Why Bolt Must Remain Drug-Free

This musing (I will insist on calling them that) was written shortly after Usain Bolt's amazing performances during the Beijing Olympics. It raises serious repercussions should bad news break......
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Before I start, I must warn you: I am currently bracing myself for one of those life-changing moments that comes along every once in a while. Like actually seeing your parents lay out your presents on Christmas Eve, or confirming that your wife actually is sleeping with that trendy guy from Accounts, this could be one of those moments when your faith is shattered, your confidence disappears, and doubts emerge about the point of living. Because I know that if my fears are realised, I will never be the same person again.

Many would argue that the cause of my fears is not the same as the niggling feeling that you might have failed that final exam, or that giving your account details to the Nigerian lottery agency that contacted you over e-mail was probably not a good idea, but I know that the impact would be tremendous and will shake me to the core.

But enough prevaricating. I am sure you are all wondering what it is that is keeping me up at night and makes me dread the news headlines. And it is this: that Usain Bolt fails a doping test.

For what the speedy Jamaican has done in the Beijing Olympics is nothing short of saving the sport of athletics and, with it, the Games in general. His storming performances in the 100m, 200m and 4x100 relay – all of them gold-medal-winning and world-record-breaking – has brought much-needed credibility to a tarnished sport in great style and, as a result, anyone with even the slightest interest in sports cannot help but feel fondness towards the amusingly cocky, lanky sprinter in the shorts and vest who suddenly came out of nowhere to save a sporting tradition. And I just pray that this legacy will not be tarnished.

Olympics athletics has been dying a slow drug-fuelled death for many years. Since 1988, three gold medallists in the 100m – Ben Johnson, Linford Christie and Justin Gatlin – have failed drugs tests (though, in Christie’s case, this came years after his Barcelona triumph as he attempted to boost his waning powers through artificial and illegal means). The women have not exactly helped either, with Marion Jones and Lauryn White throwing their hats into the let’s-ruin-athletics ring. The result has been that the sport has been blind-sided by a rush of scandal which threatened to knock it into the irrelevance of the Tour de France or Barry Bonds breaking the home-run record. And this has threatened the Olympic Games as a whole, casting doubt on our favourite sports party. Despite Michael Phelps’ valiant efforts, athletics is the flagship event of the Games, precisely because it tests the very basics of human performance: running quickly, jumping high and throwing far (also, most people can see the more obvious life-saving benefits of running quickly – after all, swimming will not save you from the only threats you would encounter in the water – sharks and motorboat pirates – and, unless he comes across a psychopathic killer who is ungainly in water at his local pool, Phelps’ remarkable talent will rarely serve a practical function). And the 100m, through its speed, power and suspense, is, in turn, the leading event of the athletics programme, which makes it imperative that its ambassadors are pure of heart and non-synthesised of hormone. For, to refer to a Jacobean tragedy I once studied, if the head of a fountain is polluted, its stream of corruption flows downwards, even to the most irrelevant events (speaking of which, what do you do if you are the only person in your town interested in synchronised swimming?) And, in order to really matter, the 100m event at the Beijing Olympics must remain clean.

Which is exactly where Bolt comes in. To see him race ahead of his peers in a truly sensational 100m sprint was one of those sporting moments which you will never forget. Not only did he demonstrate tremendous feats of human performance (how can you knock three hundreds of a second off a sub-10 second record?) but, in doing so, he made running, the athletics, nay, the Olympics themselves, important again. And then he did it more than once. Three times, in fact (incidentally, whoever decided to give Asafa Powell the last leg of the 4x100m relay deserves a knighthood for services to scooping up a man at his lowest ebb). And he did it in a cheerfully brash style that indicated that this young man was having the time of his life. Not only was this man in the golden shoes capturing the hearts of the entire world, but he was also doing it without a nandrolone injection in sight.

Which is exactly what is worrying me. Forgive me for being cynical, but I have seen many moments in sport which have seemed too good to be true. And my doubts are not derived from a perceived lack of honesty in Bolt, but from what it would mean if these achievements were unnaturally aided. To put it bluntly, if Bolt turns out to be the latest in a line of Prince Charmings who sweeps us off our feet with empty promises of marriage and children before running off with his sexy HGH secretary, the whole Olympian institution could be destroyed…irrevocably. It would be the one last slap in the face that would push us towards asking for a divorce from the holiest of sporting events, our hopes dashed by vials, unscrupulous scientists and over-ambitious cheats. It is not just that we hope Bolt is clean; it is that we simply cannot afford him not to be. (Or even worse: that he turns out to be a cheat but the powers-that-be keep quiet about it, aware of the impact this revelation would have on the sport).

So, in the meantime, I am going to keep bracing myself just in case. And hope that I am wrong.