![\"D](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/trackchill.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/D-Greene.jpg\" "\\"D")
<\/a>Dai Greene (GBR) as the winner of last year\u2019s World Championships 400 meter hurdles, is one of Britain\u2019s \u201chometown\u201d favorites to win a medal in London this summer. But while most of the stars of the sport are quietly going about the business of putting in hard work this winter in preparation of the wars that will ensue on the track later this spring and summer, Mr. Greene has begun his war early. Greene\u2019s war however, is a war of words against American sprinter LaShawn Merritt whom he deems to be a \u201cdrug cheat\u201d<\/a> for his recent ban \u2013 and apparently he wants everyone in the world to know how he feels about it. <\/p>\nNow I do believe in freedom of speech, and Mr. Greene has the right to both feel the way he does, as well as to voice those feelings. But personally I think that Greene is a bit misguided in both his feelings as well as his current verbal assault. <\/p>\n
For starters, while Merritt did serve time for a drug suspension, it was determined by all parties involved (WADA, CAS, etc.) that his drug use was inadvertent and that he gained NO advantage from the substance that was in his system. I\u2019m not sure that makes Merritt a \u201ccheat\u201d, any more than many others who have been found with substances in their systems from foods, drinks, or others items that have been ingested over the years. A bit different from Ben Johnson, for example, who deliberately put foreign substances into his system with the intent to improve his performances AND beat the system \u2013 now THAT is cheating! <\/p>\n
Sort of like Mr. Greene\u2019s good friend Dwain Chambers, who as part of the \u201cBALCO Bunch\u201d put himself on a program of surreptitious drug use designed specifically to IMPROVE his performances and CHEAT the system by using synthetic drugs that were undetectable! Of course Mr. Greene has decided that Chambers is \u201cOK\u201d in his book because he\u2019s gotten to know him and he feels he has shown \u201cremorse\u201d for his actions! Well, when one has intentionally broken the law we in society do hope to see remorse for their actions. It\u2019s a bit more difficult to look for \u201cremorse\u201d from those that have had \u201caccidents\u201d. Embarrassment and shame perhaps \u2013 and Merritt has shown plenty of both during his \u201ccase\u201d. But to expect \u201cremorse\u201d for an act that was neither committed deliberately, nor provided Merritt with any assistance in his performances is asking a bit much, and rather sets Greene up as the arbiter of truth and justice in the sport. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s a rather slippery slope to head down, because if he considers Merritt to be a \u201ccheat\u201d for his inadvertent use, how does he feel about Shelly Ann Fraser (World & Olympic champion) and Yohan Blake (World champion) who also received drug suspensions for illegal products that were found in their systems inadvertently via other products. Does he also consider them to be \u201cdrug cheats\u201d; and will he be approaching them in London (should they qualify for their teams) to tell them to their faces that they are \u201ccheats\u201d? If not, why not. And if so, why are they and Merritt more of a problem for the sport than Chambers who knowingly and willfully played a role in the biggest drug scandal the sport has ever seen? Makes his comments rather hypocritical when out of one side of his mouth he wants to castigate someone for inadvertent use, but out of the other side pat an admitted cheat on the back and say, \u201che\u2019s ok, because he\u2019s shown that he\u2019s sorry\u201d!<\/p>\n
Personally I would submit that Greene choosing now to cleanse his conscience at the expense of Merritt is a bigger problem for the sport than either of the above named athletes! Why? Because this is an Olympic year, which by default means that it is the one year in a four year cycle where the world actually pays attention to what goes on in the world of track and field. It\u2019s our time; our big stage; our quadrennial moment in the sun. And before the lights can even get focused Greene takes this opportunity to scream out to the world that the defending Olympic 400 champion is in his opinion a drug cheat and he wants everyone to know it! As the old folk would say, that\u2019s cutting off his nose to spite his face! <\/p>\n
The LAST thing this sport needs in an Olympic year is to be the focus of talk about drugs! We don\u2019t need any scandals. We don\u2019t need to have fingers pointed. We don\u2019t need to open the Discussion \u2013 especially by highlighting well known, highly visible, potential medalists. To do so while the sport is essentially \u201cauditioning\u201d as advertisers are evaluating track and field to determine if they want to put their money into it is not the brightest move that one can make. His statements may assuage his ego, but they also affect the earning power of the sport as a whole \u2013 including those individuals looking for additional sponsorships. <\/p>\n
Nothing good happens in this sport when the topic of drugs is the talking point. And the real irony of it all, IMHO, is that Merritt is the least of Greene\u2019s worries. For one, he won the 400 hurdles last year in the slowest winning time in the history of the World Championships \u2013 the only winning mark ever above 48.00! I doubt that we will see anything that slow win in London, so Greene might well want to focus his efforts on getting down to 47.65 or better \u2013 because the slowest winning time in the Olympics since the US boycotted Moscow Games was Felix Sanchez\u2019 47.63 in \u201904, with the the other winners at 47.54 or faster! Making it highly unlikely that another Hemery like performance will garner gold this year. <\/p>\n
The greater irony however, is that Greene\u2019s anger or fear should not be focused on Merritt, or Blake, or Fraser or any other athlete that has served a ban. Instead he should be worried about those that haven\u2019t been caught! Because as his good friend Dwain can attest, the devil that you don\u2019t know can do you more harm than the devil that you do know! Until this sport strengthens its testing program, it\u2019s the uncaught \u201ctrue cheats\u201d that are the real enemy! And if Greene is truly concerned about the drug issue, then instead of railing against those that have done their time for whatever reason, perhaps his time and energy would be better served lobbying the IAAF, WADA and others to implement a true blood testing program<\/a> so that we can all sleep better at night!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s \u201cChampionship Week\u201d for the indoor season, and I\u2019m going to spend the rest of the week talking about the upcoming NCAA and World Championships. But I feel compelled today to comment on an issue that continues to destroy our sport \u2013 DRUGS \u2013 because one of the potential headliners in London has brought this […]<\/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":[192,191,78],"class_list":["post-921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-anti-doping","tag-doping","tag-greene"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa3DCY-eR","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921","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=921"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":922,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/921\/revisions\/922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/trackchill.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}