I thought my enjoyment of olympic show jumping was irreperably harmed after the Cian O'Conor affair last time around, but I found myself really enjoying the team show juping event. When the announcement was made regarding Denis Lynch I was absolutely sickened and I'm not sure that my faith in show jumpers (not just Irish) isn't irreperably damaged now.
It must be hard to keep on top of all the prohibited substances however, and the ability to carry out private test to reassure yourself that your horse is clean, or if not, find out what the problem is, would help prevent innocent mistakes. Having said that, Lantinus was tested on arriving in Hong Kong and tested negative.
Maybe we need to find a way of making keeping sport clean a group responsibility. What if counties with olympic athletes testing positive are banned from the following olympics and sports with more than four countries proving positive have their sport dropped from the following olympics? I know that would be hugely unfair on a lot of athletes, but the current system is clearly not keeping drugs out of sport. Or do we have to accept that drug testing will always be one step behind drug taking?
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