Messi was diagnosed with growth hormone deficiency and doctors believe that without treatment the 5”6’ Argentinean would have only achieved 4”7’ in adulthood.

One of the most beautiful aspects of the game of football is that size does not always rule.
Small, quick players, sometimes have much more of an advantage than lengthy, heavy footballers.

The game is about presence of mind, talent and composure.

This is not American football where “size matters”.

Agility, Quickness and speed play more important roles in the football world.

Messi expressed his commitment to his country in saying- “I have waited, not very patiently, for this World Cup to come around. I want to do my best for my country and play to a great level”.

BVPYGH3K7TAS

Tong, the 78kg category winner in Beijing, has been banned for two years and stripped of her 2009 world title.

But her coach Wu Weifeng believes China’s food safety problems were responsible for the positive test.

“She trained in Europe and was sick of the food so we gave her a lot of pork chops when she came home,” said Wu.

Clenbuterol is used to prevent animals like pigs getting fat, but has been used illegally by athletes to build up muscle.

Tong’s test is the first positive test by a Chinese Olympic champion but China’s top backstroke swimmer Ouyang Kunpeng also blamed pork for his failed test for Clenbuterol before the Beijing Olympics.

He was banned for life despite claiming he had eaten too much roast pork while at a barbecue with friends before the test.

Tong, 27, is China’s most successful judoka with three world titles in her class between 2005-2009.

Chinese sports authorities have warned she could face further disciplinary action, including a four-year ban that could end her dreams of gold in London 2012.

Tong is not the first athlete to have an unusual excuse for failing a drug test.

In 1998, former Olympic bronze medallist Dennis Mitchell was banned for two years by athletics governing body the IAAF after a test showed high levels of testosterone.

Mitchell had originally escaped a ban from USA Track and Field, after claiming that the high levels of the substance were a result of having sex at least four times the night before and drinking five bottles of beer.

But the IAAF did not accept this and overturned the decision to clear Mitchell.

Cyclist Floyd Landis, who was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France title after testing positive for excess levels of testosterone blamed the result on drinking whiskey the night before the test.

BBC

The UCI said Friday that Colo tested positive for clenbuterol, an anabolic agent, during the Tour of Mexico last month.

Larpe tested positive for the blood-booster EPO at a French professional league race in March, the governing body said.

Colo rides for the second-tier ISD-Neri team, a Ukrainian-backed squad based in Italy. Larpe is from the second-tier French Roubaix-Lille-Metropole team.

The UCI said both riders were provisionally suspended until their national federations call them to disciplinary hearings.

India Times

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) found that Hardy had “shown good faith” in taking supplements that later were found to contain a banned steroid.

The American was suspended for one year and missed the Beijing Olympics in 2008 after a positive test at the US trials.

On her return last year, Hardy, 23, set several breaststroke world records.

In her first competition, the United States National Championships in August 2009, she became the first woman to break 30 seconds in the 50m long course event, recaptured the 100m long course record and lowered the standard in the 50m short course four times.

And the Cas ruling means she is allowed to keep her records.

“I am extremely happy to put this case behind me, and to start looking forward,” Hardy said in a statement.

Her feats came just over one year after testing positive for the banned steroid Clenbuterol at the 2008 US Olympic trials – a result which normally carries a two-year ban.

However, the American Arbitration Association (AAA) imposed a reduced 12-month ban when Hardy explained she took nutritional supplements after having obtained assurances from the manufacturer.

Wada wanted the ban increasing to two years, but Cas ruled that the AAA penalty was enough.

A Cas statement read: “Jessica Hardy had shown good faith efforts before ingesting the food supplements at stake.

“The athlete had personal conversations with the manufacturer about the supplements’ purity prior to taking them, she obtained the supplements directly from the manufacturer, not from an unknown source; supplements she took were not labelled in a manner which might have raised suspicions.”

Hardy, who voluntarily withdrew from the American Olympic team competing in Beijing, is still unsure as to whether she will be allowed to compete in London in 2012.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has introduced a ruling which bars athletes from the next Games if they have been banned for doping for six months.

Cas declined to make any recommendation on whether the IOC, who brought in the ruling three days before Hardy provided the sample that led to the failed test, should allow her to compete at the 2012 Games.

