Tennis • The Scofflaws

Mariano Puerta, You Big Dope

Former French Open finalist Mariano Puerta was banned for 8 years Wednesday after being caught doping for the second time in his career. The 27-year-old Puerta tested positive for the cardiac stimulant etilefrine after losing to Rafael Nadal in the French Open final in 2005.

His previous doping encounter was when he was banned for nine months in 2003 for using clenbuterol. The International Tennis Federation claimed to go light on the big dope by not enforcing a lifetime ban, choosing to believe Puerta’s claims that his doping was “inadvertent”. Given his age, though, an 8 year ban is just about as good as a lifetime one so it amounts to basically the same thing.

World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound had the following to say:

“You’re dealing with somebody who’s tested positive twice in less than two years and clearly doesn’t think the rules apply to him.”*

“If it were up to me, all cheaters would get the Dick Pound treatment. And it’d be the most brutal Dick Pound-ing that they’d ever seen or heard of. Constant Dick Pound-ing, day and night, until they repented of their evil, doping ways.”*

*Only one of these sentences was actually uttered by Dick Pound.

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