Left field

Drugs no help in surfing, says world champ

World surfing champion Kelly Slater is happy to abide by new doping regulations being implemented in his sport but he doubts whether performance-enhancing drugs would make anyone surf better.

Surfing’s image has always been clouded by images of wild lifestyles, of cashed-up athletes treading a fine line between partying and performing.

While the modern professional surfer is a super-fit athlete, the Association of Surfing Professionals still wants to clean up the sport for good.

Slater, speaking at the launch of a world surfing tour that will have its first series of formalised drug testing this year involving standards prescribed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), said he had no problem with the tests.

“Doesn’t bother me,” Slater told Reuters. “I actually don’t know that the performance-enhancing issue applies to us so much. Surfing is a lot of decision making and skill. It’s not just based on speed and it’s not just based on strength.

“I don’t know that if someone takes a drug it’s going to make them win a heat, whereas if a guy is running round a track and he wants to go as fast as he possibly can, a drug probably can make him go faster. I think he probably can cheat. Surfing is a little different.”

The new ASP Anti-Doping Policy will test for both illicit and performance-enhancing substances. Offenders face a minimum one-year ban from the tour.

Big shoes to fill for small U.S. basketball team

Where have all the big men gone?

The United States enters this weekend’s world basketball championships with a squad chock full of gifted NBA players but they will be lacking a dominating inside presence.

When the Americans last won the title, in 1994, seven-foot-one Shaquille O’Neal was a towering presence that led the U.S. team in scoring, rebounds and blocks.

But this year, the only centre wearing the Stars and Stripes will be Tyson Chandler, an agile seven-footer of the Dallas Mavericks who can run the floor like a guard.

Chandler, however, with career averages of 8.1 points and 8.8 rebounds and ready to play for his fourth NBA franchise, is hardly the type to strike fear into an intrepid guard who wanders into the lane.

A variety of reasons prevented USA Basketball chairman Jerry Colangelo from selecting NBA centres David Lee, Brook Lopez and his twin, Robin, for the team. Colangelo also couldn’t take Amar’e Stoudemire, who declined to play at the request of the New York Knicks, who were unable to insure his new contract, worth nearly $100 million.

But weren’t there other big men around? Now, if Chandler needs a rest, gets injured, or into foul trouble, he’s replaced by the Los Angeles Lakers’ Lamar Odom, a forward out of place defending under the basket.

Vlog – When World Championships get forgotten

I’m covering the world figure skating championships in Turin where there is a real feeling of anti-climax given they come just a month after the Winter Olympics. Several champions have withdrawn.

As discussed in the video above, should world championships in certain sports skip a year when the Olympics take place?

I just swam the world championship pool

In the midst of a deluge of world records at the world swimming championships, I was close to breaking the mark for the slowest ever time.

Journalists at the Rome event were given the chance to swim in the outdoor 50 metre pool just hours after Michael Phelps and Federica Pellegrini had graced the same starting blocks and water.

We were treated like the real swimmers and had to sit in the ‘call room’ where the professionals wait before their race.

The announcer boomed out the competitors on the public address system and our names appeared on the electronic scoreboard. The stands were empty but you could easily imagine 10,000 screaming fans urging you on.

Despite not having swum properly for years, I looked the part with cap, goggles and tight trunks.

It was only when we got to the blocks that I realised I had no idea how to dive into the water. This contributed to my terrible 50 freestyle time of 52.48 seconds. Phelps and the like would have finished before I’d even got halfway.

World championships need a fit Tyson Gay

Usain Bolt is undoubtedly the man of the moment in the world of athletics but American Tyson Gay has the fastest times over the 100 and 200 metres this season and goes into next month’s world championships as defending champion over both distances.

Unfortunately it looks as if he will also be going to Berlin at best short of training and at worst still carrying a groin injury that he says will eventually need surgery.

A fully fit Gay would be a true challenger for triple Olympic champion and world record holder Bolt but, as the world saw in Beijing, there is nowhere to hide in top-class sprinting.

Gay went to China having barely run in months after damaging a hamstring in the U.S. trials and instead of the much-trumpeted showdown, he failed even to make the final of the 100 metres.

Bolt’s compatriot Asafa Powell also failed to deliver in Beijing, where he finished fifth. On Friday night at London’s Crystal Palace the former world record holder trailed in sixth in 10.26 as Bolt won in 9.91 into a headwind and unless something remarkable happens over the next two weeks he looks unlikely to challenge the red hot favourite.

Watching Bolt destroy the field twice in Beijing was one, or even two, of the all-time great Olympic experiences but processions get dull eventually.

G-strings, the bare-faced solution to swimming’s problems

With the row over space-age bodysuits threatening to engulf swimming, it was only a matter of time before a top athlete lent his voice to calls for a radical, no-nonsense solution.

Japan’s Ryosuke Irie reckons racing in skimpy G-strings might be the best way — indeed the only way — to ensure a level playing field before the bodysuit wars tie swimming up in so much red tape the public lose interest.

“We would be better off,” said the 19-year-old, whose recent 200 metres backstroke world record is still awaiting ratification from swimming’s governing body FINA.

“We need a set of rules people will agree to and stick to.”

Concerns over hi-tech bodysuits have muddied the waters since before last year’s Olympics when world records began tumbling after Speedo unveiled their drag-reducing LZR suit.

American Michael Phelps wore one when he won a record eight gold medals in Beijing.