Saturday, March 12, 2011

Be responsible for what you put into your body


Kolo Toure made a terrible decision by taking a banned substance, and regardless as to whether it was intentional or not, he needs to be more responsible about what he puts into his own body.

Robbie Savage writes about how he feels that players need to be more paranoid about what they put into their own bodies.

Kolo Toure will have been kicking himself as he saw Manchester City in Kiev last night.

The defender is a nice guy who will know he only has himself to blame as he faces a lengthy ban for taking a banned substance he says must have been in his wife's slimming pills.

Kolo knows that a professional sportsman must be paranoid about unwittingly taking something they shouldn't.

I don't go out much, but when I do this is what I think about: 'What if there's an idiot out there who thinks it would be funny to spike Robbie Savage's drink with something illegal?'

That's why when I'm offered a drink by someone I don't know, I never accept.

It's why if you see me with a beer I've got my finger over the top of the bottle.

And if I feel the call of nature, I never go back to a drink I've left unguarded. I can't take the risk.

Only recently, I even had to refuse a slice of cake an ESPN viewer had kindly sent in. I'm sure it was as delicious as it looked, but I simply couldn't take the risk.

What gets into your body is down to you. And these days the testing is more rigorous than ever.

I've been pulled by the testers twice this year.

You see them approaching on the training pitch and from then on, you're never out of their sight. Not in the shower, not if you need to go to the toilet.

If you can't deliver the 80 miligrams of urine they want first time, they'll sit with you until you do.

It's uncomfortable, but a price worth paying to rid sport of people who take drugs to improve their performance.

I don't think Kolo Toure is one of those and I hope he clears his name - but as a professional footballer he should know what he is putting in his own mouth.



No comments:

Post a Comment