I will ask you this: a simple question that over the past few weeks we have learned to be anything but. At what point does anti-doping work stop bettering the sport for which it is a part of and instead begin to hurt it? Well for the sport of Track and Field that line is drawn whenever you find a nation's top sprinter guilty of doping.
Once a native of Lexington Kentucky, current American sprinter: Tyson Gay began his athletic career in high school running hills and joining nearly every single race he could possibly run. Nevertheless, for a then 22 year old Gay, sprinting was the passion for which his ambitions were born meaning that when presented with the opportunity to become an NCAA athlete back in 2005, the sociology major seized his shot at greatness falling mere seconds short of a podium finish in the 60 Meter dash and just 2 hundredths of a second out of a silver medal placement in the 200 meter competition. Yet mere months later, it was in that year's indoor championships that Gay would bask in the fruits of his glory when he smashed his school's 100 meter dash record with a 10.06 second race a title that come season end would actually earn his team the NCAA indoor track final.
With his name finally floating across the minds of scouts across the world of sprinting, Gay quickly blew through his final years in the NCAA before eventually managing to qualify for the USA Track Team prior to the 2008 Olympics.
Yet it was in 2008 that things began to take on a hint of negativity for the then 25 year old. As he and now superstar sprinter Ussain Bolt raced onto the global stage, smashing records and pushing the limits on how fast a human being could possibly run, speculation arose, all centered around one word: doping.
In the months leading up to that impending Beijing Olympics, a widely known scandal, now referred to in history as BLACO saw star sprinters like then American star Justin Gatlin and up and coming female middle distance rookie Marion Jones meaning that as the USADA struggled to maintain its reputation as a "clean sport", the likes of Tyson Gay came as a welcomed blessing. Nevertheless, there were still races to be ran and it was in those races that poor Gay well, hit a wall. Losing in all of his races to Ussain Bolt himself, the promise of a strong career by Gay was shattered by the terrible realization that Ussain Bolt was the fastest man on earth and Tyson Gay was well, not.
Nevertheless, as reports surfaced last weekend, one might have reason to believe that Gay has been trying to change that and I don't mean training harder. According to Gay himself, he failed a drug test Saturday and among 4 other superstars including the name of former great Asafa Powell he has now plunged his sport into a flood of controversy.
With the sport of biking now struggling to distance themselves from fallen all-time great Lance Armstrong, and the MLB now amidst this Biogeneses scandal that might very well end with the suspensions of Alex Rodriguez and Ryan Braun, one must wonder: can a far less watched athletic endeavor in Track and Field survive the scrutiny of becoming yet another sport of cheaters?
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