UK to corner market for obscure Olympic sports

If you win an Olympic medal but no one's ever heard of your sport, does it still count?

Better believe it. The United Kingdom certainly does, so much so that it has crafted its entire strategy for the 2012 Olympics around the principle.

While major sports (except soccer) have never been Britain's strong point, it appears that reality is. UK Sport, Britain's equivalent to the US Olympic Committee, has announced that it is aiming for fourth place in the national medal count at the 2012 Olympics in London.

The United States, China, and Russia are beyond the UK's reach, and they know it. But if all goes according to plan, everyone else might be beaten.

The plan is to train capable athletes in sports where competition is limited -- like team handball and flatwater canoeing -- even if the athletes themselves have never played or heard of the sport before now.

From a strategical standpoint, it makes sense. A gold in sprint kayaking counts for just as much as a gold in men's basketball, so why not focus your efforts on the sports in which medals are attainable? And from the athletes' perspective, it's the opportunity of a lifetime: free room and board, the chance to be an Olympic athlete, and a decent shot at winning a gold medal.

"It's just walking out those doors at the opening ceremony, shaking like a leaf with all my mates," said Tom Marshall, who has been recruited for flatwater canoeing. "I'm already getting that spine-tingling feeling."


Britain schemes to come in fourth in 2012 Olympics (Wall Street Journal)

Tom Osborne Hires Self at Nebraska; Will he drop "interim" tag?

For the moment at least, it's the return of a golden era in Nebraska football.

Following Bill Callahan's dismissal, the state's favorite Cornhusker made a bold move. Tom Osborne named himself interim coach, ostensibly to kick-start the recruiting process for whoever he'll name as Callahan's successor.

So far, Tom Osborne has interviewed Turner Gill (Buffalo head coach), Bo Pelini (LSU defensive coordinator), and Jim Grobe (Wake Forest head coach). Pelini -- who served as Nebraska's interim coach after Frank Solich's firing in 2003 and led the Huskers to an Alamo Bowl victory -- would seem to be the front runner among the names publicly mentioned.

But Nebraska fans have to be asking themselves, What if? In 25 seasons in Lincoln, Osborne won 255 games and captured three national titles. When the Cornhuskers weren't in the hunt for a national title, they were at least a force to be reckoned with.

After a season in which the Huskers became a laughingstock, a remedy for struggling offenses, Nebraska fans have to be craving a blast from the past.

Osborne has been strangely mum on the possibility of giving himself the nod for the full-time position. If he wasn't at least entertaining the idea, wouldn't he be a little more vocal about it? As in, "I know what you all are thinking, but it isn't going to happen because the wife said so"?

Speaking of Mrs. Osborne, if Tom is considering a comeback, can you imagine the conversations they must be having right about now?

For more on Tom Osborne and Nebraska football...
Osborne names self interim coach (AP, via Yahoo! sports)
Is Tom Osborne the next Nebraska coach? (Kevin Donahue at Fanblogs.com)

Interview with Steroid Nation author Gary Gaffney, Part II

The second of two parts to this interview with Gary Gaffney, MD, of the University of Iowa. You can find the first part below or by clicking here. In this part of the interview, Gaffney talks about how baseball should react to the Mitchell Report when it is released, and how baseball and sports in general can combat the use of performance enhancing drugs.

Gaffney is an expert on performance enhancing drugs, and writes a great blog at Steroid Nation.

How do you predict the public will react to the Mitchell report, especially if the names listed in it come as surprise? Is there a possibility, given everything that's led up to this point -- specifically, the names that have already been leaked through various reports -- that the Mitchell Report will be met by the public with a collective shoulder shrug?

As someone suggested, 'Anabolic Steroid' should be named Time's Man of the Year. There is little chance of the Mitchell report being met by public indifference. If anything, the Mitchell report will be met with at least 8 hours of hysteria, until a new Britney Spears crisis comes along. Probably the most hysterical reaction will be from the network news anchors who know little about the situation, but a lot about marketing.

Baseball is a hallowed game, a reverence that was demonstrated a bit north of where I write this -- on the Field of Dreams in Dyersville, Iowa. With a certain segment of the baseball fans, this will precipitate a PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) reaction. Other fans will cite racism, favoritism, an on-going cheating culture, and some will blame Dick Cheney and Halliburton.

