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Many years ago a friend of mine who played for Swansea phoned with a hot tip. His team-mate John Williams had qualified for the final of the Rumbelows Sprint Challenge at Wembley, where he would race against other pros, all of whom were much more high-profile than Williams (which at the time wasn't hard). "He's a flying machine – lump on,'' was my friend's instruction.
Being the last of the big spenders, I trotted down to Ladbrokes to slap down a tenner on Williams. The price, I believe, was 10–1. Williams duly romped home, beating the famously fast England full-back Keith Curle by the length of Regents Street. I won a hundred quid, although halfway through the Spanish inquisition I got when I went to pick up the cash (Had I heard anything about the race in advance? Did I know anyone in the field?) I was almost fooled into thinking I'd won a million.
Cynicism comes easy to those of us who know a little about gambling in sport. Be suspicious, and work backwards from that, is not bad advice. Yet sometimes it is simply the case that the bookies have been "done", not by those who corrupted the outcome of the contest but by those who simply had a little more information about those taking part.I thought of Williams yesterday as various bookmakers made their "concerns" known about an alleged "sting" surrounding Jürgen Melzer's straight-sets defeat of Wayne Odesnik at Wimbledon. The Tennis Integrity Unit will conclude its investigation in due course but don't be surprised to discover that the "sting" was simply a case of the bookies being bad losers.
This is a column about doping in sport, which if current trends are anything to go by will immediately cut the readership by 50% and leave the other half battling to stay awake. As for those loyal souls who do make it to the end – the best guess is they will do what the vast majority of US sports fans did last week when it was revealed that the Boston Red Sox, one of most written-about teams in baseball, were involved in not one but two drug scandals. They will shrug and turn the page. It's a free world, as Benjamin Franklin might have said, albeit a bit more elegantly.
Still, the news that Manny Ramírez and David Ortiz, the two pivotal members of the 2004 Red Sox team that won the World Series (an event that provided the narrative backbone for Hollywood's remake of Fever Pitch), tested positive for drugs in 2003, and that two members of the Red Sox security staff were fired last year after being implicated in steroid use, was greeted by the US public with a level of indifference it usually reserves for French political affairs. The security-staff story was a five-minute wonder.
Meanwhile, the revelations about Ramírez and Ortiz merely gave fans in Los Angeles (where Ramírez now plays) and in Boston an excuse to cheer them even louder. There was element of knee-jerk loyalty about this support but there is an even greater Likewise, last week's news that five members of the Jamaica sprint team all failed drug tests – another so-called scandal that had the same shelf life as unpasteurised milk in a heat wave. The public doesn't care about athletes taking drugs. If it did Dwain Chambers wouldn't have been greeted like a folk hero on his return to the track. It is difficult to push back against this tide of apathy, so it is hardly surprising that many chose not to.
Only the other week one leading newspaper questioned the need for golf's drug-testing regime, pointing out that since its introduction in Europe a year ago not one positive test had been provided – which is a bit like saying in the absence of crime there is no need for any police. In any case, given that approximately 20,000 rounds of competitive golf have been played on the European tour since and fewer than 150 players have been tested, the most remarkable thing isn't the absence of a single positive test but that anyone would believe an anti-doping regime that targets less than 1% of competitors is anything other than a PR stunt.
Yet life experience tells us that arithmetical fact and logic are seldom enough to combat emotion and, emotionally speaking, the public seems to have decided it doesn't care. That is its choice and has to be respected – the public buys the tickets and the TV subscriptions, after all – but it would be foolish to give up the fight without one last appeal to emotion, one last question that goes to the heart of this whole business: do we really want a world in which cheats always win?
In recent years baseball has had more doping scandals than Amy Winehouse and her entourage, with the inevitable consequence that no one really cares other than those whose job it is to report on them. It is the same in this country. There was plenty of coverage about the cases at Bath and their corrosive effect on the club's reputation. "It will take a long, long time to remedy [the damage] and the players go into the new season knowing how important it is to uphold the name of Bath. They have a responsibility and they know that," said the club's chief executive, Bob Calleja.
