Walby soured by loss to doper
Victor failed Sept. 8 test
Tony Walby doubts that judo is full of dopers like Jorge Lencina, but it takes only one.
In this case, it took Lencina to end Walby’s Paralympic tournament almost before it began. It was Walby’s first and only match in the 90-kilogram weight class. It was also the last one of a fine decades-long career in able-bodied and Paralympic sport, and he lost it to a cheater.
“I’m frustrated. So is my coach. We prepare so long and so hard for it,” said Walby. “To lose to somebody who’s cheating — not to say that if he wouldn’t have been cheating that I would have won the match — but his win is tainted because he cheated. And by him cheating, he knocked me out.”
Lencina, who hails from Argentina, failed an incompetition doping test administered here Sept. 8, but was allowed to fight Walby two days later. Walby said he has been told the test results were not available from the lab until Sept. 12 because of a backlog.
Lencina’s is the only inGames positive test to date. Of all the luck.
There is no recourse for Walby. The tournament is long over, and now so is his 35-year competitive career. He’s retiring, and these unfortunate circumstances won’t change his mind. He’ll pursue his sixth-degree black belt, continue coaching a stable of athletes, and look forward to ushering a new generation of Walbys onto the mat in Ottawa; four-year-old daughter Eva and in time, two-year-old son Britton.
“I’ve had a wonderful judo career. I’m now officially retired from competition. I’m old. I’m 43. I’ve been to two Paralympics. I was on the able-bodied national team for two decades. It is time to hang it up,” said Walby, a 12time able-bodied national champ who retired from that side of the sport at age 35, about the same time he was declared legally blind.
Lencina, who did not go on to win a medal here, did win his category in the Parapan Ams last summer.
“Obviously I wonder if he was clean then,” said Walby. “The guy competed in three able-bodied Olympics and now three Paralympics. You have to wonder when was he not clean. At least he has been caught.”