Is Doping for Dummies?

Photo credit  lwtclearningcommons

The other day I was happily working through my leg work out on the leg press when I felt a shadow over me. I looked up to find that the shadow belonged to a fellow fitness enthusiast who happens to sell supplements. I figured he wanted to let me know about new products he had in stock and to an extent I was right. Except that day he wasn’t pushing protein bars or fat burners, he was excited about a Human Growth Hormone he had discovered.

With three sets left on the leg press, I didn’t really have anywhere to go, so I let him babble. According to this guy, this new ‘supplement’ would melt the fat from my abs and be invisible to drug tests. What I found particularly interesting was the enthusiasm with which he endorsed this wonder drug. He was gesticulating, his eyes were expressive and he spoke with fervour. If I’d closed my eyes it would have sounded like a cheesy American infomercial. But it wasn’t.

When he was done pitching and I’d finished my sets, I realised that after only 5 minutes of the hard sell I felt somewhat browbeaten and I immediately felt sympathy for some of the elite athletes who had fallen into the trap.

To put things into perspective, some athletes are coached for so long that they spend as much time with their coaching staff as they do with their family. Surely the pressure of carrying a nation’s hope for athletic glory combined with advice from trusted coaching staff can leave an athlete in a state of discombobulation.

What is really annoying is that coaches are never fully held to account for abusing the trust of these athletes – there always seems to be a level of plausible deniability. Even more painful is the fact that most of these athletes devote their entire life to their sport, so a fall from grace leaves them with literally nowhere to turn.

I am not trying to condone the use of illegal drugs; I am merely trying to explore how easy it could be for someone to succumb to the temptation.

What are your thoughts?

Better Late Than Never

To her teammates she was a dependable forward but to a number of female high school and college athletes, Mia Hamm represented possibilities. She was iconic because the media respected her for being able to put the ball in the back of the net. She was iconic because in 2004 she was one of two women who made the FIFA 100 list. She was iconic because she proved that female athletes of all disciplines CAN earn a living doing what you love.

The UK doesn’t have their answer to Mia Hamm (yet), but we finally have the platform by which we can nurture our own football heroine. The FA WSL is a re-branded, professional women’s league that has been created in an effort to expose the sport to a broader audience. The new league features 8 teams and introduces weekly televised highlights and cash bursaries.

The naysayers will have their views, but to the 180,000 women who are deciding whether or not they should play football this year, this development could be just the nudge they need to take the plunge.

http://twitter.com/FAWSL

The Plight of the UK Volleyball Playoffs

Courtesy of Jon McGugan

The final weekend of the playoffs will take place at the National Volleyball Centre tomorrow. Earlier this week I was Twittering with the ever talented Peter Bakare when he cracked me up with this question about the playoffs: 'Good crowds going to watch?'

He genuinely couldn’t understand what had me so tickled, which is fair enough considering the fact that he plays volleyball in a country where the playoffs attract hundreds of spectators.

Despite the establishment of a National Volleyball Centre in England, a revamp of the brand and PR activity - trying to convince Britain that there are sports outside of the trinity (football, cricket, rugby) has been an uphill battle for volleyball patrons.

Spectators are an obvious indication of a sports popularity, and the um, healthy attendance at this season’s playoffs show that we have a lot more work to do.

Just out of curiosity, how many of you have pre-registered for Olympic volleyball tickets?