Residents of Seaton Village in Toronto, Canada might be preventing the construction of basketball courts out of fear they will become an area for drug distribution.
SportsGrid
In a decision released today, the Minnesota Court of Appeals ruled that khat — a plant native to the horn of Africa and chewed by many in the region as a mild stimulant — is indeed an i…
The Blotter
They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. For Olympic gold medalist LaShawn Merritt, the first step to recovery was admitting that he took the popular male enhancement pill, ExtenZe. Merritt’s defense to his three positive steroid tests relies on an “accidental ingestion.”
Today, a three-person arbitration panel ruled to reduce Merritt’s two-year ban from track and field events to three months after a convenience store clerk testified that he remembered selling Merritt ExtenZe.
That Washington Post story goes on to say that:
“The panel’s ruling, which may be appealed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, is noteworthy because it pressed anti-doping agencies to acknowledge that some positive tests are the results of genuine accidents, a significant issue in recent years for the WADA, which governs drug testing in Olympic and most international sport[s].
[...]
“Merritt claimed then in a press release that he had taken the sexual enhancement product ExtenZe, but Logan scoffed at the explanation, saying in a statement that Merritt “brought shame to himself and his teammates” and “has done damage to our efforts to fight the plague of performance-enhancing drugs in our sport.”
While we’re at it, why don’t Barry Bonds and Lance Armstrong find this store clerk and have him testify for them as well? I mean, if Merritt were some hack who never won anything, it’d be one thing.
But he’s a gold medalist in track and field (the 400, to be exact). And that sport doesn’t exactly have a clean record. Without more definitive proof, we have a tough time believing Merritt’s troubles stem from the need for nookie.