Dathan Ritzenhein just ran 12:56.27 for 5000m, an American record. So why do I have a sinking feeling in my stomach?
If hype had its way, Ritz would’ve gone sub 13 a long time ago. This isn’t a personal knock against him; his talent always indicated he was capable of a performance of this magnitude. But the huge drop in time coinciding with the sudden coaching change seems suspicious even to a naïve or uneducated track and field fan. For an already world class athlete to drop 20 seconds from his personal best is, at the very least, cause for suspicion in our current athletic world.
However, a few things should be considered before going too far with assumptions: Firstly, Ritz switched to Salazar shortly after the U.S. Championships in June, over nine weeks ago. This gives ample time for a proper training schedule to sharpen and peak for races 7 or 8 weeks away. This, coupled with his large base from marathon training, should lead to optimal performances regardless of outside variables. So it shouldn’t come as a large surprise to followers that Ritz lowered his comparatively weak 5000m pr of 13:16 by a large amount. The drop in time, in this particular instance, is not what bothers me.
The cloud of suspicion that comes with a performance like this is dwarfed in comparison to the one that surrounds Alberto Salazar, his newly minted coach.
To be fair, few people come under more criticism (and praise alike) on the Let’sRun forum than Salazar. But with good reason, it seems:
- He was Mary Slaney’s coach when she tested positive for abnormal testosterone levels in 1997. The USATF overturned the decision, but the IAAF’s ban was held up in arbitration court.
- He was linked to Victor Conte and BALCO.
Plus he just does some really sketchy things:
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1005305/index.htm
(1994) “Salazar, 35, says he started taking Prozac last August, after consulting with Paul Raether, a friend and sports-medicine physician from Portland, and with Jan Smulovitz, an endocrinologist from Eugene, Ore. According to Salazar, years of intense training, coupled with episodes of heat exhaustion in a few races, had "suppressed [his] body's endocrine system," leaving him unable to run at his accustomed level and also chronically fatigued, listless and susceptible to illness.”
(p. 235) “Consider, for example, the fuzzy medical logic employed by Alberto Salazar and his counselors. While Dr. Peter D. Kramer’s phenomenal best seller Listening to Prozac (1993) makes many claims for the drug, the treatment of endocrinological disorders is not one of them. Equally revealing is the vagueness of the self-diagnosis that pointed Salazar towards the world’s most popular antidepressant: “It wasn’t that I was depressed or sad,” he told an interviewer. “I just never had any energy or zest. I knew there was something wrong with my whole system.””
http://www.law.duke.edu/sportscenter/salazar.pdf
His own words:
“Any athlete that has a great desire to be his or her best will do whatever it takes within his or her own value system. This often becomes very difficult for an athlete when he or she realizes that by sticking with one’s values that they may put themselves at a distinct disadvantage when competing against others with different or looser values.”
“They have tried perhaps for years to compete within the rules but have become frustrated with the apparent ease that cheaters are able to beat the system. They feel that national governing bodies and regulating authorities are not doing everything possible to stamp out doping, but are merely making a public relations effort to appear to be doing so. They believe that those authorities are not really interested in solving the problem, but only in protecting the image of their respective sport and the money flowing into that sport from corporate sponsors. Eventually they get to the point where they believe that they are really the only ones that are losing out by staying clean and that they subsequently have no choice but also to dope if they are to remain competitive.”
“…the athlete is told the substance is illegal if it affects their hormone status and accordingly gives them an unfair advantage. Once again everything an athlete does is to gain an advantage and enhance their performance. I ran 130 miles a week when a lot of my competitors only ran 110-120 miles a week because I felt it gave me a competitive advantage over them.”
“Their rational for using them may simply be that if it is ‘natural’ and not on the banned list, ‘I’m going to use it because I know a lot of my competitors are using much more powerful banned substances.’”
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Regardless of all this presented, I don’t think Salazar’s athletes are doping. I think Rupp is clean. I think the Gouchers are clean. I think Ritz is clean. But the line is so blurred at this point, what is the difference?
It is this ethical gray area that our sport can’t handle. Why is track and field’s reputation so susceptible to drugs where other sports like the football and baseball are able to brush them off? It’s for the very reason that makes—made?—it such a great sport in the first place: There are no excuses, no bad calls by refs, no reliance upon weaker teammates. When Shawn Merriman tests positive, it’s still easy to cheer for the San Diego Chargers.
So, to answer my original question of the cause of my sick stomach: It’s not because of Dathan Ritzenhein’s amazing performance. He deserves every second he took off his pr, just as he deserves the American record. The sick stomach, I think, is here because in a sport that can’t afford much gray area, I’m seeing less black and white all the time. And I don't have much fun watching track and field anymore.