Open Day 2007

All the clubs in the Tilgate Forest Receation Centre will be having an Open Day — it’s actually an Open Afternoon — on September 15th.   The Forest Gym will be taking part, of course, and everyone is welcome to come to see us for a workout or a chat.  Unfortunately, Big H will be away that week-end competing at the Atlantic City Show.  There is a wide variety of activities in the Centre and everyone will be able to check them all out as well.    This year the Deputy Mayor, Councillor Howard Bloom will be visiting along witha number of councillors and council officers.  The purpose of the Open Day is to provide publicity, help clubs get more members and also to ensure that Crawley Borough’s councillors are able to keep up-to-date with all the activities go on in the Forest Recreation Centre. Our gym has been very successful in both Bodybuilding and Power Lifting contests.  But many other groups have also been successful in winning both nationally and internationally in their own chosen sport or recreation. If you have the time between 2pm and 5pm on 15th September, please come along.

We had a photo session in the Crawley Slot Car Racing Club and The Forest Gym on 3rd September when Head of Recreation & Leisure in Crawley, Beryl MeCrow visited us with the Borough photographer to get some shot for promotion in the local newspapers.  The biggest problem we all have is publicity — we need to get the word around that hidden up here in the forest are all sorts of activities where you can be shown the ropes by some of the most experienced coaches and trainers in the land..

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Keystone Pro Show

Trevor Crouch [left] was placed 13th at the Keystone Pro Show in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on 26th May 2007.  He looks pretty good and perhaps should have placed higher but even Ed van Amsterdam only placed 11th.  The winner, Dennis Wolf [below with Marcus Ruhl] was just good enough to force Desmond Miller into 2nd place with Kai Greene 3rd.  Branch Warren was 4th with Silvio Samuel 5th; Darrem Charles was 6th.

Well guys, I can tell you that it will not work. It may be possible to slow things down a bit but death will happen in the end.   “Treatment” has become a $50 billion industry but it has prompted official investigations into the illegal sale and distribution of steroids and growth hormones.  Since George Bush’s pronouncements on steroids in sports Congress, Police and the DEA have been working overtime to discover a problem. As I have said before, it’s like Joe McCarthy and the Unamerican Activities investigations into alleged Communists in the 1950s.    They are concentrating on the supply for sports enhancement but all kinds of manufacturers, distributors and doctors are falling under suspicion.

In Texas they are to start drug testing for steroids among all school children. This decision was reached after a survey of 141,000 students — how much did that cost? Is there a problem?   Coaches and teachers are to receive coaching and advise on spotting users [how?] and on all the known serious side effects of these drugs — such as heart disease, cancer, dramatic mood swings, etc etc.   Makes me go ballistic just reading about it.  The cost of this exercise in futility will be at least $4,000,000 per year.   Money well spent. I say.  If they did not do this, they could waste it on something useless like funding free health care for all.  And that would be silly.

If you really want to maximise your life span — most people do — the best thing to do is to eat a good diet, do not eat to excess, do not smoke and go three times per week to a bodybuilding gym.  Long life is a matter of genetics and lifestyle.   A recent survey of people living in the richest and poorest parts of London revealed some surprising results.  A 65 year old woman living in the rich part can expect to live to age 96 — another 31 years; a man is a little less — he would live to 93.  In the poorest districts a 65 year old woman could expect to live to be 77 and a 65 year old man to 74.   In other words, the rich can expect, on average, to live about 20 years longer than the poor.  Most of that is down to lifstyle rather than wealth. The rich eat better diets than the poor. But the results are a terrible indictment on the social and healthcare provisions in this country.  I suspect the same sort of data could be put together for rich and poor in America as well.

Tour de France

Every year about this time, I am moved to write about the Tour de France.   I will begin by saying yet again that I think these long distance bike riders are the most fantastic athletes on the planet.  They have that combination of ruthless commitment and plain lunacy that leaves the rest of us hardly able to comprehend.  I am generally disgusted by all the witch-hunts and police involvements in what is after all a sports contest.  Why is it that cops in France can turn up en-mass to arrest a bike rider, search his hotel and question dozens of people to find out who has been using this or that drug or has got someone else’s blood in his veins? Even before the race began there was a great hue and cry and belly-aching about men allegedly involved in the great Spanish Puerta scandal.  To read more about this see July 2006 — Powerlifting and Men on Bikes.    It seems that riders and managers mentioned in disparches from Spain were being persuaded not to come to this year’s Tour.

The Tour de France 2007 started with great fanfare on the opening day in London with British riders doing so well. Then there was the terrific first stage across Kent on Day 2 with millions of people turning out to watch this glorious free spectacle on one of the many bright sunny days that we have enjoyed this year.  Then it all started to unravel as, first Patrik Sinkewitz crashed into a spectator and had to withdraw — only for it to be announced that he had failed a drug test from a sample supplied in June. Police came in their truck loads to arrest him. He admitted that he had used a testosterone cream on an elbow injury. T-Mobile will carry on sponsoring his team next year but he will not be part of it.   Then Rasmussen was accused of missing drug tests and then — when he was leading the race and looking almost certain to win — he was kicked out by his own team manager for allegedly being in Italy when he said that he was in Mexico.   This was ridiculous.   The matter of where he was and whether he missed drugs tests or did not should have been resolved finally and absolutely before the race started.  He was screwed.

Then there was the matter of Alexandre Vinokourov.   Did he commit an offence or did he not? He and his team mate Andreas Kloden were badly injured in a crash early in the race — particularly Vinokourov —, and battled on wrapped in bandages.  It is another admirable characteristic of these bike riders that the can carry on when they are battered, bruised and broken — tough as old boots.   This was almost certain to be Vinokourov’s last Tour and he wanted to do well.  The crash knocked him down the field.  On the time trial he put in a tremendous time to pull himself up the tankings, only to be kicked out the following day because, allegedly, he had some other person’s blood in his veins. He strenuously denies this, of course. It is sad that he was kicked out.  No matter what was circulating around his veins, it was he who put in the performance to produce the blistering time.

With Rasmussen sent home, Alberto Contador went on to win the Tour only for more allegations to be made about his involvement also with the Spanish Puerta investigations. His Discovery Team backed by Lance Armstrong will disband at the end of this season — no more sponsorship.

Of course there will be many riders in this race who have used some kind of illegal substance and got away with it and there will be next year and the year after.  But does Joe Public care?  I doubt it. If they did they would have stopped watching bike riders ages ago.  When will the Establishment of the self-righteous, politcians, do-gooders, the police and the hangers on [WADA] stop all this and let the bike riders get on with riding their bikes? Never, I suspect...