Flashes of Panic

Last month, I wrote:

Now that he’s retired, Greene has locked up a position as the fastest guy who’s never been busted, and that means something; the only retired sprinter with comparable credibility is Carl Lewis. Unlike some of his predecessors … Greene didn’t get caught in some bizarre late-career trying-to-hang-on doping. He was never implicated in the BALCO mess. … This doesn’t mean Greene was clean, but unlike many cynics, I’m willing to give him the benefit of belief; I do think people can run that fast without doping, and I don’t have reason to believe that Greene didn’t.

That should teach me. According to today’s NYT:

Among his clients, [the supplier] identified 12 Olympic medalists who had won a combined 26 Olympic medals and 21 world championships. … Eight of the 12 — notably, the sprinter Maurice Greene — have never been previously linked to performance-enhancing drugs.

The Times is careful to note that “The documents … are not definitive proof that any of these athletes took performance-enhancing drugs” but it’s clear that things are going to get uncomfortable for Mr. Greene and several others over the next few months.

And for someone as cynical as I am about so many things (I once told a financial planner to base a retirement plan for me on the assumption that I would receive no Social Security income) it’s becoming harder and harder for me to presume innocence on the part of any modern sprinter. The dealer in question defends himself with the same old canard about how “everyone else is doping, you have to do it to stay at the top,” an idea I’ve been dismissive of in the past. I may need to reconsider my position on that one, too.

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