Wrong spelling wrong

The Beijing Winter Olympics is marred by a doping scandal involving a young Russian figure skater. The innocently beautiful Kamila Valieva tested positive for a banned substance. While her case is pending, she is allowed to compete provisionally. If found guilty, she forfeits any and all medals she may win, including the gold she won in a team event.

Her lawyers claim the banned substance she tested positive for is a heart medication of her grandfather. When he took it and drank water from a glass, his sticky saliva stuck in the rim his granddaughter later used. But a banned substance expert reveals the medication is in tablet form. Unless the grandfather crushed and diluted it in a glass of water, it is unlikely it gets inside her the way they imaginatively claim it to be.

Grandparents, especially grandfathers, dote on their granddaughters. But in this time of the unseen, faceless crowned virus, they shouldn’t share the same glass. If indeed they do, hygiene dictates it should be washed first, except when Filipinos pass the same glass of booze around. Why would Russian households even share one crystal goblet in the first place, they don’t lack for drinking glasses.

In the Philippines, there is always that one untouchable dozen of fancy glasses reserved for guests while members of host family endure old, worn-out, dented and even broken glasses. Filipinos overstretched hospitality they dislocate their own to accommodate others. And now they also listen to, believe in and peddle lies like it were gospel truth.

But in fairness and salute to Filipino athletes, no one was reported caught doping. Except way before, when a little league team was stripped of the world baseball crown. They were not so little anymore they had to fake age credentials. Hidilyn Diaz came out immaculately clean after lifting the country to its first ever Olympic gold. Carlos Yulo grew muscles naturally to fit the gymnast template that vaulted him to world artistry. EJ Obiena is dragged to a controversy, but not for being drugged. Lydia de Vega may not have qualified for a world or Olympic semis, but paternal care organically trained her to continental domination. 

The defense for this graceful and powerful skater is reminiscent of that French tennis player who pleaded innocence after testing positive for cocaine, claiming a woman who snorted it kissed him hence the residual transmission. Yeah, right.

But this case is sensitive, a 15-year old child is involved. If found guilty, she may only be reprimanded, neither suspended nor banned from competing, a reason that may have emboldened her to defy doping ban. Or her camp. Athletes caught doping claim they took banned substances without their knowledge or consent. Their coaches concocted the prohibited.

After testing positive for banned substances, they plead outrageous and incredulous defenses. From doping to duping. Guilty of both, but it’s confusing which was committed first. They sound alike they interchange, with spelling the only difference. Either way, idem sonans is the way.