Like a brick shithouse...

...has always been a favourite expression of mine. 

Dunno why. It's evocative I suppose. It always comes to mind when I think of Justin Gatlin.

And I like playing about with Viz-style piss-takes. I want to make whole parody newspapers - where everything looks normal at first glance, but is slightly skewed to the bizarre, although quite subtly, I'd want at least some people to be fooled - and leave them lying around in random places.

Full size

I could do this sort of shit all day, frankly. Mind you, I don't think there's much money in it. Best not give up the day job, eh? Oh wait, I just did. Hahahahahahahahahahaha etc.

Unbelievable P.S.

It's almost too good to be true,

but (further to all that stuff I typed yesterday about Alberto Salazar) it turns out that one of the pacemakers that Lance Armstrong (who I've only mentioned so far in passing but there's plenty more of him to come) used to help him to a sub-3 hour time at the New York City marathon in 2006 (? - might have the year wrong, but it's easily searchable) was...

...Alberto Salazar!

The way this is panning out, it looks as though pretty much all the drug stories - from the systematic cover-up (by the athletics authorities) of major athletes' positive tests in the 1980s*, through the BALCO, Trevor Graham and Nike's various involvements (including their current Oregon Project) - are linked by certain individuals and organisations. And that's just the ones that have been definitively documented (or are about to be, aren't they Alberto?), I've not mentioned the whole Eastern Bloc programme in the 1970s and 1980s, whatever the hell Flo-Jo was up to or any of the other rumours that follow certain other names around.

*  My favourite story surrounding drugs and athletics - and I really wish I had some documentary evidence to back it up - is that in the summer of 1987, there was a rumour circulating athletics circles in Europe; basically this rumour was that the athletics authorities wanted to prove that they were catching the cheats and ensuring that the sport was clean. As such, an edict was sent out that an example was to be made of a high-profile athlete (by exposing them as a drugs cheat) at the following year's Olympics: the highest-finishing non-US athlete in the men's 100m final would be busted**. And we all know what happened there...

**  I imagine the men's 100m final was chosen because it could be guaranteed that without cover-ups, you could have busted anyone out of that race.

Alberto Salazar

The allegations about Salazar aired on Panorama last week are still dominating the (sports) news here.

There's a nice summary of it here (just ignore the survey question) but genuinely the only thing in that programme that surprised me was that Allan Wells had been using testosterone, I'd always assumed he was clean (not that I claim to be any sort of expert).

Anyway, I'll be very interested to see where the Salazar/Rupp (and by extension of course, Farah) story goes, as (1) I've had suspicions about his whole outfit and Nike and the Oregon Project for years now and (2) it's yet another of those subjects that I want to do a much longer post about (I'm going to have to set up a spreadsheet to keep track of those, there's so many).

I genuinely don't know if Salazar out-and-out dopes, but it's well-known in the sport - he practically admits it - that he exploits grey areas to the maximum possible degree. In particular, a surprising proportion of his athletes seem to be diagnosed with hypothyroidism, or suddenly become asthmatic, or (if they're male) have their testosterone levels found to be dangerously low, or whatever. Of course this means they are able to obtain the appropriate medication to "correct" these problems, and so also able to obtain PED (sorry, Therapeutic Use) exemptions accordingly. I don't know, but my instinct is that Salazar is working with Dr. Nick Riviera rather than Dr. Lionel Hibbert, if you know what I'm saying.

Shortly before all the Lance Armstrong revelations became public (late 2011?) I remember talking to my brother (who still didn't want to believe that Lance was a scumbag) and I definitely mentioned that I thought there might be something funny going on with Mo Farah, who earlier that year had joined Salazar's group and was rapidly improving his PBs across the board. Obviously I would love to put his amazing improvements down to the reasons that Salazar gives; better training, oxygen tents, altitude simulation, super-high-tech gadgets, hard work, more work, more better harder work with every possible technological advancement used maximally etc., but well...you know.

Now, even within what is effectively a private diary, I'd better be careful what I type here...

This is how I see it playing out:

- Salazar denies everything and insists he always works within the rules
- Couple of days later, turns out all the Panorama allegations (and more) were true
- Everything looks bad for everyone connected with that group, frankly
- Something is contrived by which Salazar and Rupp take all the blame (i.e. Farah is "clean")

Why? Because a certain ex-middle distance runner who wants to be the next IAAF chief (who has described himself as a "good friend" of Salazar's for over thirty years) is now saying things like "Alberto will mount a stout defence" and "I'm not supporting him" and "Mo will have to make his own judgment about that [Salazar's defence]". It suggests some sort of get-out clause for Farah, unless I'm turning into some sort of David Icke-type conspiracy nut.