A story about Clenbuterol, Guillermo Mota, and an Olympian
Today, Giants pitcher Guillermo Mota was suspended for 100 games for using the banned steroid, Clenbuterol. He's a cheater, right?
Well, he may be, since he can't prove he has allergies or asthma, but not all athletes who use Clenbuterol are doing it because they want to drop a little fat.
If Mota was cheating then, as Grant Brisbee puts it, I hope to hell he kept the receipt. Mota is an innings eater but he's no ace.
But I digress, I have a little story about Clenbuterol:
Growing up, I had the most awesome swimming coach I’ve ever known, Rick DeMont.
Rick won a gold medal in the Munich Olympics in 1972, only to have it stripped from him for use of Clenbuterol. Sounds fair, right? Well, not really.
You see, Rick wasn’t cheating. In fact, during the allergy season he had to move to Arizona for months on end in order to avoid life threatening allergies that plagued him in the Bay Area. Clenbuterol was what he used to control severe asthma. I remember this well - it's a very clear childhood memory when your favorite coach has to split for Arizona a couple of times a year during the critical offseason and preseason training period.
I suppose Clenbuterol did enhance his performance a bit, I mean, it let him compete.
To conclude, I suppose Rick DeMont, Guillermo Mota, and others could pick a non-steroidal asthma inhaler. I don't know that Rick could have back in 1972. Either way though, the reactions to this particular steroid have been totally overblown for about 50 years.
I'm all for re-examining the disproportional punishments for this particular type of medication although in the case of Mota, who didn't have a medical reason for using it, the suspension seems fair.
