On the one hand…

Let us understand what this involves - a somewhat uninfluential team comprising of the two most marketable drivers in F1 (the commercial sustainability of which depends in entirety on these drivers continuing to spar in the matter that they have been over the season) being charged of unbecoming conduct by a high-profile team comprising of, to say the least, two rather unknown and unexciting drivers, whose performance most of the motorsport world could not care less about. Given the commercial reality, the judgment is brilliantly conceived:

1. No penalty on the drivers: Both the exciting drivers will continue to be able to excite.

2. $100m fine: The (relatively) uninfluential team will, in the short term, at least be side-lined, with over 20% of its turnover (and we assume, a larger percentage of its 07/08 budget), disappearing overnight.

3. The high profile team gets even more marketable given both (1) and (2) above, and is assured continued success in the near term, given that its only hint of competition in the last 5 years stands de-limbed.

On the other hand….

1. It was widely reported that Hamilton was by and large ripping off Fonzo’s set-ups, looking at his telemetry, brake setups, tyres and what-have-you. Talented, isn’t he? As a driver, sure. They both are. Pity they’re also a) out and out cheats on a level Schumacher couldn’t conceive of, or b) require plagiarized data to race a car. Information that has now been proven to have been obtained in an unethical manner in the first place. Irony.

How exciting. It’s clear for anyone to see the Ferrari drivers can’t hold a candle to them. F1 would’ve died a slow and painful death if these two were excluded.

2. Here’s some facts for you, vis-a-vis McCheats budget and so on: McCheat F1 have an operating budget of around $450 million. That’s reportedly $100m more than Ferrari’s operating budget. This is not secret information. The only hit they’ve taken for 2008 is that they can no longer use the Ferrari IP they stole. Boohoo. These guys won’t even feel this ‘fine’, especially since Dennis seems to kinda sorta expect Mercedes to foot half the bill.

De-limbed? Their operating budget and existing facilities still far outstrip Ferrari’s. The only basis for this ‘de-limbing’ is depriving them of proprietary Ferrari information.

Also, how exactly are they “uninfluential”? They’re not Spyker. You need no further evidence than the judgment itself to note otherwise. Especially considering they were let off, scot-free, the first time this came up. Rest assured any team apart from the two involved would’ve been excluded lock, stock and barrel for the full two years.

3. Is it Ferrari’s fault these guys cheated? Would you have preferred it gone unpunished? Really? Ferrari have every right to exploit the situation. The constructor’s title is theirs, rightly so. How exactly would Ferrari gain from the likes of Hamilton winning the WDC, anyway? Would that benefit Ferrari in terms of marketability, or McLaren?

This judgment has given Ferrari the barest minimum it is due. The scale of the crime is enormous and unprecedented in this sport. The Ferrari drivers have been punished for no reason. I agree with you on one thing: it was a well conceived judgment, in commercial terms. That’s F1 for you. I just feel bad for the Ferrari drivers. The situation at the top would’ve been reversed if the racing had been legit from the get-go.

Also, only hint of competition in the last 5 years? I’d like to forget the Renault years too! Alonso will drive for Renault next year. Flavio worships the ground Alonso treads on. He might not win anything next year, but at least he will whip Kovalainen.

Hamilton will not drive for Ferrari next year, pigs may fly. This is money well spent for McCheats. They got away with it, gaining a superstar who they can milk indefinitely. Never mind they established him by the most dubious of means…

Michael Phelps is the greatest swimmer ever born… and the 2008 Olympics haven’t even arrived. Tiger Woods can be beaten, Federer can as well (and even has a nemesis in Nadal), but Phelps is the metaphorical mile ahead of everybody. Watch him win 8 or 9 gold medals next year.

He won only 6 gold medals in the last Olympics, but salvaged his reputation with a mindblowing performance at the 2007 Melbourne world championships in March (keep a close eye on all the red lines in the video, and remember that nobody else in the world, all 100 billion human beings who have ever lived, had ever crossed the line he consistently swam two bodylengths in front of.)

