It can be a burden to be able to see the future ...
... particularly when that power does not enable you to make any money but rather only permits you to predict positive drug tests.
I know, because I have this power.
What's that? Want proof?
Here's what I wrote on Monday's blog, after Alexandre Vinokourov won a grueling mountain stage in the Tour de France, one day after looking just awful, which was one day after he'd looked awesome in the time trial, which came after he'd looked terrible in the Alps.
... I'm sure, given cycling's cozy relationship with performance-enhancing drugs, that I'm not the only one who wonders, at least a little, when a rider makes such a dramatic one-day turnaround, a la Floyd Landis in the 2006 tour.
As it turns out, my skepticism was well-founded. That remarkable time trial "Vino" turned in was apparently helped at least in some part by a nice fresh batch of oxygen-rich blood he'd received in a transfusion earlier that day. The news of the positive test came today, during a rest day for the Tour.
Sadly, there are many people out there, known as sports fans, who share my ability to see the doping future. I remember the first time I realized I had this power, during the 1996 Olympics, in Atlanta. At those games, a previously unknown Irish swimmer named Michelle Smith won three gold medals. She'd made such remarkable improvements in such a short time that many, particularly in the American press, wondered if her performance had been enhanced. Smith angrily denied such allegations and fired back with the usual comeback - others were jealous of her success.
Of course, Smith later missed a random drug test and then was busted for tampering with a sample during another drug test.
That's when I learned a lesson in sports that has sadly been confirmed many times: when something seems too good to be true, it usually is.
That's what I was thinking on Monday, as Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett gushed all over Vino's remarkable performance. Heck, that's what I've been thinking since 1998 in baseball.
The saddest part? I can only know when my skepticism is proven right. There's no real way to know for sure anymore if a remarkable once-in-a-lifetime performance is just that, and not the result of some sort of chemical enhancement.
Whew, that's three straight dark and dour posts for me on this blog. Maybe I should have just stayed on vacation.