Queen Carl Gets Out of Pocket

[fLaSh]

Carl Lewis speaks out on Bolt, U.S. performance in Beijing, more

Last week, SI.com caught up with nine-time gold medalist Carl Lewis at the Audi Best Buddies Challenge, a charity bicycle tour and fundraising event to help people with intellectual disabilities. Lewis weighed in on everything from Usain Bolt's record-breaking performance in Beijing to Team USA fumbling the baton in the relays.

SI.com: It's been few weeks since the Games; what do you think of Usain Bolt?

Lewis: I'm still working with the fact that he dropped from 10-flat to 9.6 in one year. I think there are some issues. I'm proud of America right now because we have the best random and most comprehensive drug testing program. Countries like Jamaica do not have a random program, so they can go months without being tested. I'm not saying anyone is on anything, but everyone needs to be on a level playing field.

SI.com: I don't want to put words in your mouth, but are you accusing Bolt of possibly doing something illegal in order to gain an advantage?

Lewis: No one is accusing anyone. But don't live by a different rule and expect the same kind of respect. They say, "Oh, we've been great for the sport." No, you have not. No country has had that kind of dominance. I'm not saying they've done anything for certain. I don't know. But how dare anybody feel that there shouldn't be scrutiny, especially in our sport?

The reality is that if I were running now, and had the performances I had in my past, I would expect them to say something. I wouldn't even be offended at the question. So when people ask me about Bolt, I say he could be the greatest athlete of all-time. But for someone to run 10.03 one year and 9.69 the next, if you don't question that in a sport that has the reputation it has right now, you're a fool. Period.

SI.com: So when Bolt broke three world records and did it as easily as he seemed to, does that tip you off?

Lewis: Let's be real. Let me go through the list: Ben Johnson, Justin Gatlin, Tim Montgomery, Tyson Gay and the two Jamaicans. Six people have run under 9.80 legally, three have tested positive, and one had a year out. Not to say [Bolt] is doing anything, but he's not going to have me saying he's great and then two years later he gets popped. If I don't trust it, what does the public think?

SI.com: To be fair, you reportedly tested positive three times before the 1988 Olympics for banned substances, a ruling that was overturned by the USOC due to inadvertent use.

Lewis: That was an issue where people tried to make something out of nothing. It got thrown out. I didn't lash out. They said I tested for stimulants found in over-the-counter cold medications. That's it. I did nothing wrong.

SI.com: What were your overall impressions of how Team USA did in Beijing?

Lewis: I was completely embarrassed that the United States could not pass the baton. I've been in track and field for 40 years and I've seen the baton dropped 10 times, and we dropped it twice in the Olympics.

Look, I love Lauryn Williams, but when I read she said the baton had a mind of its own, I honestly said that girl needs to be committed. Are you kidding me? It was her fault. And [Tyson Gay] shouldn't have been running, because he was hurt. I'll give him all the credit in the world because he never complained about his injury, so I got his back there. But he couldn't drive out properly, and when he put his hand back, it was sideways and you can't pass the baton like that. These are mechanical mistakes that a coach didn't see in practice.

SI.com: I was surprised to read IAAF President Lamine Diack recently say that Bolt winning three gold medals in Beijing was more impressive than you winning four in 1984 because he broke three world records and you only broke one with the relay team. Did you see that?

Lewis: Yes, and I sent him an e-mail. For him to make that judgment is wrong. He should talk about Usain on his own merits. Secondly, I said one of the problems in our sport is there is such an emphasis on records and here you are, the president of the federation, talking about records. The sport should be about competition.

You can compare us as sprinters, but the thing I am most proud of is that I did multiple events and I long-jumped. There is not a sprinter on the face of this Earth that can long-jump. I tell people all the time that I wasn't a sprinter that long-jumped, I was a long-jumper that sprinted, and that's a fact.

SI.com: Would you ever consider coaching?

Lewis: No. I'm not a coach and I know it. I'm too busy and it doesn't pay. I'm expensive. But I would always advise.

SI.com: How long is track going to have this black cloud over it, where every broken record is looked at with a skeptical eye?

Lewis: Until the athletes want to change it. People forget that I was the first one to speak out about Ben [Johnson], and I got crucified. A year later, I was a prophet. The athletes have to say, "No, this isn't right." They know who's on it. They need to step up.

I look at someone like [Jamaican track star] Veronica Campbell-Brown, who lives in the United States, and has been transparent and consistent. She won the worlds last year in the 100 meters and this year she can't even make the team? And you're going to tell me that shouldn't be questioned?

SI.com: Do you think American track athletes will ever get the fame and notoriety that you and your counterparts did before drugs tarnished the sport?

Lewis: If the sport doesn't have credibility, you're not going to get the sponsors. It has to come from the inside out and America has to lead the way. We're cleaning things up. But they have to go further. Other people have to speak out.

