Fearing that the jinx of the sophomore album might come in a variety to which bloggers or Olympic kayakers are susceptible, I continue the van Koeverden files weak-kneed and wondering what the average Leafs / Sens fan wants to know about training for the Olympic Games. Surprisingly, there were no multi-million dollar trades or contract negotiations in the sport of Canoe-Kayak this week, at least none that I’ve been made aware of. Nonetheless, the Canadian Team is still down here in Florida, hammering away on the Banana River (forgive the innuendo) and its various canals and tributaries, honing our skills and toughening up for the race season which lies ahead.
My training last week was awesome, simply put; I paddled about 160km over 10 sessions in six days, saw fantastic results in one of our many on-water tests, hit the gym four times lifting a grand total of around eight tonnes (across thousands of repetitions), went running a couple of times, and surrendered 140 ml of my urine to the good people at the Canadian Centre for Ethics in Sport (CCES). I welcome every drug-test with open arms as my opportunity to pledge my enduring commitment to 100 percent fair play, drug free sport.
I am drug-tested about 10-12 times in a year, always randomly and without warning; and as inconvenient as it might be to have the friendly cooler-wielding saints knock as I’m on my way out the door to training, or straight after I’ve been to the bathroom, and as weird as it might be taking a leak full-frontal before a perfect stranger (although strangers are rare by now, I know most of them by first name), I fully recognize the importance of the process and commend those who are doing what is necessary to uphold the values and foundations upon which sport is based.
I’m finding all the recent controversy regarding the abuse of drugs in pro-sports pathetic and laughable. With all the money and resources so vastly available within the realm of professional sports, I’d expect there to be an at least worth-the-paper-it’s-printed-on anti-drug-use policy, a cheater-proof testing system, and real repercussions for those who still choose to sabotage sport at the most basic level. The integrity, reputation and legacy of professional sport is currently at risk of permanent damage, not to mention the health of the players, if nothing is done to re-instill fans with some assurance that all great players are gifted and hard-working, not just pharmaceutically enhanced. I shudder to consider the effect that the overly drug-laced sports headlines are having on our next generation of athletes.
I recognize that the sensational and controversial will always win outright when the most glaring headline is at stake, but am I the only one who’s sick of reading about Roger Clemens and Britney? Yeah, I lumped them into the same category… and I’m not sure which one I should apologize to for the association.