Sports scandals in the United States fly well under the radar, dwarfed by baseball's perplexing and interminable performance-enhancing drug (PED) fiasco. For a sport whose participation nationwide surpasses one million, its pantheon - both those who still reside and their counterpart fallen angels - garners little scrutiny.
Maybe it's the money, or lack thereof, that begets the apathy. Or perhaps its that casual supporters and enthusiasts alike consider PED use integral to the growth and popularization of the sport, and therefore look upon it more favorably than do fans of other sports.
No matter the reason, PEDs have also plagued the sport of track and field for decades, with no resolution in sight.
People reserve scant cranial real estate for towering figures like Marion Jones, a five-medal winner at the 2000 Sydney Olympics whose medals were revoked upon her admission that she took steroids; never mind an athlete like Tyson Gay, American record-holder in the 100-meter dash and the second fastest man in history, who tested positive for a banned substance in May 2013. Each violation ignites public ire for a fleeting moment - the dust settles all too quickly.
Then there are the international culprits, a sizable cadre in their own right.
It is difficult for an outsider to gauge how well- or ill-received such news tends to be worldwide, but these cases do not simply arise and then vanish - certainly not in a track and field-crazy country like Jamaica, whose pride and joy on the women's side, Veronica Campbell-Brown, tested positive for a banned substance in May 2013.
Campbell-Brown owns a packed resume: Jamaican sportswoman of the year, 100-meter dash Jamaica national champion, 200-meter dash Jamaica national champion, 60-meter dash world indoor champion, 200-meter dash Olympic champion and 4x100-meter relay Olympic champion. Last year, she added to that list the suspension handed down by the Switzerland-based Court of Arbitration for Sport.
The substance for which she tested positive was a masking agent, employed by athletes to conceal PED use, but itself incapable of physical enhancement. That was the loophole. On appeal, which the International Association of Athletics Federations fast-tracked in light of the World Indoor Championships in Sopot, Poland this past weekend, Campbell-Brown won; after eight months on the sidelines, she could compete again. And what a bunch of nonsense that is.
Although not in prime form, Campbell-Brown nonetheless reached the semifinals of the 60-meter dash. She won't win, not if the IvorianMurielleAhoure remains ahead of the pack, but her mere presence detracts from the integrity of the event and of the sport in general.
In the past five years, six Jamaican sprinters, including powerhouses Asafa Powell and Yohan Blake, have been suspended after testing positive for PEDs. Guilt by association amounts to tenuous legalese; however, outside of an exigent medical condition, dabbling in banned substances points almost infallibly to guilt.
Whether due to regulatory myopia or gross negligence, the dismissal of the ban levied against Veronica Campbell-Brown has either set a dangerous precedent or confirmed the naivet?© of the sport's major governing bodies - or both. Denial will keep professional track and field mired in an untenable fantasyland nourished by willful ignorance.
Unless it seeks to emulate Major League Baseball, the entities that oversee both national and international track and field must pick a side. Performance-enhancing drugs are either good or bad, not a dynamic set of substances that vacillates between the two.
If these bodies decide that PEDs do, in fact, do good, an argument proffered more in the wake of baseball's utter mismanagement of its own issues, then they'll stay the course. If not, you can bet a flashpoint is imminent.
