So my last question to you Arrowhead is; are you a supporter of
our cause who is trying to be fair? Or are you here to trash us and
always take the side of the Black Athletic Supremacists?
What exactly is your cause? My cause in posting here is to promote
equality the sports I love, and the society I live in. I am not a black
supremacist, nor am I a white supremacist; I do not believe that any
race is inherently superior to any other (although some might have
undeniably genetic tendencies).
And just so that we're crystal clear, I am a WHITE Canadian runner in
the NCAA, and I'm one of the fastest athletes in the country. I have
made junior national teams, and am now vying for senior national team
spots.
While you might not agree with everything I have said and have to say,
just know that it comes from a lot of experience, and is not contrived.
Your experience may differ, and I respect that, so long as you respect
mine.
Arrowhead in this case I agree with most of your post, but my
question to you is do you not think it's possible that many of the
black athletes who have run sub 10's were using PEDs. Justin Gatlin the
top American 100 mtr. sprinter was recently suspended for 8 years for
PEDs.
Of course it is possible, and I question it more today than ever
before. In the mid-90's, athletes like Frankie Fredericks and Donovan
Bailey were going sub-10 at what I consider to be "reasonable"
intervals. Today's Athletes seem to be capable of breaking the magical
barrier every time they step on the track, Asafa Powell being the most
most glaring example of this.
Running 100m is extremely tough on your body, more than most people
will ever know because the impact is proportional to how fast you're
going. People who don't run fast can't appreciate the stresses
associated with the event. That being said, running under 10 seconds is
extremely tough on the body, and I don't see how it's possible for
someone to be able to recover fast enough to be able to do it twelve
times in a year.
That being said, I am always very careful to scrutinize what is and
what isn't performance enhanced. Remember that we are talking about the
most elite of the elite in terms of genetic, but also in terms of the
best training, diet, equipment, therapists, and all the other things
that people don't regularly see but play a huge role in athletic
performance.
There have been many famous black sprinters who were suspected
or rumoured of using PEDs ie. Carl Lewis and Michael Johnson. I am
almost certain Michael Johnson was a drug cheat. He didn't become
dominant until his late twenties and was much less dominant than Jeremy
Wariner at his age. The uncovering of the Balco scandal only happened
recently and many of America's top sprinters were found to be a part of
this sad cheating story.
Just so that you don't think I'm protecting all of these people, I do
believe Carl Lewis was on PED's, and in fact this was confirmed by his
positive test for (I think) ephedra at the Olympic trials. Still, I
don't think popping a bunch of stimulants was making Carl run 9.86. Of
course it likely helped him, but only marginally. People have this
misconception that drugs turn a sh*tty athlete into an Olympian, which
isn't true at all. They give you a minor and slight edge, on top of
what should already be a world class framework. Steroids do no work for
you, they increase your capacity to do more work and recover from it
quickly; so if you are on steroids, chances are that you are training
more intensively than someone who isn't.
I don't see how you are at all certain that Michael Johnson was a drug
cheat? He didn't suddenly get good. Male track athletes, barring
injury, should generally peak around 30 years old, which is the male
physical strength peak.
Michael Johnson ran 20.07 by the time he was 20 in 1988, then he broke
his leg and had to recover. In 1990 is was ranked #1 in the 200m and #3
in the 400m, and in 1991 he won his first gold medal at worlds in the
200m. In 1992 he ran 43.98 and 19.79, two new personal bests. In 1993
he won two more gold medals and set a best time of 43.65 in the 400m,
and ran sub-43 in the relay split. At the worlds in 1995 he won three
golds, 200m, 400m, and 4x400m, and lowered his personal best again to
43.39. In 1996 he set the 200m world record twice, and ran what is
arguably the greatest performance in history with his 19.32 clocking at
the Olympics, where he also won the 400m. In 1997 he had a slow year,
but still managed 43.75 and another 400m gold medal at worlds. In 1999
Johnson broke Reynold's world record with 43.18 at the world
championships, and added a second gold medal in the relay. And in 2000
Johnson finished his career with a gold medal in the 400m, and another
in the relay.
Now I'm not here to give you a history lesson, but this man went
undefeated in the 400m for 9 years, and you come out and say he only
dominated towards the end of this career. That's just plain wrong. If
you want to entertain the notion that Michael Johnson was on drugs, you
can do that, but at least support your argument rather than just
slander the man.
