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Running on Heart and Determination
By Tyree Washington, California
With the 2008 Beijing Olympics less than a year away, every athlete is scrambling to change coaches, find the right supplements and secure a plan that will hopefully put them on the podium at next years summer Olympics.
"My steroids come from my heart and from pure determination. Everyone said that I was going to be a statistic because of my up bringing - surrounded by drugs, gangs and poverty. Yes, to most, this would be a losing hand in a card game but I turned those losing cards into winning cards. " -Tyree Washington
As for me I will be giving it one last go-around despite my attempts to make two Olympic teams. I have struggled with asthma since birth and have been hindered with some old football injuries that have flared up at the wrong time during my Olympic campaign. I know my hour glass is running out and this will be my last attempt to try and make yet another Olympic team.
Football has always been my first love. Some of the best advice I got in life I received from my football coaches. They taught me to do it the right way -"The Rocky Balboa way" - to give it all I've got and leave nothing in the tank.
Even though drugs have tainted track and field, I have the dignity within myself to compete clean. Believe it or not I'm a hard knock athlete that will work hard to destroy those Ivan Dragos out there. My five world titles and a world record on the 4x400 meter relay were all done clean.
My steroids come from my heart and from pure determination. Everyone said that I was going to be a statistic because of my up bringing - surrounded by drugs, gangs and poverty. Yes, to most, this would be a losing hand in a card game but I turned those losing cards into winning cards.
While in the starting blocks, I always wondered if my fellow competitors were clean or not. Then I would think back to what my football coaches told me - "Have the eyes of the tiger - don't fear anyone!" Then I would regain my focus and smile because I knew no matter what drugs they were on I would hunt them down like prey until they broke-down mentally and physically.
We all have to remember where we came from and why we wanted to become athletes. It wasn't for the money, or to use drugs, it was for love of the sport.
I had major back surgery March 20, 2007, and I got sick afterwards and was put in Intensive Care for four days. All I could think about was getting back to finish what I started in track and field.
Within two months I was back on the track training and then went to Europe for five weeks to compete. I share this with you because I want you to know that I'm no different from anyone on the planet except that I take advantage of my talents and I don't ever give up. It's very simple - compete clean and you will have a clean conscious. If you are tainted your life will be forever tainted.
Many people wonder what drove Marion Jones, one of the best track and field athletes the sport has ever seen, over the edge. Well I will tell you. When you're in a sport where money swirls around the heads of the fastest runners you quickly learn that many athletes will do whatever it takes at whatever cost to be number one.
Sadly Jones' five Olympic medals and multiple World championship medals have all disappeared like mist in the air. Jones will forever be known as a cheater who played a good game of cat and mice with Olympic authorities, the athletic world and her fans around the world who cheered her on every time she stepped out onto the field.
What's worse, her lies about never taking the "designer" anabolic steroid Tetrahydrogestrinone (THG) or "the clear," have raised a cloud of suspicion that now hangs over every clean track and field Olympic athlete, like me. By deceiving the world with her mistruths she single-handedly put a nail in the coffin for every track and field athlete. And in so doing took away much of the excitement and appeal of the sport.
The lure to take performance enhancing drugs exists for every single track and field athlete who wants to stay on the field and become famous. Most "dirty" athletes have run times that are so fast, meet promoters, agents and shoe companies almost drool at the mouth knowing their companies' pockets will become fat with profit.
Elite athletes run extremely fast as well but not fast as the cheaters. Without the big endorsement contracts, many need to work multiple jobs just to make ends meet. When it comes to running on the circuit in Europe, meet promoters pay little money to these athletes, favoring the cheaters who are given a lot of visibility and are often paid just for showing up. This consequently forces many of the clean athletes to quit the sport.
Jones was the "queen" of Track and Field. Considered the savior of the sport, she could have made millions - she filled the seats of any stadium and brought excitement back to the sport.
Perhaps it was all of this pressure that caused her to fall from Grace. Perhaps, too, when a sport relies on just one person to raise interest in an entire sport something has to give. I'm certainly not going to excuse her from her bad decisions. But I am angry that she (along with Tim Montgomery and Trevor Graham) has tainted the sport of track and field for all of the clean athletes who work so hard to be their best without drugs.
Just because Jones was a drug user doesn't mean that all athletes in track and field are the same. Most of us are clean and have never committed any drug violations. Now, no matter how many negative tests come back that prove our innocence the public will always be suspicious that we are cheaters.
Hopefully Jones will redeem herself from this one day by repaying her debt to society, clearing her conscious of her wrong doing. I would hope that despite the shortcomings of this one individual the public will not lose focus of the greater good that is consistently demonstrated by those athletes who run for the love of the sport and the who do it clean.
