The Slovakian, Jolanda Ceplak, has been suspended after testing positive for EPO.
Whereas I was hoping to avoid commenting on this scenario with a blog post, it was simply too much after a week of controversy which hit the Tour de France.
With an article just been written about Alexandre Vinokourov under the title,
Those amazing men on their cycling machines .
it was certainly with much trepidation that I needed to follow this up with an article titled
Well there you have it
and to now have to write about Ceplak makes an awful week for me. I truly love our sport and I truly admire sports persons who commit to their sport, hence the article on Tamsyn Lewis. However, to have this continual blight on sport during the past week, seems to give everyone the impression that you can only shine if you take drugs.
I cannot emphasise that this is further from the truth than one can imagine. When money comes into a sport along with it comes the agents and managers who are often there only for the money. This is a broad brush that is being used however it is time to paint the full picture and to nail those who are integral in bringing the sport into disrepute.
For long cycling was slow to respond to the knowledge of the drug problems they had, however this year's Tour will forever change that perception. Their very livelihood is being threatened and it is time for things to be brought to an end in sport. We need to learn from what takes places and move to eradicate the hanger ons in our sport who try to encourage silence and the turning of one's back. This is not a case for whistle-blowing but more a case for the players in sport to stand up and be counted. This applies to the athletes (all sports persons) as well, it is time for them to say NO!
For Ceplak it spells the end and when in the past she was referred to as the future of the 800m on the site, it seems she was more from the past where the 800m record is tainted with doubt and the controversy of the record and the record holder under suspicion.
Kelly Holmes had made murmurs and the eye brows were being raised however Ceplak was invited to a role within the IAAF which with hindsight now available to us, was a complete and utter mistake. Such occurences will hopefully be avoided in the future.
I shall close in saying that in a next blog on the subject I shall mention certain aspects that I have been aware of which maybe highlights how things do occur.
