A little while back I wrote about how it wasn't all that crazy to think that Usain Bolt might have been doping leading up to the Olympics (as possibly during them as well) to make himself just a tad faster. And by "a tad faster" I mean "way faster than he'd ever gone before."
After all, he could have utterly annihilated the 100m world record, which he still got, and his 200m time improvement was so ridiculous (he ran 19.30 in Beijing, his previous best being 19.67) that it almost screamed "I'm juicing!."
And while Bolt hasn't been nabbed yet, it appears that Victor Conte, Mr. Steroids himself, was indeed correct when he warned the World Doping Agency that some shady stuff had been going on in Jamaica these last few years.
That's because two Jamaican short distance hurdlers, Delloreen Ennis-London and Adrian Findlay, have been implicated in a steroid ring.
The documents state that between June 2006 and February 2007, two shipments of Somatropin (Human Growth Hormone, HGH) and one shipment of Triest (Estrogen) were sent to Delloreen London, at a Texas address that traces to the athlete Delloreen Ennis-London; the birth date on the document matches the athlete's as well, though the document lists the person's gender as male....
The documents also indicate that in November 2006, a shipment of Testosterone, Testosterone Aqueous, and Oxandrolone (an oral steroid) were sent to Adrian Findlay, an alternate on the Jamaican Olympic team in the 400-meter hurdles.
The documents also indicate that in November 2006, a shipment of Testosterone, Testosterone Aqueous, and Oxandrolone (an oral steroid) were sent to Adrian Findlay, an alternate on the Jamaican Olympic team in the 400-meter hurdles.
Neither of the two sprinters are especially decorated, nor do they in any way shape or form implicate Bolt. But you're a fool if you think they were the only Jamaicans to have been doping in the past few years.
And if Conte was at least right about some of the Jamaicans being dirty, we might as well hear what he had to say about their performances in the Olympics.
I have no evidence of doping by any of the winners of medals in Beijing, but when times begin falling like rain, questions arise, especially when the record-setters are from countries such as Jamaica and other Caribbean nations where there is no independent anti-doping federation. In the women's 100 meters, for instance, four of the eight finalists in the event were from such countries. Jamaican women swept all three Olympic medals: Shelly-Ann Frasier's winning time of 10.78 seconds is blazing fast, and reflects a drop from a best of 11.31 in 2007 to 10.78 in 2008, an improvement of more than five-tenths of a second in a single year and about five meters faster than before.
Jamaica's Usain Bolt won the men's 100-meter gold medal in a shocking world-record time of 9.69, which is almost unbelievable since he shut it down before the finish line. Richard Thompson from Trinidad and Tobango won the silver medal in a personal best time of 9.89. Once again, five out of the eight finalists in the men's 100-meter race were from an area where there is minimal out-of-season testing: five-of-six 100-meter medals were won by athletes from Caribbean countries without independent anti-doping federations.
Jamaica's Usain Bolt won the men's 100-meter gold medal in a shocking world-record time of 9.69, which is almost unbelievable since he shut it down before the finish line. Richard Thompson from Trinidad and Tobango won the silver medal in a personal best time of 9.89. Once again, five out of the eight finalists in the men's 100-meter race were from an area where there is minimal out-of-season testing: five-of-six 100-meter medals were won by athletes from Caribbean countries without independent anti-doping federations.
Here's the simple fact. Countries like Jamaica don't go out of their way to test their athletes. Is it laziness? Or is it a real decision to let athletes cheat? I don't know exactly, but Conte's partly confirmed suspicions, combined with Jamaica's lax testing, can very easily make Bolt look guilty solely by association.
So I guess the final question to answer here is, do I think Usain Bolt was doping? My answer: Yes.
But will he ever be caught red-handed? That I'm much less sure about.
Two Jamaican hurdlers implicated in steroid ring [SI]
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