Doping-Tennis
It has been interesting to me to follow the conversation that is taking place on the tennis scene regarding doping and its prevalence in tennis. This conversation is taking place in other sports as well, including golf, but my interest and occupation over the years has been tennis.
Some years ago, I was tennis director at Orange Lawn Tennis Club. Gene Scott held a lower level professional tennis event at the club. One of the players that year was John McEnroe. His manager at the time commented to me about one of the up and coming players on the tour-something to the affect this player had blown up physically in a very short period of time.
Over the years there has been ‘talk’ about different players showing signs of ‘doping’. Back in the day Jimmy Connors and Ilie (Nasty) Nastase held a tour managed by Bill Reardon where there was ‘talk’ of trading matches and possible drugs. There have been other players, some deceased now, with the same ‘doping’ attachment, but nothing solid to the public. Recently the drug ‘meldonium’ has been highlighted not only in tennis but in other sports. The athletes are fighting back saying there is no proof how long meldonium stays in their system, wanting to buy some time (no immediate suspension). In light of Sharapova’s 30 million dollar a year company and the on coming 2016 Summer Olympics ‘dollars’ are definitely at the forefront (hidden) of this publicity, with promoters hoping this will all blow over.
Dick Pound, the founding president of the World Anti-doping Agency, has some pointed remarks to say about why this hasn’t come to the forefront before this. Read his remarks-they are insightful.
I remember a track star, Edwin Moses, many years back gave an interview in which he made a statement on doping. One of the things I remember most specifically was he said no matter what drug testing they came up with the athletes would always stay one step ahead in the manner of ‘fooling/masking’ the tests.
I found the remark by Dick Pound regarding the sponsors attaching ‘values’ to their sponsorships revealing. The promoters do not want doping to be linked to high profile athletes due to the promotion of ‘values’ being linked to their sponsor’s product.
It will be interesting to see how this plays out in the coming days. In this day and age what would you do to be ‘successful’. Would you succumb to the ‘doping’ world to increase your chances of success or to ‘stay on top’ as an athlete, if you could be assured it would be masked or covered up by promoters? If you did would you accept, in your character, that you were ‘successful’. What is your world view?
