by Zach Bigalke

Created on: July 10, 2007   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

It is not so much that athletes in international sports such as track and field or cycling are more guilty of doping offenses. Rather, it is American athletes who are allowed to get away with using substances banned in international competition. Because red flags go up whenever a positive test result appears, Americans are skeptical of the legitimacy of sports where athletes test positive at a prodigious rate. But the mainstream American sports media and casual fans alike fail to look deeper than just the positive announcement. They chastise and belittle unfamiliar sports and athletes, whether they test positive for truly nefarious substances such as steroids or benign, legitimate prescription medication.

For example: I was listening to a baseball game last night on ESPN Radio. The announcers were talking about a player trying to recover from a nagging injury. They casually tossed into the conversation the fact that this baseball player had received cortisone shots in an effort to get back on the diamond quicker. A seemingly harmless and all-too-common treatment for sports figures in the United States...

Except that this athlete would be looking at a minimum two year ban from his profession if he had chosen to be a cyclist or a track star rather than a baseball player! What American audiences fail to recognize in the myriad positive drug tests is that, even with properly filed medical exemptions, international athletes can be sanctioned for using legitimately prescribed pharmaceuticals essential for their mere survival. The recent one-year suspension of Italian sprinter Alessandro Petacchi is a sobering case study of the stringent limits some athletes face in balancing their health with the draconian demands of their profession.

Petacchi is one of the most decorated cyclists of his generation. With a feared finishing sprint, Petacchi has been one of the most prolific cyclists of his generation. Petacchi has claimed forty-five stages in grand tours as well as the 2005 Milano-San Remo classic. He has amassed this brilliant decade-long career despite struggling with chronic asthma. Like most asthma sufferers, Petacchi has been prescribed an inhaler to open his restricted airways. But, despite his long-standing prescription and explicit permission to treat his medical condition from cycling's governing body, a positive test result for salbutamol during the 2007 Giro d'Italia has forced Petacchi out of work for the next twelve months.

Petacchi's crime? One too

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