{"id":2190,"date":"2016-08-16T12:05:08","date_gmt":"2016-08-16T19:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=2190"},"modified":"2016-08-16T12:05:08","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T19:05:08","slug":"my-position-on-justin-gatlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/?p=2190","title":{"rendered":"My Position on Justin Gatlin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Me<\/a>Can someone, anyone, explain to me why Justin Gatlin is made out to be the devil of track and field?<\/p>\n

People are booing him in Rio. Sebastian Coe is praying he doesn’t win. Why? And the American media is the worst constantly bringing up his past – erroneously I might add.<\/p>\n

Funny, I haven’t heard ANYONE bringing up the fact that Michael Phelps was a dope smoking fiend that had to leave swimming for a while!<\/p>\n

No one, including Coe who is holier than thou when it comes to "doping and suspensions" has booed, wished ill of, or said that Shelley Ann Fraser Pryce, Yohan Blake, Asafa Powell, or Veronica Campbell Brown don’t belong in the Olympics – and every one has tested positive and served suspensions! But they still get PRAISED for their accomplishments! As a matter of fact, everyone is talking about Bolt attempting the "Triple, Triple" except the leadoff man on each of the previous Olympic 4×1’s was Nesta Carter – currently serving a ban for retested samples from Beijing! So, not really a Triple Triple – especially if it is later discovered that he was also doping elsewhere!<\/p>\n

No. ONLY Gatlin is treated like crap (something evil), and I’m sorry but it’s not right, or fair!<\/p>\n

For starters, everyone calls him a two time cheat when the world knows his suspension in college was bulls**t. He was tagged for a substance he’d taken for A.D.D. since he was a kid And the IAAF stated publicly that he GAINED NO ADVANTAGE by taking it and cut the suspension short!<\/p>\n

Yet that "suspension" was the basis for giving him "life" in ’06! And let’s talk about ’06. Regardless of what you believe happened in Kansas, he’s had only ONE positive test in his life – in Kansas. No positive tests in the meets before or after Kansas – ZERO. Life ban, cut to four years – on ONE test with no confirming tests before or after! Blake had more. Powell had more. Fraser Pryce had more. Merritt had more. Everyone with simple bans had more positive tests than Gatlin did with a life ban!<\/p>\n

A childhood medication, and ONE bad test and Gatlin is called a two time cheat and dragged through the mud – by his own country! With NO support from USATF or heaven forbid the US media. They won’t even keep quiet like they do for Phelps – just say nothing! NO\u2026 NBC even had to do a special segment on it!<\/p>\n

But here is the worst – as if it could be worse. He sat out the four years. Missed the racing, the money, an Olympics, Worlds. He did what the sport asked him to do. Came back and had to work his way back to the top. His first season he was 10.09! Took two years to get to 9.95. His ban began TEN YEARS AGO! He did FOUR YEARS and came back to constant testing! He’s been as clean as Usain Bolt – and tested more. As clean as Blake, Fraser Pryce, Powell (who was banned since Gatlin returned) and every athlete in Rio. His samples were retested from London, just like the Russians since banned!<\/p>\n

Since his return in 2010 he’s been tested more than most and has proven to be as clean as anyone in the world – TEN YEARS after ONE TEST sent him on vacation for FOUR YEARS. <\/p>\n

So can someone tell me what everyone’s problem is? Seriously. Tell me. I’ll listen. Convince me he’s worse than anyone that’s lined up in Rio. Give me a legitimate argument. Frankly, Coe and others should be using him as an example of what can happen when the system WORKS! After all, they praise Phelps, don’t they!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Can someone, anyone, explain to me why Justin Gatlin is made out to be the devil of track and field? People are booing him in Rio. Sebastian Coe is praying he doesn’t win. Why? And the American media is the worst constantly bringing up his past – erroneously I might add. Funny, I haven’t heard […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[369,155,124],"class_list":["post-2190","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-coe","tag-gatlin","tag-usatf"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-zk","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2191,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2190\/revisions\/2191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}