The Healthy Skeptic: Justin Gatlin's Failed Drug Test Raises An Interesting Question
Published July 31, 2006
American Justin Gatlin became the co-fastest man in the world when he ran the 100-meter dash in 9.77 seconds in Qatar this past May, matching the time set a year earlier in Greece when Jamaica’s Asafa Powell set the standard.
I’ll let you ignore - for just a brief moment – the specter of drugs that haunts all things in sports; biggest, fastest, strongest, farthest, most… well you get the idea.
In the year 2006 have we reached the barrier that man will never break with regard to speed? Is a man or woman capable of running 100-meters faster than 9.77 seconds?
I think the case can be made that even with the drugs and training methods that modern sprinters have at their disposal, man has about reached their potential in this area of performance. Certainly while competing without pharmaceutical or genetic supplementation man has reached his genetic potential.
About 100 years ago - in 1912 – American Donald Lippincott became the first world’s fastest man, as he ran the 100-meters in 10.6 seconds in a meet to qualify for that year’s Olympics. This means in 94 years only .83 seconds have been shaved off of the standard set by the 19-year old Lippincott.
Over the next two decades four-tenths of a second were shaved off Lippincott’s record, as 10 other men ran the 100-meters in times ranging from 10.6-10.3, until track and field icon Jesse Owens ran a 10.2 in the lead up to the 1936 Berlin Olympics. It took American Willie Williams 20 years to knock at tenth of a second off of Owens’ record, as he recorded a 10.1 in 1956.
It wasn’t until June of 1968 – 12 years later – that a man was able to break the 10-second mark, as American Jim Hines ran a 9.9 second 100-meters.
Later in 1968 at the Mexico City Olympic games Hines ran an electronically timed 9.95 seconds as he earned the Olympic Gold Medal. The advent of electronic timing ushered in a new era of recording the times of sprinters, and for the sake of this item provides interesting fodder for discussion.
Hand-held timing is far from an exact practice. For anyone who has ever tried to time someone running a sprint using a hand-held chronograph can attest to, this method of timing can result in some interesting variations. From personal experience I have found that hand-held timing can vary from electronic timing – faster or slower – by as much as .2 seconds.
Sal Marinello is a National Strength and Conditioning Association Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist and Certified Personal Trainer, a U.S.A. Weightlifting Certified Coach, a full-time, private Professional Strength and Conditioning Coach, an assistant football coach and a Head Strength Coach for a suburban New Jersey High School. He writes a lot and has no free time. 
- The Healthy Skeptic: Justin Gatlin's Failed Drug Test Raises An Interesting Question
- Published: July 31, 2006
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Sci/Tech
- Filed Under: Sci/Tech: Health/Fitness, Sci/Tech: Physical Sciences, Sports: Olympic
- Part of a feature: The Healthy Skeptic
- Writer: Sal Marinello
- Sal Marinello's BC Writer page
- Sal Marinello's personal site
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If you were to connect the dots you would see that most atlethes who use PED would be those from the highly developed countries where endorsements run into millions. strange isnt it as these countries should have the better training facilities, yet they disenfranchise the poorer countries tut tut tut
you blame the capitalists, while ignoring the fact that the former east german and former ussr sports apparatus systematically doped their athletes without the athletes knowing what they were being given. tut tut tut.
these countries couldn't feed their own people - and were really third world countries that hid their poverty behind armies and athletic success - yet they poured billions of dollars over decades to build up their athletes just so they could show the capitalist world that there way was better.
there is a huge distinction between state-sponsored, forced doping and doping that individuals are willing to develop and engage in of their own free will.
Sal - how are the waves? Get some fried dough and watch the Mets.
Do you think the seed of doping was first "nutured" in the Soviet Bloc, the US Bloc or both simultaneously? (Sorry if I mispelled that, I ain't going to the e-dictionary to check)
H'nips
some of the drugs were developed by the west, and a lot of the compounds were never tested.
however, enough research was done to give people the idea that they could be used to enhance performance. from what i know, the former ussr and east german sports organizations - and later china - were at the forefront of the massive doping efforts.
Of course, follow the money trail. There wasn't a lot of money tied up into any sport in the 60s and 70s that would drive that kind of R&D into development of drugs - might have been some, but nowhere near it is today. The athletes's desire to win may have been just as strong, but it wasn't generating the money to drive the R&D.
For the USSR/CHINA/EAST GERMAN countries, there wasn't potential profits (endorsements, prize money, etc) to drive it, but like you say there was a perception they were trying to develop to outside countries and could justify the $$s to be thrown into that type of R&D.
the drugs already existed, so there wasn't much need for the "D" in "R&D," and the "R" consisted of dosing people and watching how they responded, so there wasn't the need for a lot of money to be spent there either. individuals are expendable in the communist regimes.
in the east the biggest expenses were in the form of human captial. coaches defected or just leaked info to the west, i'm sure in exchange for good old hard currency. the west took this info and applied in to individuals who wanted to compete, rather than force all of their athletes to join the program.
So where did the R&D for the drugs come from? Back to Nazi Germany and their drug/medical research efforts? Or the US in similar goverment sponsored efforts, perhaps military advancement as the interest? The super solidier?
No matter when the R&D occured, there had to be significant money for the timeperiod involved and prior to 1980's error of Sports $'s, it would probably have to be a goverment agency - or KAOS??? Get 99 on the case Max!!!
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Doesn't Gatlin now claim he got "roid'ed" by accident on the training table during a massage? Would that be happy or unhappy ending?