Here's what angers me: Antonio Pettigrew [a North Carolina assistant track coach who testified in federal court that he took human growth hormone and EPO between 1997-2001 while winning the 4x400 relay gold in the 2000 Olympics, a medal he returned in June] kept his job and he's coaching young athletes. This is wrong. There have to be consequences for your actions.

SI.com: You're one of the few people who can understand what Michael Phelps is going through since he's become an American hero and is thought of as possibly the greatest Olympian ever. Do you see similarities or differences in what he will have to endure outside of his sport?

Lewis: Michael is a great athlete. I know him, so I'm really happy for him and all that, but it changes everything. The unique difference, which I am so happy about, is his sport is 100 percent behind him. Mine was the absolute opposite.

SI.com: What's your take on people trying to compare you and Michael in terms of being the greatest Olympian?

Lewis: I've never been one to compare eras in sports and you can't compare swimming to track and field because there's no way in the world you can get as many medals in track and field as you can in swimming. We can run one or two relays; they can swim five. I didn't realize that of Spitz's seven gold medals in Munich, three were relays. Five of his nine golds were relays. I thought, "If I could run the 4x100, 4x200, and so on, I'd have this many medals." To me, it's not a matter of saying I'm better. It's not even worth comparing. We should just celebrate who he is and leave it at that.

SI.com: Even if the comparisons might not be fair or even make sense in certain situations, aren't you happy that you're name still comes up whenever there's a discussion about the best Olympian or Olympic performances?

Lewis: Honestly, the farther I get from competing, the clearer becomes the significance of what I accomplished. When I was doing it, I don't want to say it wasn't a big deal, but in my mind I was just like a person going to work every day. Only 10 years later do you find out you invented something your second year on the job that revolutionized your business. I was at the Olympics in 2004 and Maurice Greene makes this ridiculous comment that he's the greatest of all-time. All of a sudden, people are asking me about that. Then Justin [Gatlin] wins and can be the first to win the 100 and 200 since me. So here we go again. It was the same thing this year with Phelps. Can he win the most gold medals? Can Bolt win the 100 and 200?

We get caught up in comparing all the time. I have this discussion with young people. They'll tell me Beyonce is better than so-and-so. Why can't we just say that Beyonce is amazing and so-and-so is amazing? I mean Ella Fitzgerald is amazing. Sarah Vaughan is amazing. Whitney Houston is amazing. Why do you have to say that Beyonce is better? Let's just be happy that we had a chance to celebrate all of them.

 

[assrancid]

Wada boss defends Bolt
By MICHAEL DONALDSON in Beijing - Fairfax Media | Monday, 25 August 2008

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Reuters
LIGHTNING BOLT: Usain Bolt before his world record-breaking 200 metres run at the Beijing Olympics.

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World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) director general David Howman says the Americans seemingly building a doping case against Usain Bolt should look at themselves first.


Bolt, 23, has come under scrutiny since his triple gold, triple world record performances on the track at the Beijing Olympics, winning the 100m-200m double plus gold in the 4x100m relay.

Part of the pressure comes from the fact Jamaica has been slow to set up its own anti-doping programme but Howman, a New Zealander, dismissed that.

"Sometimes these doubts are cast but I would suggest some Americans could look at themselves first. They had cheats in 2000 [Marion Jones] and cheats in 2004 so they think no one wins without cheating.

"Why is the emphasis on that fellow and not, for example, on [eight gold medal winner] Michael Phelps? Both those guys are just freakish athletes."

Howman said Bolt had been tested many times and said the innuendo being directed against the Jamaican has a lot to do with the perception Jamaica doesn't have an adequate anti-doping agency. It's been written that Jamaica opened it's anti-doping agency only last week but Howman dismissed that, saying: "I went down there to open it in 2005 but since then there hasn't been the political will to fund it.

"But he [Bolt] has been tested many times."

Asked if the United States' relative failures in track and field could be attributed to a much stronger anti-doping programme in that country, Howman was politic.

"It's not specifically America. What you've seen is the fight against doping has resulted in a lot of athletes, who might not have previously got on the podium, now getting there.

"Relatively clean countries like Great Britain and Australia are now coming through."

The absence of many Russian athletes because of doping violations was a talking point before these Games and Howman said over 60 qualified athletes from various countries had missed the Games because of doping violations in the leadup period, which evened the playing field.

Five members of the Russian track and field Olympic squad, and seven in total, were suspended by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) after an investigation found urine samples did not match DNA tests for the athletes who claimed to have submitted them.

And Bulgaria was forced to withdraw its weightlifting team from the Games after several members returned positive tests.

The Beijing Games have been one of the cleanest and least controversial in recent years and Howman said that was due to a big push from Wada to get governments around the world to sign up to the Copenhagen Convention, which is a commitment to implement Wada's anti-doping code. Since its inception in 2005, post-Athens, 93 countries, including New Zealand, have signed on with another 99 saying they intend to do so.