And don't thing I'm trying to protect a black man, because I wold be
saying the same thing if he was white, black, or blue - I don't care. I
am athlete, and as far as I am concerned we are innocent until proven
guilty, and the only thing that makes you a user of PED's, is a
positive drug test. Johnson never failed a drug test once in his career.
What if someone came out and bashed Lance Armstrong saying they were
convinced he used performance enhancers? The man has never once tested
positive, yet there are people who claim to have evidence proving he
used drugs. Personally I am in defense of Lance, but I would be a
hypocrite to defend Lance and not defend Johnson.
there is no way in my opinion that Jeremey Wariner is using Steroids, just look at his skinny frame.
Maybe this is why the top two American 400 mtr. runners are white.
While I agree with you that Wariner is likely clean, I don't think you
can use person's physique to tell what they are using and what they
aren't. Steroids today are so advanced that a person can be a user and
have almost no aesthetic side effects. When track athletes take
steroids, it isn't the same as when gym rats take them. They take
limited dosages, on carefully monitored cycles, looked after by doctors
(of question moral judgment).
Wariner is also coached by Johnson's former coach So if Wariner isn't
on steroids, the Johnson certainly wasn't. Because if anyone knew what
Johnson was on, it was his coach, who probably knew his body more
intimately than Johnson himself. There's no reason to suspect that
Coach Hart would allow Johnson to use PED's but not Wariner.
I have three reasons for believing blacks have cheated more
frequently than whites. Reason One- America and Canada which, are Black
supremacy countries, have had very few whites that they have groomed to
be top sprinters and I think those respective countries have been at
the forefront of cheating. Reason two- I am not a geneticist, but have
a Bachelors in Bio and as it has been discussed on this board, there is
a theory that Steroids work better on people of West African decent
(more testosterone cortisol?). Reason three is speculative- Blacks
might be more willing to cheat based on their culture/nature and also
their obsession with using professional sports as a means to get out of
poverty.
Having lived in both America and Canada, I certainly wouldn't call them
black supermacist, in fact I would argue that white men still pretty
much run the show. In the USA, neo-conservative ultra right wing white
men run the show.
That being said, I do believe that "reverse racism" is a huge problem,
where whites have been guilted into being ashamed or afraid to have any
kind of racial pride. Black Entertainment television, black history
month, black pride, black fraternities, black sororities, black college
fund; all of these terms are familiar yet, if you replace black with
white, they all sound terribly racist.
I strongly believe in equality, but I believe that we are in such a
rush to equalize things, that we sometimes reverse the scenario.
That being said, I still believe that my position as a white man born
into an upper middle class family, is better than that of most black
men. I have full athletic ride, but I certainly didn't need it; I chose
the pursue an athletic path, but had I not, I still would have had many
other options. Because of their socio-economic position (especially in
the USA) many blacks turn to sports as a way out of the reciprocating
poverty they find themselves in, which is completely fair. I have a
black teammate who is from a terrible family in a terrible part of NYC,
but he's very intelligent, and very athletically talented; his
scholarship is a means for him to get out and break the cycle.
I'm not an advocate of affirmative action, but I do believe that at
some point, unless you want perpetuating poverty, you need to break the
cycle. In fact I did believe in affirmative action until a BLACK
professor of mine gave me such a compelling argument against it, that I
had to drop the whole idea.
Let's also not forget that track and field is one of the most
participated in sports in the world, maybe only second to soccer. It's
extremely cheap, and requires only shoes (and in many cases it doesn't
even require shoes). Impoverished nations with predominantly black
populations are certainly going to produce black track and field
athletes. The United States and Canada are too busy producing
basketball, football, golf, hockey, and other athletes... I don't think
the United States has a tendency to groom black track athletes, I think
the socio economic position of blacks makes it more likely that they'll
end up in track.
When I was in high school, most of my friends were down at the country
club, not running intervals at the track. Different socio-economic
status tends to get you involved in different sports. Crew is
absolutely dominated by upper-middle class white ivy league students.
Finally, I want to point out that the most notorious drug programs in
the history of sport were those of the former Communist Block nations,
and these were white athletes. I'm not trying to say that white or
black or Asian or whoever else is the biggest cheats, what I'm trying
to say is that cheating has no racial boundary, anyone can do it.
