They did it to Lance, Will they do it to Manny?
By Rene Bonsubre, Jr.
PhilBoxing.com
Tue, 22 Sep 2009
When American cycling sensation Lance Armstrong was winning the Tour de France for seven straight years (1999-2005), he had to face accusations of steroid use. He was hounded by the French anti-doping agency and was tested negative for the 24th time this year for performance enhancing drugs.
Last week, Floyd Mayweather, Sr. accused Filipino boxing icon Manny Pacquiao of using performance enhancing substances. Mayweather was quoted as saying "I believe he's on some type of supplements. I'm convinced about a lot of boxers," Mayweather Sr. said. "That's what they're doing right now. Everybody should be checked a little bit more thoroughly. Sometimes people know what's going on but they ain't saying nothing."
Trainer Freddie Roach has strongly denied this: "Steroids? Where in the hell did that come from? You know, these guys, they had to come up with a reason why they lost. They lost because [Floyd Sr.] sucks as a trainer and I had the better fighter." Roach also said that "We have taken him a couple of times to be tested, and we haven't tested positive yet. I think he's wrong, but all Manny's on is white rice".
Mayweather is not the first to irresponsibly open his mouth in response to Filipino sports success. When the Philippines won the overall championship of the Southeast Asian Games for the first time in 2005, then Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra expressed doubts over the fairness of results in the SEA Games, as the host nation Philippines was winning far more medals than the other competitors. In 2006 a military junta overthrew Thaksin's government in a bloodless coup while he was abroad. Thaksin was accused of corruption, tax evasion and selling national assets to international investors.
Going back to boxing, there have been high profile fighters who have tested positive for banned substances. Pacquiao is not one of them. The Nevada State Athletic Commission executive director Keith Kaiser has said that “All I can tell you is that Pacquiao, every time he's fought here in Nevada, he has been tested, as well as his opponents. He passed every drug test we did to him, every steroid test we did to him,”
The American sporting landscape has been tainted by steroid use, from its national pastime of baseball to their star track and field athletes. But does Mayweather, Sr. really want to clean up the sport or is this something more sinister? Pacquiao’s meteoric rise in the boxing world upset the status quo. Will he be the subject of an intense “witch hunt” like what happened to Lance Armstrong?
Filipino success can be quite disturbing especially to certain people who have always considered themselves to be better than us.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Rene Bonsubre, Jr..
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