Sucked into game of nicks and knocks

HOLD THE BACK PAGE: A FAILED act of cheating during Leinster's Heineken Cup quarter-final against Harlequins at the Stoop continues to threaten a reputation and career other than those of former Harlequins coach Dean Richards and player Tom Williams.

The doctor at the centre of "Bloodgate", the fake rugby injury scandal, could face being struck off the medical register after being summoned to a disciplinary hearing later this month.

Wendy Chapman, the Harlequins' match-day doctor, allegedly cut winger Williams' lip to hide his use of a fake blood capsule in a Heineken Cup match last April. The capsule allowed a specialist goal-kicker, Nick Evans who had already been replaced, to be brought back on to the pitch as a blood injury substitute as Harlequins trailed the Irish team 6-5 with just five minutes remaining.

Dr Chapman will face a British General Medical Council (GMC) panel on August 23rd. The incident during the match, which Harlequins went on to lose, led to a €300,000 fine for the London club, a three-year ban for the director of rugby Richards and a four-month ban for Williams.

But there continues to be fallout. Last September the GMC gave Dr Chapman, who is an accident and emergency consultant at Maidstone Hospital, an interim suspension.

The controversy was sparked when the hapless Williams was captured on television extravagantly winking towards the bench as copious amounts of "blood" appeared to come from his mouth. He later had his lip cut, allegedly by Dr Chapman, to make the injury appear genuine.

At an ERC hearing, Williams said he had asked Dr Chapman to cut his mouth. In a statement on its website, the GMC said: "It is alleged that Dr Chapman, whilst working as match-day doctor at the rugby union Heineken Cup match, examined TW (Tom Williams) and made statements to deceive others.

"It is further alleged that Dr Chapman deliberately cut TW's lip with a scalpel and caused the injury to deceive others that an injury had been sustained on the field of play. Additionally, it is alleged that in July 2009, in giving evidence to a disciplinary committee of the European Rugby Cup, Dr Chapman did not inform the committee that she had caused the injury to TW's lip."

It added: "It is alleged that Dr Chapman's conduct was likely to bring the profession into disrepute and was dishonest."

The fitness-to-practise hearing will interest many doctors involved throughout the sports industry, all of whom rightly enjoy reputations for being selfless, dedicated and utterly professional.

There remains one mysterious thought though. Has concussion disappeared from the game of rugby? Remember players used take time out when they were "concussed"? They were given a mandatory number of weeks depending on how "out of it" they were after the collision.

In recent years players have taken breaks after a series of head injuries but did we ever hear the word concussion used? Has concussion been eradicated like smallpox or is it on the verge of eradication like polio and guinea-worm disease? Who knows? Dr Chapman allegedly nicked a lip when asked to do so and you have to ask whether she was sucked in to what in sport is called gamesmanship. And is gamesmanship similar to cheating or just a different word, like a knock, a head injury, a bit wobbly, concussed?

Or not, as the case may be.

Swimsuits helped to set artificial times

THEY WERE a second generation polyurethane swimsuit that were said to compress muscles, add buoyancy and provide more forward propulsion. Swimmers violated sponsorship agreements to jump ship for superior brands. Retired greats shot out of the top 20 of all-time, displaced by swimmers who seemed to have come from nowhere. The optics were shabby.
By the time the governing body, Fina, realised what was happening, almost every record in the book had been obliterated. Over the 22-month period the suits were in operation until being banned this year, 255 long- and short-course world records had fallen. Fina's paralysis has hurt the sport and cheapened records swimmers believe will take many years to recover.

In men's championship swimming pool events range from the 50 metres sprint up to the 1,500 metres and relay races. All the records over those distances but one, Grant Hackett's 2001 mark of 14:34.56 over 1,500 metres, were set in 2008 and '09 and most of them were swam at the suit-assisted 2009 World Championships in Rome.

There are now times swimmers believe may never be equalled. Brazilian Cesar Cielo swam the men's 50 metres in 20.91 seconds and the 100 metres in 46.91 seconds. In the women's sprints Germany's Brita Steffen swam the 50 metres in 23.73 seconds and the 100 metres in 52.07 seconds.

Steffen said the suit made her feel like a "speedboat" and she felt no pain at the end of a race. In this week's European Championships in Budapest, the times for the women's 100 metres freestyle have been seconds slower than Steffen's mark.

Earlier this week Britain's Fran Halsall, the world 100 metres freestyle silver medallist, qualified for the women's 100 metres final in 54.16 seconds. Her 2009 World Championship second place was 52.87 seconds.

