From our No Shit, Y’Think? Department comes the following, from Tom Boonen, who once again has tested positive for the dumb dust:
“The night before the drug test I went out. I stayed for a while and I drank. At some stage I must have taken something. Then I had a blackout. I think I have a problem.”
I can sympathize with the guy. When I was 28, my preferred form of recreation consisted of going out, staying for a while and drinking, at some stage taking something, and having a blackout. The only major difference between us is that Tornado Tom is a former world road cycling champ and three-time winner of Paris-Roubaix subject to regular drug testing, while I was an unheralded copy editor who could piss flame across the newsroom without anyone paying the slightest bit of notice, barring a chain-smoking colleague in need of a light.
Had newspapers been routinely dope-testing hacks in 1982, I would have earned a lifetime ban from journalism between New Year’s Eve and St. Patrick’s Day, and there would forever have been an asterisk next to my name in the smattering of headline-writing and cartooning awards I had won.
Happily, they weren’t, and thus I remain at large to annoy my betters, free of nosebleeds and unmolested by white-coats proffering plastic cups. Frankly, if anyone needs drug testing in my game these days, it’s those who employ me against the advice of advertisers, the entreaties of subscribers and their own better judgment.
So I could care less if Boonen is horning lines off strippers in some tawdry Belgium alehouse on Saturday as long as he can ride a straight line on Sunday. As Big Tex noted, “This is more of a social issue than a sporting issue.”
• Special Pre-Mother’s Day Blasphemy: This is my new favorite band: Jesus H. Christ and the Four Hornsmen of the Apocalypse. I mean, with a name like that and songs like “Connecticut’s for Fucking,” “Nipples” and “Alcoholics in My Town,” what’s not to like? Five Hail Marys and two Hello Dollys to former New Mexican colleague Steve Terrell for the tip.
Mad Blog Media 
I concur w/both Lance and the Mad Dog. A positive for a recreational drug in an out of competition test is an occasion for a shrug and a shake of la tete, nothing more. As someone who had that same alcohol/weasel dust problem in the past, I feel personal sadness for this champion laid low. At a time when Europe is moving in the direction of decriminalization of recreational drugs (read David Sirota’s recent columns on the success of Portugal’s three(?) years of complete decrim). Big props to LA for his gracious and supportive comments, I recently was sitting next to his table at a CO club and he was unfailingly gracious and accommodating to the many who approached him with greetings and for cellpix. My respect and admiration for the guy continues to grow.
Its one thing to test for performance enhancing drugs, which some argue endanger the health of riders who are pressured to use stuff like EPO and then crater of heart attacks when their blood is thicker than 100 wt. transmission lubricant. It is quite another to pry into someone’s personal recreational fun house. I concur with Patrick and Lance. Its a social issue–and long past the time when it should stop being a legal issue. As long as the guy doesn’t take down the peloton by riding with a splitting hangover, leave him alone.
I agree with you guys, but I just hope he doesn’t kill himself with the stuff like Marco Pantani did……
Meanwhile, even NASCAR is getting into the act. Driver Jeremy Mayfield has been suspended for testing positive for a banned substance. Yo, Jeremy, you don’t drink the high-test, you put it in the tank, ol’ buddy. Well, at least these guys can still play for the Dodgers.
I’d agree to a point…that being the last time I checked snorting the Cali High is illegal. So he might have a problem, but that is going to be for the courts to decide. Just like they did with his driving record.
Hey, Tom, can you say: “Hi, my name is Tom and I’m an alcoholic?” Do they even have AA in Belgium, or is that for puritanical Americans to suffer through?
As for ManRam, last time i checked that was a legally prescribed drug…for women or men in need of a little “extra help” in the organ department. Or it is apparently used by men trying to mask their use of steroids.
Sorry guys, it is one in the same. If Ramirez is guilty and banned 50 games (and loses $8 million in pay), so too should Boonen.
Best of luck to Tom in his recovery….and time away from cycling.
James, the two cases are not entirely identical. Cycling’s lawmen consider cocaine to be a recreational drug, one not forbidden outside official competition. So Tom-tom can do rails all night long as long as he’s not hittin’ ’em off the top tube with a number pasted to his jersey, or snatching up an eight-ball in the feed zone.
