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| Rafael Nadal |
A skit on a French satirical TV
show last year depicted Nadal peeing in a car’s gas tank and using a steroid
needle as a pen. Former tennis great Yannick Noah wrote an op-ed in November
alleging that all Spanish athletes were doping. Retired Belgian player
Christophe Rochus questioned Nadal’s ability to dominate the 2012 French Open
and still fall to injury two weeks later at Wimbledon.
Is this a witch hunt? In some ways, yes. Conspiracy theorists
see red flags everywhere: big biceps, phantom injuries, hair loss, skipping the
Olympics, Spain’s rich doping history, and unprecedented stamina. Does
acknowledging the speculation sully Nadal’s legacy? No. He’s still one of the
best ever—he just happens to be caught in an era of performance-enhancing
drugs.
Nadal, who did not respond to requests for comment, has denied
any use of banned substances.
But tennis needs to clean up its act if there is any hope to
ending the chatter about Nadal and other top players.
When the anti-doping
watchdog is weak, as many say tennis’s is, never having failed a drug test just
isn’t convincing enough. Lance Armstrong never tested positive, but he ran one
of the most sophisticated drug rings in professional sports. Baseball’s ’90s
renaissance was fueled not only by home runs, but steroids, too. In both of
those sports, tons and tons and tons of drugs were gobbled up and injected,
catapulting dopers to the top.
Murray tweeted that the ruling
is ‘beyond a joke … biggest cover up in sports history?’
And at a moment when men’s tennis
has seen four players dominate the sport, waging unprecedented five-hour,
five-set matches, an analysis of the anti-doping efforts at the International
Tennis Federation (or ITF, the governing body for the sport) is revealing: The
flimsy oversight program and its lack of transparency appear largely to blame
for fueling the doping suspicions.
After Armstrong’s admission, Swiss player Roger Federer,
currently the world No. 3, said it would be “naïve” to think the sport is
clean. Top-ranked Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray, the winner of this year’s
Wimbledon tournament, have advocated for more blood testing. Nadal, clearly
annoyed with the speculation, wants more transparency. “Not everyone has to pay
for some sinners,” he said.
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