Every time an athlete gets caught using performance enhancing drugs immediately takes us to the best in the business. Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell testing positive doesn’t mean Usain Bolt has been cheating as well, but it wouldn’t be very surprising, especially now, to find out he has been doing it for years.
The fact that Carl Lewis makes allegations against Usain Bolt doesn’t really mean much. Everyone is quite sure that Lewis himself used banned substances during his years of dominating the track, but simply wasn’t caught or his infractions were hidden by those wishing for him to be the face of athletics.
But for Bolt to be the one that’s training with Angel Hernandez, who has also been in charge of Juan Manuel Marquez suddenly looking a lot more bulked up, leading to his win over Manny Pacquiao in the fourth fight between the two, resulting in Marquez knocking Pacquiao out, isn’t a promising sign. Even if his amazing progression in results can be attributed to amazing training, natural talent and simply coming of age.
Well, Hernandez is a new name to Angel “Memo” Heredia. A known steroid dealer and user, and testified against stars like Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery Justin Gatlin and C.J. Hunter to save his own skin. Raise more than a few suspicions, in a sport that seems to have a fraud, cheat and a doper at every corner. Just like the Tour de France and cycling in general, nothing achieved by a track & field athlete can be looked upon as clean, and athletes are usually treated as guilty until proven otherwise.
Raymond Stewart was caught and banished for obtaining and distributing performance-enhancing drugs to his athletes. Raymond Stewart and Usain Bolt were both coached by Glen Mills. In 2009, 2 of his athletes were popped for using stimulant Methylhexanamine, and Mills stepped down.
Dennis Guillermo of Examiner.come wrote an article about his conversation with Memo Heredia, raising more questionable issues regarding the boxer, but immediatly leading us to think about Bolt, and whether or not this is simply a case of the drugs behind ahead of the testing at the moment.
From the Article: Heredia has been caught in numerous lies over the past six months. I personally asked him, “Are you working with or have you worked with Brandon Rios?” His answer was “No, I have not worked with Rios.” Not true. They were seen together weeks ago and both denied that they were working together. In other words, Rios and Heredia both lied about their relationship recently. Rios, in his typical classy manner, said, “Honestly, who gives a (crap) if I didn’t tell nobody?” Brandon Rios told BoxingScene.com, “I’m working with Angel because he’s helping me with strength and conditioning and nothing else. I never did morning runs and conditioning work until I worked with Angel. I feel a lot stronger because of the endurance work we’ve done.” Apparently, Memo has one hell of a morning run routine.
Numbers and facts don’t always tell the truth, but they point at directions we sometimes prefer not to think of.
On July 18th, 2007 Bolt’s 100m time at the Vardinoyiannia was a personal best 10.03s . Less than a year later, May 3rd, 2008 he bests that with a 9.76s. That kind of elevation in performance in sprinting is suspect. One year later he set the world record with a 9.58s in Berlin.
On November 11, 2011 Juan Manuel Marquez landed several overhand rights on the chin as he previously did against his nemesis Manny Pacquiao. Never once did Pacquiao go down or appear to be hurt. 1 year and 28 days later, on December 8, 2012 Pacquiao was out for the count and is still sound asleep in the MGM Grand.
Juan Manuel Marquez doesn’t want USADA and VADA testing for his fight with Timothy Bradley. More than suspicious. Usain Bolt has never been caught, but as we’ve just seen with Tyson Gay, Asafa Powell and Sherone Simpson, it might take years before great athletes – Olympic medalists, world record holders and world champions, finally can’t beat the system.
The implications of Marquez being caught or juicing up aren’t even remotely close to what will happen if Bolt, a six-time Gold Medalist, ends up being a cheater. That will mean the greatest sprinter in history played us all for a fool for the last five years, and that everything amazing we’ll see is tarnished forever.