When athletes win on drugs, athletics loses

THE world’s greatest ultramarathon race has been sullied by a doping scandal.

Limpopo athlete Ludwick Mamabola, the first South African in seven years to win the prestigious Comrades Marathon, has been labelled a drug cheat after testing positive for the banned performance-enhancing substance methylhexaneamine.

If the “B” sample is also positive and Ludwick is unable to defend himself, he could be banned from the Comrades, be stripped of his 2012 title and lose his R300 000 prize money.

Ludwick denies the charge and there are suggestions that he could have taken the banned substance inadvertently and should be given “the benefit of the doubt” (Daily News, June 20).

Cheating in sports is commonplace these days and is proving to be a major challenge for organisers to keep the im- age of sports clean. As sportsmen and women chase after bigger and bigger prize money, the temptation to cheat, in whatever way possible, becomes irresistible. The greater the event, the greater the temptation to cheat.

Just the other day in the Euro 2012 match against Ukraine, England defender John Terry cleared a ball which had obviously gone over the line. In Italy several football players have been charged for match-fixing. But none of these compares to seven times Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong who is now facing doping charges. The US Anti-Doping Agency says he’s been cheating for years (Daily News, June 14). If so, how did he get away with it for all these years?

Such unsporting behaviour is definitely not in the spirit of athletic camaraderie. T MARKANDAN

Silverglen THE last time I wrote about the Malvern police station I took them to task for failing my granddaughter. This time I want to compliment them. The policemen and women who man this station have restored her faith in the police.

My teenage granddaughters were at home alone, it be- ing the school holidays, when a security situation arose at their home, which frightened them and was potentially dangerous. Because they could not get hold of their parents, who were at work, they contacted me. It would have taken me half an hour to get there.

I advised them to ensure that all the security gates were locked and to phone their local police station. Within minutes a police vehicle arrived and the situation was resolved.

Thank you to the Malvern police who responded so promptly. ALBERT STEPHENS

Austerville