Motive. Means. Opportunity.
Sometimes it just does not make sense.
The nandrolone affair caught many athletes off guard.
It begs many awkward questions.
Should athletes take supplements? Are they natural? Does the fact that the body makes a chemical make it OK? Do you still think so with human growth hormone?
There will always be uncertain edges.
And since athletes dont have XRay eyes how can they know what is in a substance, if they buy it over a food counter?
It seems with 20/20 hindisight batches of a supplement taken by many athletes was giving positives for nandrolone. Sadly many otherwise respectable athletes got caught and banned. As for example mark richardson a promising 400m runner.
But let us examine the case of arguably one of britains best athletes.
Linford Christie.
Linford promoted the clean living athlete “pure talent, no additives”
and took part in the infamous Ben Johnston race.
I maybe naieve – but I am on Linford’s side. Who can remember hearing the words “pseudo ephedrine” a cold cure, being an extract discovered in ginseng tea. Those words all sound so chemical that surely they are cheating. Not so by intent, in my opinion.
Can pseudoephedrine really influence performance?
But lets look at this through detectives eyes. A crime needs means and opportunity, catching red handed always helps.
But intent also needs motive.
And it just is not there in the later case.
Christie had retired. He had not competed for many months. He only remained on the testing rota, because he saw he may have to compete for the club. Not for personal glory, and certainly by that time he could not care less whether he won or not.
THEN he was done for nandrolone.
It did not and does not make sense. Sure he may have been positive.
But clearly in this case, he is hardly likely to knowingly cheat just to
compete in a lowly club match.
So logic said he may be guilty of having a drug in his system. But was he guilty of using a substance to enhance performance? I don’t think so. The motive just is not there.
