When the Wheels Come Off a Sport

[ceejay]

This refers to cycling and follow-up with baseball. But is horse racing at risk? What if a Derby champ tested positive? (I'd say it'd be swept under the rug). Or BC champ/HOY? Or if it turned out that a track/circuit is racked by illegal drugs?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/we...w/13macur.html

TOMORROW, the American cyclist Floyd Landis, the would-be heir to Lance Armstrong, steps before an arbitration panel in California to rebut the charge that his come-from-behind victory last year in cycling’s most celebrated race was a fraud.

This couldn’t be where baseball is headed, could it?

As the two sports settle into their seasons, new, aggressive investigations are underway in both that could implicate dozens of star players and cyclists and raise questions about — if not shatter — the legitimacy of their accomplishments.

In cycling, more than 100 riders, including some of the sport’s luminaries, have been implicated by the Spanish police in a blood-doping investigation.

In baseball, federal prosecutors have begun to pursue new avenues of investigation after a former Mets batboy pleaded guilty last month to selling performance-enhancing drugs to dozens of major-league players. He is cooperating with authorities. In addition, a special commission set up by Major League Baseball to look into the sport’s drug problem has asked dozens of players to meet with its investigators and has sought medical records from at least two of the game’s recent top sluggers, Sammy Sosa and Rafael Palmeiro.

Cycling appears to have had little choice. Since Landis tested positive for synthetic testosterone in July, races have been canceled and teams have folded, both for lack of sponsors; fans have stayed home or switched off their televisions (for one Belgian race this spring, the venerable Tour of Flanders, there was a 77 percent decline in the live audience, according to IFM, a sports research company in Germany); and television networks in the United States and Europe have sharply curtailed their coverage of the sport.

The Championship of Zurich which had endured for nearly a century, was canceled last month by Swiss organizers after doping scandals scared off sponsors. As for the sport’s bottom line, IFM calculates that cycling has plunged as a marketing investment this season.

“In every boardroom, if you talk about sponsorships for any big cycling race, they all discuss the doping problems,” Henri van der Aat, managing director of a sports consulting agency in Amsterdam, told The International Herald Tribune this week.

That reverence requires belief that the accomplishments are true — a faith that may have been lost in cycling, and is being tested in baseball.

and could be tested in horse racing.........

[AeWingnut]

what next golf, Soccer, Women's basketball or curling

[BillW]

Originally Posted by AeWingnut

curling

Corked brooms?

[JDank34]

Originally Posted by ceejay

This refers to cycling and follow-up with baseball. But is horse racing at risk? What if a Derby champ tested positive? (I'd say it'd be swept under the rug). Or BC champ/HOY? Or if it turned out that a track/circuit is racked by illegal drugs?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/we...w/13macur.html

and could be tested in horse racing.........

it wasn't swept under the rug with Dancer's Image...and that was a VERY strange situation with Dr. Harthill, Martin Luther King and many other crazy rumors floating around!

[hi_im_god]

barry bonds breaking hank aaron's record will only put an exclamation point after mlb's failure to police itself.

i can't imagine anyone outside of sf that would feel anything but disappointment when this happens.

horse racing at least has the excuse of multiple jurisdictions for any failures in this area. mlb not only has a single authority but an act of congress that excludes it from antitrust laws that apply to all other industies.

i think the failure of leadership in mlb is jawdropping. the only thing more shocking is the universal shrug most fans have to this.

they are turning the national pastime into the wwf.

[AeWingnut]

and what's worse is they are turning football into baseball. They want to add another game. I resent "pre-season games" they used to be called exhibition games but they couldn't charge regualr season prices for that.

[ceejay]

The proliferation of performance-enhancing drug use has been a front-page story recently in pro baseball and football, but many don't realize that the urge to break the rules to increase the chance of victory has become an issue in other sports. REAL SPORTS correspondent Jon Frankel investigates the spread of performance-enhancing drugs in big-money horse racing.

http://www.hbo.com/realsports/storie...de.122.s2.html

REALsports segment this month on drugs in racing. Haven't seen it yet.....

[hoovesupsideyourhead]

Originally Posted by ceejay

http://www.hbo.com/realsports/storie...de.122.s2.html

REALsports segment this month on drugs in racing. Haven't seen it yet.....

ITS ON TONITE..AND THE CANNON SHELL MAY BE ON..