…no thanks scalder.
Thought you were kinda excusing her flat chest as she is an athlete and that’s what they do and she actually has a better one that most other athletes.
She still has a very flat chest. That don’t change.
All I said was, as athletes go she doesn’t look bad. I was referring to her face because most of them are munter.
The flat chest goes without saying for an athlete. Even that polevaulter one who is tidy out has a flat chest.
Its surely not a revelation to you.
Grand so…
[quote=“myboyblue”] Even that polevaulter one who is tidy out has a flat chest.
[/quote]
Alison Stokke
http://www.greatfunnypictures.com/pictures/Allison_Stokke.jpg
or High Jumper Kasja Berquist
I see disgraced drug cheat come rugby league winger Dwayne Chambers won gold in the 60 metres in Turin…
Chambers is a cunt.
Great work by young Mary Cullen today
I don’t think I have ever seen so much bad will towards a person as Chambers. Even John Maughan got in on the act on Sunday Sport today.
Rightly so of course.
Chambers has a book coming out by all accounts, any cunt who buys that needs a kicking.
Womens athletics ah yes… wonderful
I watch their performances not them you understand!!
What is this Diamond League Athletics from Zurich? Is it a premier league style competition, seems to be on regularly enough…
It’s the biggest series of track races now. There are 14 meets. Each event is held seven times. Last night in Zurich was the final for those events. The events that weren’t on last night will have their finals next Friday in Brussels. Last night was too close to the world championships to be a good meet, next week could be alright. Top four in each event get points, double points in the final and you have to compete in the final to be an overall winner. You only have to be the best in your event whereas with the old golden league you had to win all your events (over six meets I think) to get a share in the gold bars. Prize is smaller now but easier to win.
Fionnuala Britton leading the Euro Cross Countrys here on RTE2 at the moment.
Ah lovely, great work Fionnuala. And the great Ann Keenan Buckley first up to congratulate her. Tremendous 
Joe Sweeney in 2nd place in the mens race behind Bekele going into the last lap. As I type that he’;s dropped back to 4th now as the chase begins.
5th place for Sweeney, just got ran out of it in the end, but a great performance nonetheless. Not a bad showing overall, well down in the teams competition for the women, would imagine its the same for the mens.
Irish marathon runner faces suspension for doping offence
IAN O’RIORDAN, Athletics Correspondent
AN IRISH athlete and potential London Olympic qualifier is facing a two-year suspension for a doping offence in what could prove another costly blow to the credibility of the sport.
Martin Fagan, a 28-year-old marathon runner from Mullingar, was informed by Athletics Ireland of an “adverse analytical finding”, the technical term for a positive drugs test.
Fagan is due to attend an adjudication hearing in Dublin on Monday to explain why traces of the blood-boosting drug erythropoietin were found in the A-sample of an out-of-competition doping test taken at his US training base in December.
Fagan may now request to have the B-sample tested in order to back up the initial finding, although sources last night indicated there was likely to be a more immediate outcome to the matter.
Athletics Ireland declined to comment on any details of the case as it is still under due procedure, but one spokesperson indicated Fagan had a “serious” case to answer.
Erythropoietin, better known as EPO, is one of the most common, although largely outdated, methods of performance enhancing, first made notorious in cycling in the 1990s.
Fagan has no previous record of doping offences or suspicions of such. He has struggled with both form and consistency and debilitating injuries since qualifying for the Olympic marathon in Beijing almost four years ago.
In January 2008 Fagan ran two hours, 14 minutes and six seconds in the Dubai marathon – inside the necessary 2:15.00 for Beijing, and a time that still ranks as the 14th fastest Irish marathon of all time. He dropped out of the Olympic marathon through injury, shortly before halfway, and has failed to finish a marathon since.
He has been based at the highaltitude training venue in Flagstaff, Arizona, since 2007 and it was there the out-of-competition test took place. Fagan had been targeting the 2:15.00 that would have qualified him for the London Olympic marathon, and ran well in the Chicago marathon last October, where he appeared on course for about 2:12.00, before suddenly dropping out inside the final mile.
Fagan had next targeted tomorrow’s Houston marathon, in Texas, which is being staged alongside the US Olympic marathon trial.