The same happened in athletics some years ago but there is a critical difference. In athletics the throwers disfigured the record books with distances that may never be beaten because they were smacked up on industrial levels of steroids. The current crop of swimmers must look at marks that are well beyond them because of Fina's inability to sharply police the sport and protect athletes from themselves.

Sporting sponsors gone like puff of smoke

MAYBE IN 20 years' time the discovery will be that mobile phones are turning our brains into slush puppy.

We'll recall the way we used sit around using the "coffin nails" without a care for the person in the next chair or the children in the room.

Not long ago when the Embassy World Snooker Championship was being won by our own Ken Doherty, we used to be able to lounge around backstage at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield ordering free booze and cigarettes without having to move from our seats.

A "floor service" was provided by uniformly attractive girls dressed in the red livery of Imperial Tobacco's Embassy brand.

If you were working to a one-day on, one-day off drinking roster, the girls would come over and mildly chastise your weak constitution on the off days. It was all quite sweet.

The smokers used to solicit the non-smokers for their free daily ration and stumble back to their hotel each day, the laptop pushed under a table, its bag full of cartons with "Not For Resale" stamped on the packet.

You could light up and begin boozing from 11am. For those veterans whose papers needed only five paragraphs, it was an unbearable burden.

Embassy's generosity had a particularly malign effect as snooker always finished late, the only mitigating factor being the heavily-booked Novotel was right next door.

Such was the tournament's soaring reputation among free loaders in conversation its name "World Snooker Championship" was dropped for "The Embassy".

Tobacco sponsorship by Virginia Slims also propelled women's tennis along at the beginning of the Open era, while Formula One, hailed as the perfect vehicle for blowing tobacco into lungs, struggled to replace the high nicotine cash input when the curtain finally came down.

In that light, let us offer our sincerest commiserations to the Swiss Indoor Tennis Championship coming up in November, one of the last in the world to still hold tobacco sponsorship.

Roger Federer's home town event in Basle will be the last of a 17-year partnership with tobacco brand Davidoff.

The ATP World Tour has ended it because of worldwide restrictions on tobacco advertising on television.

The tournament was promoted last year to an ATP 500 event, and broadcast to an expanded 150 countries, which gave it a six-fold increase in ratings.

Sadly, if a high-tech company comes on board, free broadband connection just won't hit the spot like 20 smokes and a pint of Stella.

Commonwealth Games conundrum

F I N A L S T R A W:ARE THE Commonwealth Games in India this year one of those events that in this neck of the woods sails on past without anyone taking any particular notice?

It’s an anachronistic old game, the Commonwealth, and cannot be too easy on the athletes. The Irish swimmers in Budapest this week clearly must have wanted to peak in their events. Or did they?

Ulster athletes on the team such as Andrew Bree and Melanie Nocher may have had a look at Budapest and New Delhi and had to make up their minds about which championships they wanted to peak for.

Given the two are about eight weeks apart on the calendar, maybe what we’ve heard for years about tapering for an event and hitting it at the height of conditioning is just baloney.

Maybe it is not a problem for swimmers to peak for August and then do it all over again in October.

While the Commonwealth Games have a sort of Olympic accent, the Queen’s Baton taking a boat ride on the holy Ganges in Allahabad and Varanasi before reaching Gaya, Bihar, doesn’t quite have the cache of the Olympic torch run.

Either way a double peak by the Northern Ireland swimmers is what was asked and indeed what HRH would fully expect.

Glory runner zapped by Taser in Philly

SO THE GAA are erecting higher fencing around the Croke Park field to prevent fans from invading the pitch and possibly injuring themselves or others.

It should please many fans their parent body is showing such restraint in their treatment of the rowdy rump. In the US fans are less inclined to take their chances in a “Glory Run”.

This summer in Philadelphia during a Monday night ball game at Citizens Bank Park a police officer used a Taser gun on a 17-year-old boy who had leapt on to the field. The teen jumped the barricade in the bottom of the eighth innings in a match between the Phillies and St Louis and ran around the outfield waving a white towel.

Security officers gave chase before a police sharpshooter downed him with the Taser, which crumpled the joker in a heap. The officer was supported by officials who said he followed protocol that allows for zapping a fleeing suspect.

Local reports said fans have been Tasered many times before. Amnesty International has reported cases where they believe Taser use amounts to “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment”, which is absolutely prohibited under international law.

But hey, the dude invaded a Phillies game!