Being the last of the big spenders, I trotted down to Ladbrokes to slap down a tenner on Williams. The price, I believe, was 10–1. Williams duly romped home, beating the famously fast England full-back Keith Curle by the length of Regents Street. I won a hundred quid, although halfway through the Spanish inquisition I got when I went to pick up the cash (Had I heard anything about the race in advance? Did I know anyone in the field?) I was almost fooled into thinking I'd won a million.
Cynicism comes easy to those of us who know a little about gambling in sport. Be suspicious, and work backwards from that, is not bad advice. Yet sometimes it is simply the case that the bookies have been "done", not by those who corrupted the outcome of the contest but by those who simply had a little more information about those taking part.I thought of Williams yesterday as various bookmakers made their "concerns" known about an alleged "sting" surrounding Jürgen Melzer's straight-sets defeat of Wayne Odesnik at Wimbledon. The Tennis Integrity Unit will conclude its investigation in due course but don't be surprised to discover that the "sting" was simply a case of the bookies being bad losers.
This is a column about doping in sport, which if current trends are anything to go by will immediately cut the readership by 50% and leave the other half battling to stay awake. As for those loyal souls who do make it to the end – the best guess is they will do what the vast majority of US sports fans did last week when it was revealed that the Boston Red Sox, one of most written-about teams in baseball, were involved in not one but two drug scandals. They will shrug and turn the page. It's a free world, as Benjamin Franklin might have said, albeit a bit more elegantly.
Still, the news that Manny Ramírez and David Ortiz, the two pivotal members of the 2004 Red Sox team that won the World Series (an event that provided the narrative backbone for Hollywood's remake of Fever Pitch), tested positive for drugs in 2003, and that two members of the Red Sox security staff were fired last year after being implicated in steroid use, was greeted by the US public with a level of indifference it usually reserves for French political affairs. The security-staff story was a five-minute wonder.
Meanwhile, the revelations about Ramírez and Ortiz merely gave fans in Los Angeles (where Ramírez now plays) and in Boston an excuse to cheer them even louder. There was element of knee-jerk loyalty about this support but there is an even greater Likewise, last week's news that five members of the Jamaica sprint team all failed drug tests – another so-called scandal that had the same shelf life as unpasteurised milk in a heat wave. The public doesn't care about athletes taking drugs. If it did Dwain Chambers wouldn't have been greeted like a folk hero on his return to the track. It is difficult to push back against this tide of apathy, so it is hardly surprising that many chose not to.
Only the other week one leading newspaper questioned the need for golf's drug-testing regime, pointing out that since its introduction in Europe a year ago not one positive test had been provided – which is a bit like saying in the absence of crime there is no need for any police. In any case, given that approximately 20,000 rounds of competitive golf have been played on the European tour since and fewer than 150 players have been tested, the most remarkable thing isn't the absence of a single positive test but that anyone would believe an anti-doping regime that targets less than 1% of competitors is anything other than a PR stunt.
Yet life experience tells us that arithmetical fact and logic are seldom enough to combat emotion and, emotionally speaking, the public seems to have decided it doesn't care. That is its choice and has to be respected – the public buys the tickets and the TV subscriptions, after all – but it would be foolish to give up the fight without one last appeal to emotion, one last question that goes to the heart of this whole business: do we really want a world in which cheats always win?
In recent years baseball has had more doping scandals than Amy Winehouse and her entourage, with the inevitable consequence that no one really cares other than those whose job it is to report on them. It is the same in this country. There was plenty of coverage about the cases at Bath and their corrosive effect on the club's reputation. "It will take a long, long time to remedy [the damage] and the players go into the new season knowing how important it is to uphold the name of Bath. They have a responsibility and they know that," said the club's chief executive, Bob Calleja.
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