12/18/24
January 09, 2004
Greg Rusedski cries foul: after he fails a drug test for the banned steriod nandrolone. The tennis media, especially in Britian, has taken this news and run with it, and suddenly this career-threatening news has given Rusedski more publicity than he has ever had, overshadowing the results of the first events of the 2004 season. The crux of his argument is the ATP's own admission last summer that their own trainers were giving out the banned substance in its electrolyte-replacement drinks and other pills, which lead to another player being banned from the tour then being reinstated. (more inside)
posted by somethingotherthan to tennis at 10:37 PM - 5 comments
As a Canadian, I so very smuggly happy to see Rusedski get caught.
posted by grum@work at 10:10 AM on January 10, 2004
posted by somethingotherthan at 12:29 PM on January 10, 2004
The radio over here was joking that Rusedski's suddenly went from being British to being 'British by way of Canada' when he got into this spot of trouble. I think the same kind of thing happened to Ben Johnson. He was Canadian - rah rah - until he got busted at Seoul then he became a 'Canadian BUT by way of Jamaica'.
posted by gspm at 12:41 PM on January 10, 2004
Rusedski is a great British player, every year, until about the 5th day of Wimbledon, when he's suddenly a fucking rubbish Canadian. That always amuses me. (Same with Lennox Lewis - who was brilliant until Rahman beat him, when he suddenly became rubbish and Canadian at almost the exact same instant. Then he beat Rahman in the rematch, and destroyed (a pathetic) Tyson, and suddenly he was the greatest Britain on Earth - and BBC Sports Personality of the year. He's rubbish and Canadian at the moment again, I think, although I'd have to check the newspapers to be 100% sure.)
posted by dng at 05:52 PM on January 10, 2004
A good article about the ATP's previous bans because of doping is this one from Tennis Week, a very respected voice in the international tennis media. Rusedski is different from the other cases because he has come out and proclaimed his innocence even though his name was not released into the media. The previous case that Rusedski speaks about, Bohdon Ulirach, was a public relations nightmare for the PR-struggling ATP, the governing body of men's tennis. And, of course, there has been a lot of pressure from world sport to crack down on doping, which has ravaged the world of athletics.