My week without news made me seriously consider giving up rants, which means I'd have to give up The Daily Dirge completely, since rants are pretty much all we serve here.
But tonight I'm annoyed by
ESPN's recent coverage of Terrell Owens, his hamstring injury and Coach Parcells' reaction to it. I'm also put off by the lack of attention on possible sabotage of Floyd Landis' samples.
Let's start with T.O. Without question, the media is hoping to invent controversy in Dallas. It's so stupid-plain that trying to argue it just ain't worth the time. If you review the article above (an apparent Associated Press wire piece), there's so much damn editorializing it's sick. At one point, the writer essentially proves Bill Parcells' contention that the media is waiting for a controversy by stating:
"A nagging hamstring injury in early August doesn't even crack the top 10 of Owens incidents -- but little things could be starting to pile up, such as turning to his own medical team instead of those provided by the team."There's nothing objective about the first part of that statement. And the second part of the sentence is yet another case of a reporter trying to use loose, subjective observations (and prophecizing, even) to justify the relevance of this story.
"... could be starting to pile up." ? According to whom? You? I didn't realize reporters were using themselves as source for their stories these days. I must have missed that in my Journalism courses.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not a T.O. apologist. I think the guy has so much talent it made him stupid. But at least wait for the real drama to show up, otherwise you're simply making it so damn obvious that it's a slow news day and you have a severe inability to find something actually newsworthy to report.
And as for Floyd Landis, I can't understand why this whole thing has been positioned to have only one logical conclusion -- that Landis knowingly and willingly ingested synthetic testosterone. Just review some of the quotes issued after his B sample came back positive:
"It's foolproof. This analysis tells the difference between endogenous and exogenous," (Jacques De Ceaurriz, the head of the Chatenay-Malabray lab) told the AP. "No error is possible in isotopic readings.""The overwhelming scientific consensus would hold these tests are reliable and what they found is what they found," he told the AP. "Had there been any scientific difficulties or technical difficulties we would have heard about it." -- WADA Chief Dick Pound"When I heard it was synthetic hormone, it is almost impossible to be caused by natural events. It's kind of a downer," said (three-time Tour winner Greg) LeMond, the first American to win the Tour. "I feel for Floyd's family. I hope Floyd will come clean on it and help the sport. We need to figure out how to clean the sport up, and we need the help of Floyd.""The fact of the matter is the rules are quite clear: If a prohibited substance is on your body, that is doping," (Dr. Gary) Wadler (of WADA) said. "[Landis] has made the claim earlier on he had nothing unnatural in his body -- he had pharmaceutical testosterone in his body. That's not natural. So the burden is on him to prove how it got there."My favorite is the last one. Why isn't the burden of proof on the lab to prove they have a clean process that is so locked down that not even James Bond could sneak in and sabotage the samples? Because frankly at this stage, I'm more inclined to believe that sabotage is behind this than I am to believe that a rider, in this day and age of doping scandals and banned substances, would knowingly and purposely ingest a substance in the midst of the world's biggest cycling race. Logically, such actions don't compute, especially when the result is 4x the normal amount of testosterone. If you use it, wouldn't you be a bit more modest and safe about it?
No, I think it's more plausible to assume an individual or a group of individuals decided they were sick of America's eight-year reign over the Tour De France, and were especially pissed off that they could never subvert Lance Armstrong's accomplishments. So, after the fact, they made it so Landis would become the pariah du jour. Why did they wait until after the Tour? Surely riders have been kicked off in the middle of the tour for doping violations. Hell, favorites Jan Ullrich and Ivan Basso didn't even start the race due to scandals in their own camps (another story that makes me suspicious). It's almost as if they saved their own synthetic trump card to play in the event that an American won the tour.
I'm not trying to be in denial here, or overly nationalistic. I'm just going by the odds and claiming nefarious behavior on the part of the lab seems more likely than Landis' showing such a blatant disregard for the rules. If I'm wrong, then there truly is something major wrong with the sport when a guy thinks he can get away with such a massive violation.
