Oh, cry me a goddamn river

100m Oympic champion sprinter Justin Gatlin tests positive for drugs and faces a lifetime ban from the sport. The only thing that’s really unusual about the story is that Gatlin decided to beat the inevitable news leak to the punch, releasing a statement and trying desperately to spin his way out of it – despite the fact that the B side from the April 22 test came back positive, too.

But spin’s not going to help him. He’s toast. Score another for BALCO’s drug cheat factory, since Gatlin’s coach, Trevor Graham, is up to his ears in sewage relating to that particular scandal.

Track & field and I have a very dysfunctional relationship. It keeps letting me down, dashing my hopes with drug testing scandals, world records that have to be stripped, role models who must be quashed. I should know better, but the remaining vestige of the nine-year-old who watched Ben Johnson win the Olympics in 1988 – then lose the gold after his systematic drug-cheating ways were uncovered – still has hope, and still thinks that world records are due to sheer athletic ability alone.

Which then elevates my adult-level cynicism that much more.

So Craig Masback and the USATF? Get your heads out of your statement-spouting asses. Either do something that’s truly proactive, or accept the fact that you can’t beat the drugs. Ever.