The 2007 US National championships were held in Indianapolis early this month. This event is considered the warm up for the 2008 US trials for Beijing, and Michael Phelps came to the city with a full head of hair and an ugly French beard (which he thankfully shaved off a couple of days into the competition.) He was known to be on a light training schedule at the time: he supposedly was swimming only three times a week, and considering the average number of swims per week during peak training season is about ten, it gives you an idea of how important he considered this competition.

Phelps swam only the events he had no intention of swimming in the Olympics. In the 200 Breaststroke, he came in in a lowly third place… in the B Final. He then dived in for the 200 Backstroke and took it easy, to end up behind Ryan Lochte and the formerly unbeatable Aaron Peirsol. A gold in the 200m Freestyle with the second fastest time in history only meant he was over a second slower than his world record.

He then reeled off an almost-world record in the 200m Backstroke (an event he will not swim at the Olympics.) A quick dive in for the 100 Butterfly (the only ’strength’ event he couldn’t dominate Crocker over… until 2007 arrived), and he won it but without the American or world record. (Ian Crocker pulled off another disqualification in this event after that controversial early dive he pulled off early in the year. The story goes that in Melbourne, after Phelps whipped Crocker in Crocker’s pet event, the 100m Butterfly, Crocker replied by diving off the blocks a tad early (0.61s, to be precise) in the 4×100m Medley relay qualifiers, thus pulling off a DQ for Team USA and thus denying Phelps a record-breaking 8th gold medal at the world championships.)

The 100 backstroke was all Phelps magic, though. He never swims this event since he’s got better things to do, but decided to tread on Peirsol’s and Lochte’s feet for kicks. He whipped off his iPod, dived in, ended the 50m in second place, turned and… finished 0.03s off the world record, with enough energy left to glance at the electronic timing board and then scream in frustration about what might have been. Two days later, he decided to lead off the 4×100m Medley relay time trials for the Wolverines in another highly anticipated bid to break the world record in the last event of the championships, but in spite of timing under WR pace over 50m, he ended with a slow 53.17, almost 0.2s off Peirsol’s record. (Yes, the individual world record counts if set in the first leg of a relay.)

A few other fantastic American swimmers also have to be written about. Dara Torres, a 40 year old former 50m Freestyle world record holder, just came back from retirement (and childbirth) to easily dominate the 50m Freestyle and 100m Freestyle at the Indy championships: the shorter event with a new American record to boot. To put things in perspective, she was 17 when she first swam for the USA in the 1984 Olympics. There are whispers about her being “on the juice”, though…

Erik Vendt, Phelps’ Club Wolverine teammate, is another person to look out for: like Janet Evans, he is physically tiny but really pulls his weight in the long distance events. He used to concentrate on the 400 IM, but sensibly switched to the 1500 Freestyle after coming out of retirement because of the appearance of The Lochte. He dominated the 800m and 1500m Freestyle events over Larsen Jensen and Peter Vanderkaay at Indianapolis, and should be worth rooting for in 2008.

Of course, to every Federer there is a Nadal who would be the best in the world… but for the other guy. In this case, the guy’s name is Ryan Lochte. This man consistently clocks world records only to find that Phelps got there first, two seconds before he did. He is going to win 4 gold medals in Beijing: two relays and the two backstroke events as well as a ton of silver medals… and maybe, just maybe, might pull off a victory over Phelps in one of the IMs.

The 2007 US nationals can be viewed online, legally and for free, here. Timed Finals is also a great collaborative blog on swimming, similar to this one. There’s also quite a nice blog about Indian swimming here.

From Cricinfo:

Shoaib Akhtar has been banned from cricket for two years and Mohammad Asif for one, after being found guilty by the Pakistan Cricket Board of using the banned substance, nandrolone.

Both men declined the offer of a retest on their B samples, which implied that they did not question the results.

I am rather surprised that the Pakistani Cricket board has actually gone ahead and banned both these gentlemen but why does Asif get away with a one year term?