Dude wants to party, I say let him take his chances with the real dope cops. Back in ’73, I nearly got zoomed with 10 pounds of weed in the back seat of my ’64 Chevy Biscayne in Walsenburg, Colorado, and lemme tell you, bruh, no other rush comes close to the one you get when you think your dumb faux-hippie ass is going to the slammer for a few years to keep house for some giant coffee-colored plate-head from a lower socio-economic stratum who lacked your middle-class opportunities to act the fool without consequence and is understandably resentful.
As for Manny, gosh, I think he’ll struggle by with the remaining two-thirds of his salary for this season (his deal is two years for $45 million). I don’t expect he’ll be subsisting on ramen and ketchup anytime soon.
Who was it that said about coke: “It enhances your personality… But what if you’re an asshole to start with?”
Chris, that was my mom. Or one of my editors. Hell, coulda been anyone who was forced to spend time with me in the Eighties. A similar axiom goes, “On acid you think you see God. On coke you think you are God.”
Pat,
With all due respect the cases of ManRam and Tornado Tom are completely identical. Both got busted breaking the rules. In competetion or out doesn’t matter.
As you rightly mention: “On coke you think you are God.” Thus both Tom and Manny are guilty of the same thing: bad judgement. Athletes KNOW that they can be tested but they still do it. As T-Buck said back in the 90’s: “Why? Why? Why?”
As long as fans accept that there are two sets of rules, then those two sets of rules will apply. You want them to get away with it, fine, keep the rules as they are. If you don’t, then you hold them to it. Just like the rest of us. Either you play by the rules, or the rules will get you. That, is the karma of the Jungle.
Tom should be banned from cycling for the length of his treatment schedule since he did nothing illegal in the eyes of the UCI/WADA. Just as ManRam looses dinero for his stupid choice, so too should Tom. Sorry bruddah that’s the way the rest of society plays. That is, of course, unless pro athletes are not members of society….
Good article here on risk tolerance.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Presence-of-Mind-Buckle-Up-And-Behave.html
I wonder if Tom’s willingness to tolerate the risks of an elbow to elbow field sprint gives him a higher risk tolerance for being caught with Dumb Dust. Or, he is just clueless.
I don’t agree with the drug laws, but they are what they are, as I told my employer’s investigator when she asked me about dope. Tom should have known better, but he didn’t bother taking it seriously. He will have to bear the consequences. That’s too bad for Tom and for cycling, but as James says, there really shouldn’t be two sets of rules. I’d vote to shit-can the rules we have and start over.
Khal,
Gracias for the link. It was very interesting….and a bit couter-intuitive. As someone once observed, you need to risk something to get something.
I would tend to think that both Tom and Manny thought that they wouldn’t get caught – as that seems to be the running conjecture when athletes and other members of society use when caught. But without the penalty that the rest of us face (court, jailtime, prison time, loss of income, jobs, family, etc..) there is no consequence for the athletes “bad judgment calls.”
Enough is enough, I say. Make the rules the same for all of us.
http://www.velonews.com/article/91961/uci-boonen-may-be-suspended
“Following the control conducted by the Flemish authorities on the Belgian rider Tom Boonen, which revealed the use of cocaine, the UCI President Pat McQuaid has decided to refer the matter to the UCI Disciplinary Commission,” the UCI noted in a release issued Tuesday afternoon. “The behaviour of Tom Boonen, even though it does not constitute a violation of the anti-doping rules, can be considered unacceptable (Art. 1.2.079) and liable to harm the image, reputation or interests of cycling or the UCI (Art. 12.1.005). This infringement is punishable by a suspension of 1-6 months.”
Does Boonen’s midnight snorting harm the image or reputation of cycling? To paraphrase Capt. Renault: I’m shocked, shocked to find that cocaine use is going on in here!
In a word: “yes.”
I read on another site that Tom was quoted as saying that nose candy was easier to score than a coffee in Belgium….and that “all the kids” are doing it.
For all you defenders who posit that ‘recreational drug use’ and ‘image control’ don’t exist hand-in-hand, then this whole thing is a dream, right? No, the UCI has every right to control their brand. And if they deem that an out of competetion, positive test result for cocaine is casting their business in a bad light then Tom’s days as a top-level pro are done.