BBC

If there was a super drug that could make you breath easier, workout longer and harder, trim your body fat, and enhance your muscles, would you take it? Those are the effects of clenbuterol (street name, “Clen”), and athletes have been abusing it for years. It is banned by the World Anti-Doping Association, International Olympic Committee, and United Cycling International as an illegal performance enhancing drug.

Clenbuterol is not approved for use by the United States Food and Drug Administration, but is commonly prescribed in other countries to treat asthma patients. It can also be purchased on the internet in tablet, syrup, or injectable forms. Its biochemical mechanism of action is as a beta-agonist that helps open up the airways, similar to other common inhalers like Proventil. Another effect through an unclear mechanism of action shows that is reduces body fat by lipolysis and enhances muscle growth through protein synthesis. Although it is not a steroid, its anabolic steroid-like effects place it on the banned substance list. Clenbuterol levels decay in the human body by 50% every 36 hours (i.e., “half-life”), so the levels take a few weeks to become undetectable and its effects can be long-lasting.

Historically, Clenbuterol’s effect on increasing lean muscle mass was capitalized upon by many countries that raised food-producing animals such as cattle, sheep, and swine. While the drug produced few adverse effects to the animals, food poisoning has occurred in humans known to have ingested meat contaminated with high doses of Clenbuterol. Symptoms of nausea, headaches, tremors, palpitations, convulsions and even heart attacks have been seen in these cases. Over the past two decades, outbreaks of food poisoning from Clenbuterol-tainted meat have been seen in Europe, the United States, and most recently in China.

Therein lies a dilemma in finding an athlete who tests for abnormally high doses of Clenbuterol in his urine test. Could the athlete have ingested tainted meat that caused his high sample levels?  If so, one would think that the athlete would have suffered the symptoms of food-poisoning. Also, within a few weeks, his system would have been rid of the drug. Does food poisoning provide a convenient alibi for the accused athlete, or is it the culprit of an innocent act? As with all alleged cases of performance enhancing drug use, the governing sports bodies have a difficult responsibility in weighing the scientific origin of an abnormal test result.

Team Radio Shack

Lloyd Cowan insists he is shocked that sprint hurdler Callum Priestley tested positive for the banned substance clenbuterol.

‘It is devastating,’ said Cowan, the UK Athletics performance coach who also trains sprinter Simeon Williamson.

‘I am led to believe it may be to do with some contaminated product but I have no idea. I wasn’t there, I don’t know what took place and I am just trying to get through the day.’

Priestley, 21, who won the 60metres hurdles at the British indoor trials last month, has been suspended and had his funding stopped pending a hearing.

He faces a two-year competition suspension and lifetime Olympic ban if the UK Anti-doping charge against him is upheld.

With Ohuruogu, the 400m Olympic champion, having served a year’s suspension in 2006 following three missed drugs tests and Williamson one missed test from a ban, Priestley’s position is the last thing Cowan needed.

The elite coach said: ‘You don’t want to be associated with these sort of things and I’ve got to think that innocence helps the kid.

‘People say “you must know everything” but you can’t know everything with 15 athletes. It’s a shock. It’s hard and, from a coach’s point of view, it is stressful.

‘I have just got to wait for the next two weeks and see what happens. I think that most of his supplements have gone off to be checked.

‘Callum is just stepping on to the pathway to be an athlete and he had showed immense potential. I am worried about him. I tried to call him but he is not picking up.’

Priestley’s case comes less than a month after two young British shot putters, Kieren Kelly and Jamie Stevenson, were charged with a doping offence after refusing an out-of-competition test.

And, on Saturday, convicted drugs cheat Dwain Chambers is likely to grab the limelight when he competes for Britain in the 60m at the World Indoor Championships in Doha.

Clenbuterol was found in a test which Priestley took during a UK Athletics training camp in South Africa in January.

The substance is used in drugs meant for treating asthma but is banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency because it can reduce body fat and aid performance.

‘I am not too sure if he is an asthma sufferer,’ said Cowan, who spent two weeks at the South African training camp.

‘Some athletes think it is a defect so some don’t let you know and some do. I pray to God that he is an asthma sufferer, but I have no idea.’

Cowan claims it is two weeks since he spoke to Priestley, who he trains at the Lee Valley high performance centre near north London with Ohuruogu.

The coach added: ‘There are things that the authorities need to go and find out so I’m going to keep my fingers crossed for him and his family.

‘I’ve just got to keep praying for the boy that things can turn around.

Daily Mail