Performance-enhancing drugs have plagued our sporting landscape for decades, but now the pervasive evil has even crept into the sport we all hold most sacred: race walking. Five Russians failed drug tests in April and now face two-year suspensions.
Sergei Morozov, Viktor Burayev, Vladimir Kanaikin, Igor Yerokhin and Alexei Voevodin were sanctioned by the national federation for testing positive for the endurance-enhancing hormone EPO, the All Sport news agency said Tuesday.
Morozov holds the world record in the 20 kilometer walk, and Kanaikin is the former record holder in the event. Voevodin was the bronze medalist in the 50K walk at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am furious. Furious that there are Olympic events for walking 12 miles and walking 30 miles. Run, you assholes! Just run!
I’ve spent the last half hour trying to think of possible sporting events as dumb as race walking, and so far all I’ve got is a car race where everyone has to drive the speed limit. Or maybe a bounce pass competition during NBA All-Star Weekend. What I’m saying is, I spend all day telling the stupidest jokes possible, and nothing in my imagination is as dumb as people walking competitively.
Three countries protested the race won by Diane Roy of Canada after 6 of 11 racers crashed and piled up on the track. Roy crossed the finish line first in a Games record 11:54.03 minutes and went through the entire medal ceremony before learning of the successful protest.
I’m more likely to make fun of cancer research than people in wheelchairs, but still, I gotta admit, that crash was pretty cool. Like a cross between NASCAR and the scene in Gladiator where the chick gets sawed in half by the chariot axle. Um, I mean, good luck on Friday ladies!
[Story from Steady Burn, video rip courtesy Awful Announcing]
Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez is proposing to remove Jose Canseco’s name from a street that has bared his name for two decades because Canseco did what practically every in baseball player has done for the last fifteen years: nailed Madonna. Also, he took steroids.
”I think it’s an embarrassment. It runs through my district, right by my office,” said Martinez, who drives Southwest 16th Street — aka Jose Canseco Street — a few times a week…
Martinez said it wasn’t the brawl in the bar on the beach. It wasn’t the public dust-ups with his ex-wife. It wasn’t even Canseco’s prancing around in a leopard print Speedo on VH1’s The Surreal Life.
It was the steroids, said Martinez, a former county police officer… ”It’s the fact that he did it, and he lied for such a long time,” Martinez said. “The book was just to make money.”
“As opposed to this proposal, which is just to score cheap political points!”
Hopefully this leads to a movement of removing athlete’s names from schools and roads the nation over. I know the people of Green Bay must be itching to take down Brett Favre Pass. He was addicted to pain killers, after all. And attention, the deadliest drugs of them all. Okay, only if it’s mixed with cocaine. Michael Irvin raves about that one.
Former American sprinter and third-tier piece of Olympic ass Marion Jones was released from federal custody this morning, which is fortunate, because the Prison Olympics just ended. From Y! Sports:
Jones left a halfway house in San Antonio around 8 a.m., said LaTanya Robinson, a community corrections manager for the federal Bureau of Prisons. Jones, who has a house in Austin, will remain on probation.
…The sprinter admitted last October that she used a designer steroid known as “the clear” from September 2000 to July 2001. The drug was linked to the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, the lab that became the center of a steroids scandal that touched numerous professional athletes, including baseball star Barry Bonds.
I don’t have a problem with steroids in any sport. These are world-class athletes that are sacrificing more of their time and livelihood than any weekend warrior ever would. What I do have a problem with is that wayward snaggletooth Marion has. Damn, girl! Get some braces on that grill!
Novak Djokovic is still playing at the U.S. Open, and in between matches he denied being involved with Leryn Franco. Dammit, make up your minds, people. I need to know whether I should break off my imaginary romance with Roselyn Sanchez.
The good news is that after having almost zero pictures of her two weeks ago, AFP and Getty Images paid for the rights to some more sexy pictures of Leryn. Nice work by them. And I gotta say, Novak Djokovic is way more low-key than I am. If I were rumored to be dating Leryn I’d buy billboards in LA and full-page ads in USA Today with pictures of her below the text, “I hit this.”
Over the weekend, Jose Canseco's retarded face got knocked out by former NFL kick returner Vai Sikahema in some boxing match somewhere. Atlantic City, I think. And if that doesn't tell you what kind of depressing town AC is, then nothing short of a busload of old people disgorging at Harrah's to swarm the slot machines will convince you otherwise.
BlackSportsOnline has a different video (longer version after the jump) where it's Stephen A. Smith talking over the highlights. So you should probably check that out if you like your ears to bleed while you watch pathetic idiots punch each other in a desperate attempt to cling to their dying fame. Me, I'd rather see how far I can get this bent paperclip under my fingernail. The blood loss is worth retaining some of my intellect.
