world records in swimming. And some opine the latest Spedoo LZR RACER swimwear might not be the only help the 23-year-old swimmer is getting when he hits the water.

The cynical view of many stems from the stark reality that former record holders and seemingly invincible Olympians have tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs later on in their careers. Marion Jones and Ben Johnson are just two of the many who had once basked in Olympic glory then retreated in disgrace because of steroid use.

American sprinter Michael Johnson acknowledges this problem.

“It’s unfortunate what has happened to the sport and it has to be addressed and it is being addressed,” Johnson said. “But if someone wants to believe the only way (Bolt) can do what he’s doing is through doping, that is their prerogative.” Johnson’s world record in the 200-meter dash was broken by Bolt in Beijing.

There is also the concern of new class of PEDs, called designer drugs, and newfangled doping techniques constantly emerging from some rudimentary lab in some obscure places across the United States and elsewhere. Gene doping is at the forefront of these new doping technologies and anti-doping officials scramble as they find new ways to detect them.

Remember the case of Marion Jones, et al? Jones, who is currently serving her 6-month prison term due to lying to investigators who questioned her about her use of steroids, breezed through screenings while using the latest designer steroid at that time THG, or tetrahydrogestrinone. Jones, with her apparent use of THG, conquered the track to win five medals in the Sydney Olympics in 2000.  Jones and the other athletes might have continued with such illegal practice had it not been for the whistleblower in their coop, her track coach Trevor Graham.

Only six athletes of the nearly 11,000 participants in Beijing fell to the dragnet of the IOC and the question hangs if how many of these athletes were able to outsmart officials and got away with the gold loot.

From bnd.com:

Clearing the Games’ reputation had been a top priority for the IOC coming into Beijing, and the number of doping tests conducted in competition jumped from 3,500 in Athens to a total of 4,500 planned by the end of the Beijing Games, IOC officials said.

The IOC also launched its first coordinated pre-games testing program, which caught 39 athletes and barred them from participating before the Aug. 8 opening ceremony. Such tests, for example, led to the entire Bulgarian weightlifting team to drop out before the Olympics.
While more positive drug test results could still turn up, especially for substances such as the blood booster erythropoietin, or EPOs, that take longer to detect, IOC officials were celebrating what they said was a victory for athletic fair play.

“We feel the deterrent effect played a part in what we see,” said IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies. “The athletes know that at this event the IOC, which is the organization running the doping programs, means business in not having those who cheat as a part of these events.”

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To Victor Conte, the Caribbean is not only great for doing some R and R, but for doping as well.

In his letter to the New York Daily News, the former big boss of BALCO is giving out unsolicited advice for anti-doping organizations to step up their testing policies. And we’re sure Conte meant well and definitely knows what he’s talking about. He is a reformed man since he has spent some time in prison and then some more time on house arrest, we think any man would have the opportunity to turn over a new leaf under those circumstances. And for masterminding the biggest steroid scandal in history, we are sure he knows the ins and outs of steroid use.

Apparently, Mr. Conte is so concerned with the problem of doping in sports that he met with the former WADA boss Dick Pound in December 2007. Then, Conte has stressed the importance of implementing more out-of-competition testing to curb the use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

On said meeting, Conte said he advised Pound to deploy “disguised testers” to Jamaica, providing WADA with details about a certain drug supplier there. Conte pointed out to Pound the futility of undertaking testing at competitions saying that it is during the offseason period that PEDs are widely used “when athletes use anabolic steroids in conjunction with intensive weight training and develop the explosive strength base that serves them throughout the competitive season”.

Pound, however, stepped down two weeks after the meeting, according to Conte, and the organization “failed to act upon the information.”

As for the ongoing Games in Beijing, Conte has this to say:

I have no evidence of doping by any of the winners of medals in Beijing, but when times begin falling like rain, questions arise, especially when the record-setters are from countries such as Jamaica and other Caribbean nations where there is no independent anti-doping federation. In the women’s 100 meters, for instance, four of the eight finalists in the event were from such countries. Jamaican women swept all three Olympic medals: Shelly-Ann Frasier’s winning time of 10.78 seconds is blazing fast, and reflects a drop from a best of 11.31 in 2007 to 10.78 in 2008, an improvement of more than five-tenths of a second in a single year and about five meters faster than before.

In the letter, Conte also talks about Usain Bolt, who won the men’s 100-meter gold medal and whose triumph Conte considers as “a shocking world-record time of 9.69.” Trinidad and Tobago’s Richard Thompson also merited a special mention in Conte’s letter.  Thompson won the silver in same event in a personal best time of 9.89.

Conte says that that something is going on considering that five out eight finalists in the men’s 100-m race were from an area “where there is minimal out-of-season testing and five-of-six 100-meter medals were won by athletes from Caribbean countries without independent anti-doping federations”. Conte, however, reiterates that he has no knowledge that said athletes were involved in illegal activity. He says: “All I know is that they and other athletes come from regions where minimal offseason testing is administered.”

Conte’s ends his appeal with these statements:

There is a desperate need for each of the Caribbean countries to have an independent and fully functioning anti-doping federation. Until that is the case, the sprinters from these countries are going to continue to be under a cloud of suspicion.

I believe that these athletes need to be frequently drug tested on a random basis during the offseason, so that the cloud of suspicion can begin to move on. It’s my opinion that more effective drug testing in the Caribbean will help to restore the credibility of entire sport of track and field.

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With the recent upsurge of steroid-related news making it to the mainstream media, it is now obvious how the use of anabolic-androgenic steroids has become prevalent in the world of competitive sports.

Despite the much publicized crackdown of China on steroids and performance-enhancing drugs recently, don’t expect a chemical-free Olympic Games.

And don’t let John Fahey and WADA assure you that this will be the cleanest Olympics ever, because it would not be so. To say that winners of events that require strength, endurance, and speed are steroid-free is to say that China is a totally democratic country.

And the more juiced-up athletes are caught, the more the public would think that winners are likely fueled by PEDs.

Well, we’re putting it rather mildly here.

Here’s a sterner view on China and the Olympics from Mail Online:

No one with a grain of intelligence will question that such diverse sports as cycling, in which Britain anticipates a medal haul, and weightlifting are rife with steroids.

It requires a leap of faith - of which not even the amazing Hildreth would be capable - to predict that the Beijing Games will not be blighted by drugs.

Even if that were to happen, the only rational conclusion would be that the organisers had cooked the tests to avoid killing the Peking duck. Catch 22 for the IOC is that the more cheats they reel in, the more doubting the world’s population becomes.

Even athletes who deny all guilt are acutely aware of the implications.

Top sprinters Asafa Powell, Tyson Gay and Usain Bolt acknowledge that whichever of them wins Saturday week’s 100m dash to be crowned fastest man on earth will be the subject of suspicion.

Our unlikely world 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu and triathlete Tim Don - both of whom managed to overturn their British Olympic Association life bans for missing three drugs tests - complain that no matter what they achieve in the next two-and-a-half weeks they will still be stigmatised. Too right they will.

Public perception of the Olympics will not be improved by the number of convicted drugs cheats coming back from suspension around the world to compete in these Games. Beijing has more problems than termites in rotting wood . . . air pollution, Tibet, human rights, Darfur, media freedom, dog-meat on restaurant menus and typhoons threatening the sailing events, to name but a few.

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