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Campaign to taint our victories

After Usain Bolt took over the world last week many in this country and across the world have sung his praises, hailing him as the man to save track and field.

And perhaps he is the man to do it. He runs fast. He has personality. And, he is cool. Most of all he is incredibly fast, and more importantly, very clean.

Smear his achievements

But as many as there are singing his praises, there have been almost as many trying their best to smear his achievements in whatever way they can; chief among them the Americans, who for some reason can't stand whenever someone else gets a chance to enjoy the spotlight.

So what you have now is on one side people glad for Bolt's success and by extension the success of the Jamaican team, people like IAAF head Lamine Diack and former greats like Frankie Fredericks. On the other side, you have people like Victor Conte, the man behind the BALCO scandal that brought down some of America's greatest sprinters, and others like Jacques Rogge, who can't stand seeing such a small nation dominate like Jamaica has.

Don't mind sceptics

And fine, I don't mind sceptics because they provide the balance to life, but what I see from Conte - who is accusing Jamaica of being a hotbed of doping despite not having a shred of evidence to support his claims, and Rogge who clearly doesn't understand the passion that goes along with winning the blue-riband dash that has been the signature event of the Olympics since the Games began many centuries ago - is a full-scale campaign to taint our accomplishments.

When you read the message boards on the track and field websites, you find people ready to take Jesus off the cross believing that Usain, Asafa, Sherone, Shelly-Ann and Kerron are all having performance enhancing drugs for breakfast, lunch and dinner.

They have gone even as far as to suggest that the braces some of our athletes wear to straighten their teeth could be a sign that they are using human growth hormone, the braces keeping their teeth from falling out as their jawbones grow as the drugs take hold.

And then there are the American print journalists who have nothing good to write about track and field. No matter the story they will find a way to link it to drug use in the sport.

Want to see track and field on ESPN - the worldwide leader in sports? Just get a track and field athlete to test positive.

The thing is when you look at the most recent history of doping scandals, in most instances the perpetrators have been American athletes. What do Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery, Alvin and Calvin Harrison, Jerome Young, Antonio Pettigrew, Kelli White and Justin Gatlin have in common?

Here is what. They have all been banned for using drugs and they're all American. So why then are they using their fat to fry Jamaican athletes who do not necessarily believe that they have to win at all cost?

The philosophy is American, but it is a Jamaican curse. Just ask Grace Jackson, Juliet Cuthbert, Raymond Stewart, Bert Cameron, Winthrop Graham, Roxbert Martin and Davian Clarke, and the hundreds of athletes across the world who gave it their all but were denied the opportunity to make millions by some of these juiced-up Americans who have all but killed the sport because of their win-at-all-cost mentality.

Natural talent

So, now here comes Bolt and a bunch of other talented Jam-aicans running on natural talent and a desire to escape their harsh surroundings, and all we can hear are the accusations instead of the congratulations.

Talk about a hater nation.

The thing is they will have to wait a few years or find some new drugs to take us on, because if Beijing taught us nothing else, it taught us that we can win while being clean and as grandma always said, believing is half the battle won.

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August 29, 2008
 

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