The question I would have is this: why did he test positive for cocaine if it is not one of the drugs that the UCI/WADA are list as “banned?” Drug tests do not test for what is in your system, they test for a specific thing in your system. That’s why if they were looking for meth, and Tom snorted 4 pounds of coke the night before, he would not have failed. The test returned a positive for coke BECAUSE they were testing for coke.
That is how drug tests are done. So my question would be is: “WHY?”
Possible answer: Belgium has a coke problem amongst a certain sub-set of it’s population, aka Johan Museeuw and Tom Boonen. That is a story that should be covered. In my opinion…..
Coke is a stimulant which if used in competition, could provide an unfair advantage to the user, and most likely, a health risk. I don’t follow the UCI’s list of banned substances but wouldn’t be surprised to see a lot of stimulant drugs on it. We don’t need more Tom Simpsons. Or, for that matter, more EPO deaths.
Used in or out of competition, coke is an illegal recreational drug. The UCI can do what it wishes and Boonen has to suffer the consequences of using illegal drugs since he was fool enough to get fucked up on one the night before a drug test. But why coke brings disrepute on cycling but an all night Jack Daniels bender (out of competition) is irrelevant simply points to the irrationality of the drug laws. I suspect that Belgium, like most places, also has a significant alcoholism problem. Why not boot all cyclists who drink? I am not sure that a professional cyclist doing a pub crawl and puking in the bushes does much to promote the image of the sport.
My point is not whether the UCI can do what it will. Short of a labor union or lawsuit opposing them, they can. The question is whether such efforts make any logical sense. To me, they don’t, since they concentrate on use rather than abuse, but that’s my opinion. Other people’s mileage may vary, and God bless you.
As far as the dangers of coke, recall the Len Bias and Don Rogers deaths in 1986.
I was training like a madman that summer as well as writing my dissertation. The madman training (including madcap after work rides out onto the North Fork of Long Island and 11 p.m., 6 mile runs around the Stony Brook campus loop) helped me cope with the stress of writing up the Ph.D. after a series of nasty personal setbacks during graduate school that left me (and my advisor) wondering if I would ever finish. I could beat on the devils with the bike.
One night at work that glorious summer a junior student asked me to review a paper the student was writing. I handed it back suitably scribbled on and the student handed me a rolled up dollar bill. Being as naive as I was, I thought I was being offered money, but nope, it was nose candy. I turned it down for several reasons, the recent death of Bias being one of them. Being in near-elite condition at the time myself, I had no interest in pushing up daisies. Secondly, and as corny as this sounds, I promised my mom I wouldn’t ever do hard stuff. As a professional musician for much of her life, she had seen enough bad things happen to people who got strung out on drugs, including the hellish experiences of one of her brothers.
So I am not much of a fan of dope or a dissipated lifestyle, James. Hand me my Cannondale, pour me a cold one or offer me a glass of decent Chardonnay or Cabernet and I’ll be quite happy.
I just don’t think we are handling the drug situation very well.
Khal,
I will concur with you in your observation; we are not handling the drug situation very well indeed. I wish I had a better answer for that, but the “War on Drugs” has been, and will continue to be, a major failure.
Back on point though, I believe that in the example of Boonen (specifically), the fans seem to genuinely want him to recover. I know that I do…but I also think that he needs to decide if racing is what he wants to do. The excuses that I read were just that: excuses. Yes, he admitted to a lapse in judgement but then saying that coke was easier to score than coffee is missing the point. No one held him down and forced him to snort it, did they? Not from what I have read, seen or heard. Nope, he made the choice to do it.
That is the point for all of the cheats in life, sports, business, whatever: they made the choice to do it.
Obviously the consequences are not large enough to be a deterrent, so maybe if we accept that and move on we can find the answer. However we will also have to accept that there will be a lot of people who will not be here with us when we find that answer because they made the ‘ultimate choice.’
Len Bias made a choice that fateful night. Some of us will make that same choice but not suffer the consequences, while others will be much luckier. Bias’ death was tragic (and all sudden deaths are tragic) not because he was young, but because he could have chosen differently.
As Allen Ginsburg said: “I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix.”
R.I.P. the fallen