I suspect the Mitchell report will generate the usual misunderstandings and distortions that occur in all of these episodes, including those misunderstandings in the indictment of Barry Bonds.

If the MLB wishes to maintain an image as a fair and regulated sport -- a sport that protects the ethical integrity of the games and the health of the players -- it will correct the PED problem. If the MLB doesn't clean up the PED issues, then baseball becomes a popular entertainment-sport. I have no arguments either way, as long as baseball is overt about which philosophy it chooses: ethical sports league, or revenue-seeking entertainment venue. And as long as everyone is honest about the consequences of the choice.

The fact of the matter is that PED use enhances performance. Thus, all performance records in the 'steroid era' need to be re-examined in light of possible contamination. That isn't a new revelation; performances change in sports based on better equipment, better training, and different physical plants. The problem with the enhancement of performance via PEDs is multi-fold as I see it:

The drug enhancement is covert. If the strike zone changes, or the parks shrink in distances down the foul lines, the changes can be quantified. The use of PEDs is unregulated, and covert, exactly not what is to be expected for civilized ethical sports.

The record-setting athlete is afforded great accolades in the country and the world. It seems unsavory that athletes given such inflated status scrounge steroids from AIDS patients, Mexican sources, The Russian mafia, organized drug conspiracies like BALCO, and mail order pharmacies.

If all records and gold medals are tainted with doping, then who is really winning the championships? The athletes or their covert underground pharmacists? If left unchecked, the use of doping to enhance performance will lead to a drug arms race (which has already happened) to see who can benefit most from drug use. Athletes will need multiple AASs, HGH, Thyroid hormone, insulin, anti-estrogens, IGF-1, modafanil, and EPO. Obviously these drugs will lead to significant morbidity and mortality.

Did I mention the use of PEDs is cheating?

The use of PEDs in baseball gets a lot of attention, but it seems to me that we don't hear as much about it in football, and not a whisper of it in basketball, hockey, and most other sports. Is baseball the only sport heavily tainted by this type of cheating, or do you believe that the use of PEDs is prevalent across the board in sports?

The use of PEDs in rampant in some sports, especially sports where power, explosiveness, and aggressiveness are important to success. It appears to me that the sport's culture affects the use of PEDs. PEDs seem to rampant in baseball, track, power-lifting, and cycling, and used quite a bit in football. Those are sports that demand power and explosiveness.

PEDs do not appear to be as rampant in basketball, either because anabolic drug use may not offer an advantage in competition, or the basketball culture has not excepted PED use. Hockey may not have yet developed a culture of PED use because the Canadian socialized health system has long wait lines (I joke).

Explain, if you would, the different types of testing sports use to catch the users of PEDs. Are they sufficient to solve the problem? If not, what measures do the various commissioners need to take to eradicate PEDs in their respective sports?

Anti-doping measures take any number of approaches. The laboratory approach appears to be the most direct, but is not without problems. The methods:

• Lab testing for drugs. Many of the illegal PEDs can be ascertained in urine. Some are slam-dunks to detect like amphetamine; other PEDs require very sophisticated lab equipment and experience like EPO. One can see the problems involved in lab tests, as in the Floyd Landis case where the veracity and the integrity of the lab was in question. The lab has to be perfect in the handling of specimens, documentation of procedures, and security of results. This is an exercise in forensic quality control.
• Some drugs are extremely difficult to test in urine, like HGH. It is a drug that vanishes in a short period of time. HGH may require a blood test, or a bioprofile.
• Some drugs like testosterone disturb the T:E (testosterone to epitestosterone) ratio above 4:1. It seems to be possible to beat the T:E ratio, as apparently Marion Jones did, and members of BALCO also did.
• Legal investigations. Although it might be almost impossible to actually prove the athlete injected a particular drug, the paper trail of using an Internet pharmacy, or taking delivery on drugs from a PED dealer might be acceptable to some leagues. Track took away Tim Montgomery's world record because of his association with BALCO. Montgomery never tested positive.

