Lincicome: To tell the truth? Outlandish excuses rule
August 4, 2006
It is assumed that sports will get better drugs; what it really needs is better excuses.
My all-time favorite drug excuse has to be, not from Floyd Landis who has tried several already, but from another bike racer, Tyler Hamilton.
It was Hamilton who tried to explain having someone else's blood in his body as coming from a dead twin. Way back when, you know, when they were womb-mates.
Landis might have jumped right on that one had it not already been used and had it not failed for Hamilton, who is still under suspension.
To have now thought about it some more, after suggesting, let's see, alcohol - first beer, then whiskey - cortisone, thyroid medicine, quirky but natural internal testosterone, Landis has come up with dehydration.
This makes as much sense as any of the rest. It makes as much sense as hives, sunstroke, pollution, pimples, halitosis, ringworm or baldness. What it lacks is originality.
Baldness is an actual and popular excuse, used and accepted for example by the Avalanche's own goalie, Jose Theodore, and it may or may not have kept him off the Canadian Olympic team.
The treatment for thinning hair seems to be a favorite of Olympic sledders and lugers, and it is hard to tell under the silly backward cap that Landis favors (as does Theodore) just how many follicles might need help.
But I think we could buy vanity as an acceptable alibi rather than dry mouth.
We are long past assuming innocence, if only because of our close association with that walking pharmaceutical wonder, Bill Romanowski (and, before him, Lyle Alzado), or the many, many denials later turned into confessional best-sellers and network interviews.
The nimbleness of Carmelo Anthony to divert any guilt from discovered drugs on at least two occasions has been marvelous to behold. When in doubt, blame the posse.
The Whizzinator alone is not only worth reluctant applause but probably a small investment.
It is almost as if admiration comes to those who can get away with it by being quicker or more clever or better schooled in alibis.
It would seem that Landis was none of the above and will get what he deserves, maybe as soon as Saturday, while others - not to bring Barry Bonds into this, but no drug conversation can exclude him - continue chasing legends.
Landis' defense was so feeble, so unrehearsed, that you were tempted to believe him. No one could be that foolish, you think. Maybe having three times the allowable ratio of testosterone to epitestosterone was natural, like some people have more spit and larger toes.
But then, the report that some of the testosterone was synthetic did in that notion, and that's when you admire even more the swift thinking of Hamilton to come up with that twin thing.
Or you can appreciate Justin Gatlin, one of the two fastest humans, very quickly blaming someone else. That might be an old standby, but is reliable nonetheless.
Bonds uses it, convincing large numbers of folks that accepting the "clear" and the "cream" was no more ill-advised than allowing a department store spritz person to spray unknown stuff on your face.
Gatlin blamed a massage from someone who held a grudge against him. The 100-meter record-holder thought it was BenGay instead of banned stuff that was rubbed onto him. If true, what's the worst you can believe, that Gatlin is a bad tipper?
Still, this is not quite up to the defense of Olympic high jumper Javier Sotomayor, supported by Fidel Castro, who declared that CIA spies had spiked the Cuban national hero's drink. Maybe Landis could have blamed the French. Lance always did.
Having been there in person when the very first big steroid scandal broke, the 1988 bust of Olympic sprinter Ben Johnson, I not only conceded the excuse that Johnson had gotten those muscles from an energy drink but wondered where I could get some.
We've all grown up since then - that is, those of us who were not taking steroids. Those who were taking steroids have grown smaller. But our faith that everyone cheats has replaced our trust that sports are noble.
I was at the '98 Winter Games in Nagano, Japan, when snowboarder Ross Rebagliati flummoxed the fogies with the wonderful, and completely reasonable, explanation that he tested positive for pot from secondhand smoke. Anyone who has been in a ski lodge after the last run could believe it.
The more exotic the excuse, the more credible it is. Kelli White, a sprinter since suspended, used inherited narcolepsy to explain her failed drug test, not up to the Hamilton dead-twin standard, but impressively original.
This story, probably true, concerned another cyclist who collected some of his wife's urine for the postrace test. He got a report later that his test was negative, but congratulations on being pregnant.
Imagination, Floyd. Please.
