Another heart break

After the crashing end to the career of erstwhile track queen Marion Jones, another drug scandal has hit sports and this time it involves one of my all-time favorite tennis players Martina Hingis.

Although the Wimbledon tennis championships took place months ago, Martina’s testing positive for cocaine has surfaced only yesterday.

She has vehemently denied having used drugs and in fact her lawyer has noted several inconsistencies in the handling of the samples used for the test last June.

However, instead of facing what could be a lengthy battle to prove her innocence, Martina, the Swiss Miss, has decided to retire for the second time.  A few years ago, a nagging ankle injury also forced her to quit.

Martina calls the accusation “horrendous” but despite her retirement, I hope that there would be some sort of closure on this issue.

We can either take her word for it or totally consider her a liar, but then not even our judgment would really tell us the truth.

I’d personally like to see Martina cleared, but then I also believe that some sort of due process must be done before that happens. 

If indeed the sample was mishandled, who is to blame?  Why would they do it to the comebacking superstar?

There are just too many questions that need to be answered even if Martina will once again end her tennis career.

Issues like this just break my heart.

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Reports of massive vote buying in Monday’s Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) elections support the call of many sectors for the abolition of the SK.

The SK is for 15 to 17 year old kids, who are supposedly being broken into the political system in what is deemed as a training ground.  If the reports are true, then it seems that the system has been successful in teaching them to be corrupt officials.

While I continue to believe that most of those involved in the SK are honest and hardworking leaders, I would not want them to handle the sports development programs of the barangays or their towns and cities just because they are young.

While it is true that sports is something that young people would enjoy more than the older ones, it does not follow that the youth can run a better sports development program than the older ones.

I have already written in previous columns about what it takes to come up with a real sports development program and what it entails to implement such.

I am not saying that we take it away from the SK because I understand there are laws that say that it is the task of the youth, but what I’d like to see would be the proper guidance on the implementation of sports programs.

It’s not something that you can take up in a one-weekend seminar or a month’s worth of sports columns.  It would take some time to really internalize how programs can be properly implemented.

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MILESTONES: I would like to greet a couple of friends a happy birthday for this weekend.  Warm birthday greetings go to Mary Ann Segers of SkyCable (Nov. 3) and to twin sisters Sarah and Lala Dychangco (Nov. 4).

Belated happy birthday also to Camilo ‘Dodong’ Grafe of GMA-7 Cebu and Marian Yu-Tanco, who both turned a year older last Nov. 1.

Congratulations to my former student Malou Inocando-Tabar who was elected barangay captain of Banilad, Cebu City.