Canuck

  Friday, 17 October 2003

New drug scandal shakes sport < 7:23:57 PM>.

Olympic champions among athletes accused of cheating. [Guardian Unlimited] 'Up to 20 unnamed US athletes, including Olympic champions and world record holders, could be suspended for life after it was revealed yesterday they had tested positive for the anabolic steroid tetrahydrogestrinone, or THG. Until recently the drug was undetectable by conventional tests.

The scandal is potentially the biggest in sport since the Canadian sprinter Ben Johnson tested positive for steroids and was disqualified following his victory in the 100m at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.'

< 11:14:55 AM>.

Denys Arcand's new film is an elegy, a seminar and a long, sloppy party, full of food, wine, maudlin moments and endless conversation. [New York Times: Arts]

< 12:27:09 AM>.

The music of the McGarrigles revolve around family and friends and love and children and aging. So, it seems, do their lives. [New York Times: Arts] ' The result is not guest-star overkill but an altogether cherishable image of a real, interconnected family, warts (the odd divorce and estrangement) and all. These are not pop stars; they give the lie to the idea of a pop industry cranking out nubile young things and then tossing them aside. Like the blues and folk singers of old, the McGarrigles are in it for life, and for the music. Yes, that music makes them a modicum of money, enough to keep them going in affordable Montreal, which Kate last Friday cheerfully called "the communist-socialist society which I adore."'

A beautiful article.