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发帖数: 654 | 1 Does he know something?
http://espn.go.com/tennis/blog/_/name/bodo_peter/id/9010025/ten
There are all different kinds of "clean," and no sport covers more of the
bases in that regard than tennis.
When was the last time you read about a tennis player charged with DWI? When
was the last time a tennis player was arrested for toting a weapon more
lethal than a Babolat Aeropro Drive? When was the last time the top athletes
in another sport clamored for an improved drug-testing regimen?
Andy Murray has been particularly vocal about the need of more rigorous drug
testing in tennis.This last point is a particularly interesting one, as
London's Daily Mail and USA Today in recent days reported that the Grand
Slam tournaments, the ITF and perhaps the ATP will increase their funding
for anti-doping efforts by as much as 100 percent.
OK, you can fire back that the hunt for drug cheats has been woefully
underfunded, and that testing for banned performance-enhancing substances
has been distressingly sporadic.
According to USA Today, Dick Pound (former chairman of the World Anti-Doping
Agency) described the 2011 financial commitment to the anti-doping effort
by tennis powers as "very small."
The majority of the 2,150 doping tests performed in 2011 were simple urine
tests (blood tests are more likely to expose sophisticated cheating,
especially when it comes to blood doping), and only a meager 10 percent of
those were out-of-competition tests (administered while the players were off
the tour for any number of reasons).
It's not surprising that anti-doping has become a significant issue in
tennis. After all, the spotlight in tennis is always on the individual, and
you get a much closer look at him or her than an athlete in almost any other
sport. Who hasn't heard someone else say, "Did you see so-and-so's biceps?
He's got to be juicing!"
Speculation about doping in tennis is a veritable cottage industry among
some skeptical fans, and there have been enough high-profile busts (dopers
Mariano Puerta, a French Open finalist, and Australian Open champ Petr Korda
leap to mind) to justify vigilance and stimulate suspicions that sometimes
spill over into the realm of the wildly irresponsible. Tennis is no pure
oasis in the desert of contemporary sports.
But what is unique about this new focus on anti-doping is that it wasn't
driven in large part by an outcry among administrators, insiders and/or
critics. The prime movers were the very top players, which helps explain why
the reaction in the tennis establishment has been so swift.
Every member of the vaunted Big Four (ATP No. 1 Novak Djokovic, Roger
Federer, Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal) has been vocal about the need to
ensure that tennis be free of dopers.
Djokovic and Murray have been particularly vocal about their desire to keep
tennis above reproach.
I have no particular urge to cast a cloak of righteousness over tennis. But
it's interesting that, even in an era when most players no longer have the
advantages of a formal education, tennis players mature into pretty grounded
, well-adjusted, sophisticated individuals.
Many of them speak multiple languages. None of them are famous for lavish
living. Gambling (or aiding and abetting gamblers) once seemed like a real
threat in men's tennis, but that seems to have diminished.
The highly ranked players sometimes come across as prima donnas (and often
are), but nobody ever had to make bail as a result of that character flaw.
The most interesting new development is that a "biological passport" program
is in the works, and could be unveiled before the end of this year. The
program reverses the entire approach to doping, because it will encourage
players to demonstrate that they're clean (via regular testing that would
expose any sudden spike or change in a player's biological profile), rather
than trying to catch them cheating. Such a program would be a landmark for
tennis, and underscore the extent to which the sport, despite shortcomings
we won't go into here, is committed to doing the right thing.
We know that tennis isn't entirely clean; the record shows it. But unlike
some sports, it seems to really, really want to be -- as demonstrated by the
words and actions of the game's top stars. |
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