Fagan last raced in Ireland at the National Track and Field Championships in Santry in August, when he led in the early stages of the 10,000m, before dropping out. He received an Irish Sports Council grant of €12,000 in the international category in 2009, and again in 2010.
Fagan was unavailable for comment last night.
Fagan has admitted taking EPO, citing injuries and depression as reasons behind his decision. At least he’s admitting it anyway - better than citing an unborn twin or contaminated meat.
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/sport/2012/0116/1224310309138.html
‘Injecting myself, thinking this is how the junkie feels’
Martin Fagan: ‘I was in a dark place, and knew it.’
IAN O’RIORDAN talks to Martin Fagan and hears how he let himself go from Olympic marathon runner in his prime to testing positive for EPO
THE MOMENT Martin Fagan cracked open the small plastic vial, pressed the half-inch needle into the tight belt of muscle under his belly button, and injected himself with EPO, he knew it was over – and in more ways than one.
“I remember, injecting it, thinking this is how the junkie feels. This is how low I’ve let myself go.
“That’s really when I realised I just shouldn’t be in this position, that it’s telling me something, that I really do need help.”
How Fagan let himself go from Olympic marathon runner, five-time Irish champion, always beautifully talented and still in the prime of his career, to testing positive for EPO, is not just a sad fall from grace – but another increasingly familiar tale of the conflicting pressures and anxieties that often make up the elite athlete, or any so-called sporting professional.
It was the loneliness of the long distance runner gone wrong, in ways never meant to be: he felt desperately alone, and severely depressed.
“I can handle the blame, what it’s done to my career. But I hate what it’s done to all the other people, my family, the other Irish athletes.
“Because it’s all my doing, purely selfish. But when you’re contemplating suicide you just don’t think about all those other things.”
That’s ultimately what led Fagan to the moment – why just weeks after coming very close to qualifying for the London Olympic marathon, and without a whisper to anyone around him, he pursued his desperate exit strategy, ordered EPO on the internet, and straightaway went about ruining all the respect and credibility he had tirelessly earned over the 28 years of his life.
It was the moment in November when the struggle had become too much – not just the series of debilitating injuries he’d battled over the previous four years, nor the financial ones too, but also his severe depression.
It wasn’t just a vicious circle either: it was one which left him spiralling downwards, and even though he tried to address it by getting himself on prescribed medication nothing seemed to work, only sent him from bad to worse.
During the darkest and loneliest days in his apartment in Flagstaff, Arizona, he found himself searching for suicide chat boards on the internet, the array of messages, and responses: what chemicals to take to die, with the least amount of effort, and pain.
“When you’re already on medication you’re in that mentality, that I can take something to get through this, to fix this,” he says.
“That’s when I thought of EPO. That was my medication, the chemical I needed. I never would have even contemplated that before. That was something else I know I should have spoken to someone about, but I didn’t think I had that option. I only cared about the running, not the Martin Fagan. It was my last hope.
“And I never once thought I was taking EPO to cheat, or to break a world record, or anything like that. I didn’t even take EPO to win anything. I just wanted to feel good again, to get back to normal.”
He’d reached such a low he wasn’t only struggling to get out of bed in the morning: whenever he did find the mindset to go running he’d get five minutes down the road and want to turn back. Yet still he put on a brave front, concealed it from those who most needed to know – including his family, his coach, and his agent.
All Fagan could think about was his next race, looming on the calendar: the Houston Marathon, January 15th, 2012 – probably his final chance to qualify for London, and perhaps finally break the vicious circle.
“And I started panicking. I just felt so committed to that race, that it was my last chance. I was so stupidly stubborn about it, and that was my downfall. But I was very confused. I know that’s no excuse, but I was only semi-knowing of what I was doing. I was not in the right state of mind. That’s when I should have reached out. But that was my only reality, I was in a dark place, and knew it. I can only ask myself how I ever got there.”
Where he is now is back in Mullingar, and tomorrow in Dublin he will attend an adjudication hearing before Athletics Ireland and the Irish Sports Council to account for the positive test he gave for EPO in Arizona in December: that’s the easy part because he’ll readily admit everything, doesn’t want to know about testing the B-sample, and will openly accept the two-year ban they’ll inevitably throw at him.
“This positive test, the ban, is only the small issue. The bigger issue for me right now is getting myself mentally right again. I know that’s going to take time but I know I’m around the right people now, my family, and friends.”