A total of 175 countries out of the 200-plus at the Olympics have recognised anti-doping programmes in place.

[100% Barataria]

Those grapes are truly bitter 

[A.B.]

He is delusional, but at least he has come out to say it, instead of the other bitches lurking online pretending to not think it, and inventing theories as to why.

Blowing someone's mind is the ultimate compliment, and this is the same Queen who said sub ten and 20 couldnt be done in the same day, or that sub ten all season was proof of drugs.

Sickening.

Didn't he leave track forever? Who invited him back?

[weary1969]

Ato next time u wit Carol tell her brudder give it ah rest

[FLi !]

Shut Up Carl

http://www.guardian.co.tt/martingeorge.html

Carl Lewis should shut up and give the world a break. He had his time, his moment of glory and his day in the sun, it is over, it is done, get used to it Carl.

Surely to cast such awful aspersions against the achievements of Usain Bolt seem to be a cowardly act of desperation by Carl, determined to try to get his name back into the spotlight.

Why does he not try to make allegations about Michael Phelps, the oversized human fish from the USA who beat all comers and set phenomenal World and Olympic records at this year’s Olympic Games?

Blue food

The US media and sports commentators were such sore losers that they immediately started raising questions about whether Bolt used performance-enhancing substances to make him win.

Bolt and other members of the Jamaican track team were tested and re-tested to the point where they felt like they were specially targeted, but they endured it and passed all the tests, yet they would not let him enjoy his moment of victory in peace.

What are they going to accuse him of next? Are they now going to complain and say that he trained for the Olympics using a diet of ackee and saltfish, bananas, breadfruit, zaboca, plantain, eddoes, yam, pigeon peas and dasheen? Are they going to now try to make these banned substances too?

I mean, where do they get off? When does it end? Would they then say that Richard Thompson and our other sprinters should not eat oil down, curry, massala, pelau, roti, dhal, callaloo and blue food?

You sometimes have to wonder at the temerity and unmitigated gall of these world powers who sometimes seem to feel like they have the God-given right and patent to excel in everything, over and above the rest of the world.

Why don’t they raise questions about Lance Armstrong who won the Tour De France a record seven times, so much so that they renamed it the “Tour de Lance,” and in fact he is saying he is thinking of coming back out of retirement to try for an eight win.

Michael Johnson who stunned the world when he won the 200 metres and the 400 metres had boldly predicted that Bolt would not have broken his record and was stunned into silence when Bolt bolted to the finish line and shattered Michael’s old record, but at least he had the decency and sportsmanship to congratulate Bolt and celebrate his win.

Candy store

Not Carl Lewis, not Mister Showboating, Mister Egoistical, Mister I Am The Baddest Thing Around Here Carl Lewis.

We rejoiced and celebrated with Carl on the occasions when he won at consecutive Olympics and we were happy for him. He had the adulation of the world and everyone’s respect for his achievements, but now he cannot seem to leave well enough alone.

If at the end of the day there was any illegality in Bolt’s win, it will eventually come out as it did for Marion Jones and for Ben Johnson, but if there is no concrete evidence or not even any reasonable suspicion then Carl, just shut up and be quiet.

The same advice about shutting up is given to IOC President Jacques Rogge who made the stupid comment about Bolt’s showboating.

The 100 metres men’s final is always the pinnacle event in the Olympic Games and is the most adrenaline-filled, testosterone-packed, ego-bursting event. Sprinters by nature have to have a bit of cockiness and self-assurance because at the end of the day it could be just sheer will power and determination that can separate first place from last place.

Having won the event, Bolt had every right to celebrate as he did, he did not go around rubbing it in anyone’s face, he was just ecstatic at having won the event and was expressing his joy, like a child left in a candy store with no adults around.

Carl Lewis was a showboater, our own Ato Boldon was a master egoist and showboater, notwithstanding his comments about Bolt’s victory celebrations, so why doesn’t everyone get off the boy’s back and just give him a break?

The reality is that like it or not, there is going to be a shaking up in the established order of things in world sprinting and we in the Caribbean can lead the way.

Trinidad and Tobago has tremendous potential in this regard and we need to use this opportunity to hone and sharpen and develop our young talents so that we too can continue to produce world beaters in the fine tradition of Mottley, Crawford, Thompson, Boldon, Bledman and others.

In this regard, the efforts on Minister Peter Taylor are to be highly commended where, in conjunction with Linford Christie they have organised clinics for tapping into and developing the track and field talent of our youngsters.

We have the talent and the resources, and once properly managed, developed and harnessed we will continue to produce world class citizens who are world beaters in several disciplines of sport.

[WestCoast]

"Queen Carl"

[Marlon]

Tell it like it is Carl, good on you lady