Today I have mostly been sprinting

Well I say sprinting, more like riding slightly quicker than my usual very slow. Anyway I had plenty of time to think whilst doing this and what I thought about was Alain Baxter.
Baxter 'won' a medal at the 2002 Winter Olympics and was the stripped of his medal for failing a drugs test.
The drug in question was an ingredient in an inhaler brought over the counter in the US, he used the same brand in the UK, but didn't check the ingredients and so failed a test.
So far so clear, eh?

Now here's a thing, he's going to give the track a go, with a view to riding the 2012 London Olympics, no seriously, stop laughing at the back. Oh and here's the bit I don't get, if you train as a coach under BC's coaching system and eventually work your way to the dizzy heights of Level 3 you will, apparently, do a module on drugs. And you will look at 4 case studies and use them for a discussion on drug abuse in cycling and sport in general.
Baxter is one of those case studies and whilst you or I may feel a touch or sympathy for his position or not as the case may be, the BC line is apparently made pretty clear on these courses - ATHLETE RESPONSIBILITY. It was his fault and he was rightly stripped of his gong. Now that's a view I agree with so I am slightly puzzled by the fact that there is talk of Baxter pitching up at Manc Velodrome in an effort to take a shot at Gold in 2012. I thought that once you have failed a drugs test that was that as far as Olympic selection goes, maybe I misunderstood something.

Ah well.......

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