Read the rest of this entry »

I love sports. The matching of wits, skills of individual men and women, of teams, of man-machine combinations is a joy to behold. True, the old world ideals may not be upheld every time but sport is the one stage where there is a true display of skills and emotion: that moment of sublime genius, the struggling hero, the ability to galvanize a team of tired men to perform at their very best, the compliments from an opponent, the loss of temper and the head-butting!

This stage is getting tarnished more and more by greedy and ambitious men and women. While there is enormous pressure on them to perform, from the media, the fans and every stakeholder, it is important for these people to realize that they a responsibility and that is to ensure that the reputation of their team and sport aren’t tarnished by their actions.

I have had difficulty explaining to people that not all matches are fixed - following the infamous Hansie Cronje affair. But, there was always this feeling: What if I’m wrong?

Tour de France: Hall of Shame

The biggest cycling event of the calendar had major blows this year. Cycling has been mired in drug controversies for a long period of time and this year saw some of the major stars being suspended: Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso, Oscar Sevilla.

These stinkers were followed by a fairly uneventful Tour de France till the final stages of the race. Floyd Landis a former team-mate of Lance Armstrong, rode an extremely strong stage 17 to reduce his deficit by seven and a half minutes in a single stage of solo raid mountain racing, the likes of which “haven’t been seen since the days of Eddie Merckx”. After a performance that will be talked about for years, Landis tested positive. The Tour de France Champion flunked a drug test!!! There were abnormal levels of testosterone in his blood sample. The sample B results are yet to come out but the results aren’t likely to be any different and hence the defence already building around the high levels of testosterone produced by “my own organism”.

The following is a latest news report:

“Tests performed on the cyclist Floyd Landis’s initial urine sample showed that some of the testosterone in his body had come from an external source and was not produced by his system, according to a person at the International Cycling Union with knowledge of the results….

…there could be many explanations for Landis’s high ratio, including a naturally high testosterone to epitestosterone level, bacterial contamination, alcohol consumption the night before the test or contamination of the specimen during testing. He could not say why synthetic testosterone might have been in Landis’s system. He said both tests could have been inaccurate.”

The Tour de France’s image and the reputation of cycling are at stake. What can be done to avert a catastrophe?

Lance Armstrong: Triumph of the spirit or the scam?

Statement - October 8, 1996 “I would like to thank everyone for coming and for calling in to hear what I have to say today. I have some news regarding my health to share with you. On Wednesday, October 2nd, I was diagnosed with testicular cancer. Prior to seeing my doctor last week, I had been experiencing swelling and pain in one of my testicles and had coughed up some blood. On Thursday, October 3rd, I underwent surgery at St. David’s Hospital here in Austin to have the malignant testicle removed and the surgery was successful. A CT-Scan was also performed the same day. The CT-Scan revealed that my condition has spread into my lungs and abdomen. In terms of degrees of the disease, my condition is considered to be advanced and, thus, yesterday I began my first day of chemotherapy treatment.”

From there to being a seven time winner of the hardest race in the world. It is the biggest triumph of human spirit on the sporting stage in recent times, maybe even of all times. But there have been questions over the propriety of Lance Armstrong. Drug allegations flew thick and fast. He has denied every one of them and is willing to go to the courts to clear his name. This is one instance, where I am afraid to ask for the truth. I don’t want to know. I would like to believe that those seven victories showed me what the human spirit is capable of achieving. It’s a story I want to believe in. It gives hope to people. For the sake of humanity, I plead the investigators and the rumor mongers: Let us forget the Armstrong thing, the world needs the story, it needs a hero, a victor, a champion. Let it not be blown into a Million little pieces … again

Let us get on with the games and the action coz sports are much better enjoyed on the field than off it.

-Prof

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Update - 5/8/06

Floyd Landis’s second drug test confirmed inappropriate levels of testosterone in his body setting him up to be the first champion of the Tour De France to be stripped of his title for a doping offense.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency now has a month to investigate and decide whether to impose a sanction, usually a two-year ban for a first offense. Landis could then appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.