The various sports leagues can take steps to combat PED use:

• Develop WADA-like secure testing protocols, both in-season and out-season
• Hold the coach/manager, GM, trainer, owner all partially responsible for breach of PED regulations (if the team owners suffered a consequence to their pocketbook when their players use PEDs you can bet the PED use would fall)
• Make use of 'moral clauses' in contracts to discipline players who associate with known PED users, dealers, doctors, and distributors
• Develop state-of-the-art bioprofiles to keep the athletes honest

On Steroids, HGH, and Amphetamines: An Interview with Gary Gaffney of Steroid Nation

In a day and age when it's easy to posture as an expert on a wide range of topics, it's nice to know that there are people out there who really know what they're talking about.

When it comes to steroids, Gary Gaffney, MD, is your man. Gaffney, a professor at the University of Iowa and the author of Steroid Nation (a blog I recommend you add to your favorites and check on a frequent basis) answered my questions about the effect of steroids and what they mean to the world of sports.

Due to length, I'll break this interview into two parts, with the second installment coming tonight or tomorrow morning.

By way of introduction, tell me about how you became interested in steroids. How do you incorporate this "hobby" with your job as a professor?

As a lifelong sports fan and subscriber to Sports Illustrated, I couldn't help but note the stories leaking out of that fine publication. Later, when I attended college, I began to train with weights. Although it was difficult to exercise regularly in medical school, I became more serious about weight training in residency at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore. I made connections there with other physicians and amateur athletes who maintained the same interest in PEDs and athletic performance. For instance, my friend and I called up Robert Kerr for his take on HGH; Kerr was the California physician who claimed he doped a massive number of Olympic champions.

One of my specialty areas is psychopharmacology. There is incredible similarity between the study of drugs used for behavior problems and drugs used for performance enhancement.
I integrate an interest in PEDs professionally, so it is more than a hobby. I am analyzing data on high school steroid use. I recently published a review of gene doping in sports. I have ongoing discussions about research projects looking at aspects of PED use.

The blog is a way of keeping a database on steroids and PEDs, getting some information out there, and of exercising my constitutional right to be a wise guy.

Briefly, can you explain the differences between amphetamines, human growth hormone, and anabolic steroids? How does each help an athlete improve his performance on the field?

This substances you mentioned are but some of the performance enhancing drugs used by athletes. The differences between these drugs would be encyclopedic; however I can discuss the short version.

Amphetamines, also known as 'stimulants' (although I prefer 'analeptics') structurally affect the neurotransmitter 'monoamine' family of receptors. I prescribe these every day for the treatment of ADHD. Not only do these drugs increase attention and concentration, but they can -- at certain dosages -- combat fatigue and enhance motor coordination. Side effects include anorexia, insomnia, and -- at high doses -- psychosis.

Amphetamines are an FDA Schedule 2 substance, which means I need a federal DEA license to prescribe the drugs; they are fastidiously controlled by the government because of the high abuse potential. Amphetamines are detected in urine for several days after their use.

Human growth hormone (HGH) is a peptide hormone produced by the pituitary gland which is intimately involved with growth and metabolism. Once in incredibly short supply because the substance came from cadavers in Scandinavia, HGH is now abundant because the hormone can be produced in mass quantities by biotechnology.

HGH is involved in the growth of children, the regulation of protein and carbohydrate metabolism, and in the regeneration and repair of tissues. Studies indicate HGH may also increase muscle mass, improve tissue healing, and carry out several other metabolic actions. The data on HGH increasing strength and power is somewhat ambiguous; there is evidence HGH -- as a drug -- needs to be augmented with anabolic steroids, thyroid hormone, and insulin.

HGH appeared, at one time, to be an ideal anabolic drug: high gain, no pain. However, over the years HGH has found to cause sinister side effects. HGH can cause havoc with blood glucose and insulin regulation. HGH causes internal organ (kidney for instance ) growth. In a particularly dangerous side effect, HGH can cause enlargement of the heart; it is suspected that many former users of HGH now suffer from cardiac problems.

Although patients with HGH tumors demonstrate acromegaly -- growth of skull, jaw, hands and feet -- I can find little evidence HGH as a PED causes this side effect (ie, Barry Bonds' head did not grow from HGH). There is evidence HGH increases cancer cell multiplication in the lab.

