L.A. Times takes on the worldwide anti-doping Nazis
Gawd, what took so long!? After years of lapdog inaction, a legit mainstream newspaper has become a snarling watchdog when it comes to the illegitimate system of catching “drug cheats.” The system is bad enough when it comes to elite athletes, but it’s beyond insane when it’s applied to masters athletes — punishing (and tarring) the innocent more often than the guilty. In Part 1 of a two-part series, Pulitzer Prize winner Michael A. Hiltzik of the Los Angeles Times writes of the WADA/USADA system under the headline “Presumed guilty/Athletes’ unbeatable foe.”
Mike writes: “What has evolved to protect competitive purity since then is a closed, quasi-judicial system without American-style checks and balances. Anti-doping authorities act as prosecutors, judge and jury, enforcing rules that they have written, punishing violations based on sometimes questionable scientific tests that they develop and certify themselves, while barring virtually all outside appeals or challenges.”
My take: Tell me something I don’t know!
Better yet, talk to Kathy Jager or Neil Griffin. They know a thing or two about the absurdities of this system.
Notable about the Times report: It wasn’t by a sportswriter.
Of course not!
Sportswriters (and track writers especially) have become the biggest cheerleaders of the drug Nazis. It gives such writers a chance to “expose” athletes who fall under suspicion, feeding the public perception that inside every world-class athlete is a doper-in-hiding. Sportswriters portray WADA/USADA as the protectors of all that’s good and wholesome in Olympic sports — while rarely holding pro sports to the same standards.
But for every Barry Bonds they nail, the press shrugs off a couple dozen wrongly accused athletes. Worse, such sportswriters never challenge the doping authorities with the same ferocity they bring to the Floyd Landises of the world.
Maybe the Times series will awaken its peers in the news biz.
About time.
One Response
Well said, Ken. The clean sport crusade must never be allowed to elbow aside human rights.
Quick Silver
Hong Kong
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