Calling George Mitchell. There appears to be a massive culture of doping in the ancient Chinese sport of cricket fighting. Sources say greenies are the PED juice of choice.
A story today appears in the LA Times concerning both singing and fighting crickets. Other reports (Toronto Star) focus on cricket fights.
Chinese love crickets for their songs (emanating from the beating wings) their fights, and soon their beauty contests. The insects reside in comfy jars, pampered with lush diets.
Crickets are taken very seriously in this city, where the best specimens can cost thousands of dollars. But it's not all about money. Crickets are being rediscovered by young Beijingers eager to appreciate an old and unique part of their own culture. Fanciers here also are organizing cricket fights, and the sponsors of the recent singing contest are planning a competition for the best-looking cricket...
However, the first issue is doping of the cricket wings. Unscrupulous cricket agents will dope the wings to produce a better song.
That's where the doping comes in: The cricket's song is produced by its wings, and an unscrupulous seller sometimes will apply a drug to slow the rate of vibration and lower the pitch.
The second issue concerns those ever-popular cricket fighters. Says here (The Toronto Star) that anti-doping measures must be taken or cricket managers feed their beasts amphetamines (or stimulants). Chinese cricket coaches express great concern about cricket diet and cricket doping (and here):
"They're very much like athletes," Zhao says of the crickets. "Diet is very important. But most owners won't tell you what they normally feed their crickets before coming to the tournament. They keep that secret."
Owners say vegetables are most frequently on the menu. But snake and even crab meat are often fed to crickets.
And apparently that's not all.
The containers are always kept in a holding room for one to three days before a tournament, not just to ensure that all competitors eat the same food – but to ensure the owners "do not feed them stimulants."
Doping in cricket fighting?
"Oh, yes," says Zhao. "It sometimes happens."
It's worth the training. The winning crickets get dates with a couple voluptuous female crickets. The losers -- well they get depressed (and maybe B-12 plus lidocaine)
The losing cricket almost never suffers any serious physical harm. Mental health, sadly, is a different matter. The loser is usually so distraught that he refuses to fight another round for about 24 hours. The Chinese handlers have found a way around this by throwing them in the air and making them fly. A study by neurobiologists at Stanford University found that forcing the motor skill of flying onto the crickets helped bring them out of their depression. Implications for human depression are yet to be determined (see “Will fighting crickets unlock the mystery of human depression?”).
Taking competitive cricket fighting to the next level...
Posted by: www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1405205355 | 12/06/2009 at 12:54