Anabolic-androgenic steroids are the 800 pound gorilla of PEDs. These bioactive steroid compounds that are synthesized in the body from a cholesterol base form the foundation of maleness in species. Testosterone, as the basic male anabolic hormone, promotes muscle growth, bone growth, and regulates metabolism. Testosterone also produces androgenic (or masculine) physiological effects: deepening of the voice, male hair patterns, acne, and development of reproduction organs, and aggressiveness.

All of the anabolic steroids produce those physiological effects to some degree. Androgenic steroids enhance muscle size, muscle strength, power, and explosiveness, as well as increase behavioral aggressiveness. Other adaptive physiological effects that enhance athletic performance may be more controversial, such as improved recovery from injury, reduced fatigue, or increased red blood cell numbers, but the key effects remain the enhancement of muscle strength and power and increase of aggressiveness.

The side effects of the anabolic-androgenic steroids follow from their physiological role, and from the fact that no drug produces pure effects. In males, the side effects include acne, baldness, testicular shrinkage, muscle and tendon stiffness, and some damage to internal organs. The estrogen effect of these drugs causes gynecomastia (development of breast tissue). There appears to be significant problems with the heart and liver in steroid abusers. And lastly, behavioral aggressiveness is a much debated, but real effect of the drugs.

In women, these drugs wreak havoc. The AAS masculinize women producing large muscles, deep voices, body hair, and large genitals. There is recent evidence the drugs are associated with birth defects. There is a reason these drugs are DEA scheduled and controlled substances.

Can you get a pretty good sense just from looking who may or may not be on each, or is that a game you stay away from?

Now would be a good time to discuss 'stacking'. Stacking occurs when athletes use different drugs in sequence to maximize their effects. For instance, an athlete might use testosterone, nandrolone, HGH, insulin and thyroid hormone for several weeks, later tapering the steroids to avoid detection, then adding an anti-estrogen or a masking agent. As you can image, stacking not only produces synergistic anabolic effects, but also potentates sinister deleterious side effects.

Since athletes who use anabolic steroids are drug cheats, utilizing an entire illicit underground pharmacy for the drugs, they tend to use other drugs too -- like narcotics, benzodiazepines, diuretics, and alcohol. If you look at the evidence of recent high profile cases, you will see someone like Chris Benoit was found to have anabolic steroids, narcotics, benzodiazepines, and alcohol in his system. It is extremely likely this mixture of potent drugs produces very dangerous behavioral and physiological side effects.

The 'sight test' is often used, but probably often wrong when looking at juicers. It may be that a rigorous routine of weight training, exercise, and diet can produce remarkable results in gifted athletes. However, rapid gain of muscles, rapid loss of fat, acne, edema (puffiness of the skin), and out-of-character aggressiveness produce questions about athletes. Certain athletes who appear to defy gravity as they age, also raise eyebrows.

Part Two now available above or by clicking here

Buh Bye, BCS; Hello Democracy

Now that the tryptophan has worn off, it's everyone's favorite time of year again: the time where we all moan and gripe and lobby and complain about how our favorite college football team deserves a shot at the BCS title and our rival doesn't.

With four one-loss teams, an undefeated team, and several pretty dang good two-loss teams clogging up the rankings, just about anyone could make their case. It makes for fun conversation, but logistically it's a problem.

That's why All on the Field has devised an exclusive solution, one that keeps the bowl format in place and spares the big wigs from getting their underwear tied up in a bunch over a pesky playoff system.

Ladies and gentlemen, we propose to you a fan voting system!

Yes, hanging chads darned, it's the perfect solution.

The point of the bowl games, most of us know, is to make money (and here some of you thought it was to determine rankings... ha!). See, the more people that watch, the more people who will use FedEx to ship their stuff and buy Tostitos to snack on during the game, or so the prevailing logic goes.

But if we somehow were forced to watch a Kansas-Hawaii BCS championship -- won't happen now, I know -- eh, I'll pass on the game, I have to drop something off at the UPS store.

Instead, we vote for who we want to see (Florida vs. West Virginia, anyone?), and the BCS gives it to us. Millions of us watch, the sponsors see a spike in sales, and everyone's a winner. Except for Kansas, that is.

Postscript: Of course, this proposal should be taken with a bag (not just a grain, mind you) of salt. If the bowl championship was determined on the basis of fan voting alone, can you imagine the problems? We'd have a Notre Dame - Ohio State final every year!