Positive test for Jamaican sprinter

I was in the hardware store when I heard the news.  The cashier couldn’t focus on ringing up my products.  She was too busy talking to herself.  “I’m going to have a heart attack if it’s true,” she repeated over and over.  This was around 4:30pm, and it was raining outside.  I was tired and just wanted to leave but asked her, ‘if what’s true?’ 

Then she relayed the rumor she heard.  The drug results for one of Jamaica's sprinter was reportedly positive.  If true this would be the second time the athlete would have submitted positive results. 

I told the cashier not to have a heart attack.  It was a figure of speech but she was clearly hurt.  The news was very personal to her as though a family member or close friend betrayed her.   Her eyes were glazed over and she just kept mumbling and talking to herself. 

I too was shocked.  I felt betrayed as a track lover by an athlete of the sport.   Yet again the sport is tainted by drugs just days away for the world championship. The beauty and grace of athletics is comprised for reasons known only to the sprinter.  I felt sad for the athlete, for it would be hard to recover as a professional sprinter should this be true.  

The athlete’s positive test result came from Jamaica’s National Senior trials for the IAAF World Championships which were held five weeks ago. 

Suspicion by international observers has never completely been off the incredible performance by Jamaica’s biggest sprinters.  However, there was an increasing willingness by fans and observers to believe the claims by the sprinters of running pure.  This does give some validity to the testing program in Jamaica as the discovery was made by Jamaican doping officials. 

No one will ever truly know who is pure or not, because if an athlete and their team wants to cheat it’s very hard to detect.  However, what I do know is that the cashier at the hardware store was seriously distraught.  This was the only news that mattered to her. 

I know she will spend the night venting her anger, thoughts and sadness to friends.   It will be a few days before she recovers.  Hopefully, she’ll be fine by the time of the World Championships and be able to enjoy athletics again.