Drugs in Sport

I have very little time for Irish Sports Journalists. Bombastic and Sanctimonious are too accurate terms to describe them.

You guys should know the record regarding David Walsh and Lance Armstrong relationship is almost opposite to what you are saying here.

David Walsh on BBC Hardtalk with Stephen Sackur (audio) after introduction "David Walsh you have been proved right" and 'journalist alone' and David Walsh: 'It's not like Woodward and Bernstein'.

Irish Times Keith Duggan is another one writing that Cold War-monger "Richard Henry McLaren is a good man". (late 2016 Irish Times).  Richard Henry McLaren rhymes 'FSB is KGB' the same way a 12-year-old hisses 'Gardaí/RUC' on O'Connell Street Dublin to a couple of passing peelers.

Even if that is his personal belief, which he is entitled to, tis another gamble on his own credibility, given what we now know of the rest of them. The general public though, still seem to associate Walsh with being an anti drugs in sport campaigner, something I would contend he never really was, save for 2 notable individuals he decided to go after, Armstrong & Michelle Smith. While the public would more associate him with Armstrong, going after Smith, at the time he did, was a far braver call. 

But I get the sense he isn't entirely comfortable with this role which has been more foisted on him by his previous actions (and maybe his employers, well, to an extent anyway, seeing as they are one and the same as those of Sir Dave) than any great conviction he has about the subject, unlike Kimmage for example. Maybe he would prefer to be interviewing Rory McIllroy or Sir AP McCoy, or anything at all that gets him away from this never ending subject. 

Kimmage isn't to everyone's taste, but he was right about Armstrong, and once again, has been proved right about Sky. Good interview here with cycling journalist Shane Stokes, where he runs through some of the legitimate questions he had about the team in recent years, questions that Walsh chose to ignore, although a fella with his background that had seen as much & knew as much as he did should really have known better. 

Interesting article here, if poorly written. I am not a big fan of her stuff, it never seems to flow, of even more interest are the comments below, some of which are by people who seem to have an interest in cycling but can't accept the flaming obvious!

As ever, waiting for the results of a 'B' sample before inevitable suspension is given out. A mere 40 Kenyan athletes got doping bans in the years 2011-2015, it says in that report. That's just a single country. But ya, banning the Russians from Rio really made a big difference, well done to the lads there. 

In closer to home news, and nearly unreported here (will get toward the 'why's of that one in a minute)- A vet, whose vehicle was in Willie Mullins' (multiple champion horse trainer, for those who don't know who he is)  yard at the time of this drug seizure, is facing 14 charges over possession of illegal substances. 

The HRI say no concerns over Mullins, the Turf Club agree, so that's that then. 

Lets look at this in a bit more detail though. Mullins has had unprecedented success in the past 10 years. Nothing dodgy in itself about that fact, but there are a lot of horse trainers out there, other than the quality of his horses (ie being able to buy, on behalf of millionaire owners, better horses than the opposition), is there any other factor ? I think its a valid question anyway. Thing is, I would suspect the official answer, not that we will ever get one, in fact I don't think the question has even been asked-  to be something along the lines of Sky's ''marginal gains'' (pun included there for those of you who know yer animal feed manufacturers) , which we now know to be, well, horsesh*te. 

The circumstances- Vet used by Mullins. Car in Mullins' yard, full of illegal substances. We are now presuming, as Willie is in the clear, that these products were intended for some other animals the vet was treating, possibly belonging to someone else, or some other trainer. Or we can presume that the Vet was administering these things without the knowledge of Mullins (who, like Sky, is legendary for his 'attention to detail').

Does one imagine that the likes of Rich Ricci & Michael O'Leary (who withdrew his horses from that yard earlier in the year) are easy lads to please, having got to the top of the banking & airline industries respectively ?  I would not think so anyway. Irish media (not sure about the specific horse racing media) have not gone big on this story at all. It would certainly make a change from the annual hagiographic articles about Mullins/Cheltenham/All that stuff. 

When you look at the big picture, at the very least, this is a subject worth a lot more delving in to. But the horse racing industry is huge in this country, there are thousands employed, there are reputations, there are lots of things, but to me, if this were in another sport, involving some class of John/Joan foreigner in  country, we would be screaming ''cover up'' at it. Not a fcuking peep out of our media here though, even Kimmage. 

Too big to fail ???