Thursday, May 10, 2007

Putting the foot down

The Honolulu Marathon will test for drugs next year. They're going to test all of the top three and randomly from the top 10.

Good for them. Yesterday, I was wondering why they didn't have drug testing at the Honolulu Marathon in the first place, since the race president was so pissed that Denisova was tested positive later. HM is afterall the third largest marathon in the U.S., with some 26,000 registrants last year and $67,000 in prize and incentive money for the winner. When I was musing out loud, Noah said to me, "well, they didn't test at the Ocean Drive Marathon." True, but the ODM also didn't give prize money, have an elite corral or an expo, or a winner who breaks 2:30. With only 300 finishers, the ODM is never going to be a prestigious or a destination race. (But you can set your PR there and no one will question it.) It's a little different with Honolulu if they want to be major, and not just large. In an ideal world, drug testing would be unnecessary, but we live in a world where we can order performance-enhancing drugs off of the internet and yet can't get the Pill without a prescription.

I know it doesn't matter what I think. But I do get the feeling that Denisova was clean at the time of the marathon. Though I doubt that she didn't know what the supplements she took after were actually PEDs. But what do I know.

One more thought -- Denisova is going to get the ultimate insult -- the next time she runs Honolulu, if she's not suspended, she has to register like a regular person, pay for her own entry, and start behind the elite corral. Oooo....scary...

By the way, Denisova has won races other than Honolulu. But Honolulu might be the only city with a paper that has kept following this story for three straight days.

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