From Associated Press: In an exclusive interview with The Associated Press, Shanteau said he learned just a week before the Olympic trials in Omaha, Neb., that he has testicular cancer. His doctors cleared him to compete in that meet and he surprisingly made the team in the 200-meter breaststroke, finishing second ahead of former world-record holder and heavy favorite Brendan Hansen. "If I didn't make the team, the decision would have been easy: Go home and have the surgery," Shanteau said. "I made the team, so I had a hard decision. But, by no means am I being stupid about this." [Link]
He is going to compete in the Olympics despite his doctor's advice. If I was 24-years-old I would do the same thing and compete. If I tried now my friends and family would have none of that.Lot of moral cunundrums here. If you are his coach or USA Swimming do you throw him off the team or is there a professional separation here between USA Swimming and the individual athlete?
5 comments:
It's Eric's life to life and USA Swimming has no authority to tell him how he should live that life. If his doctor says he should have the surgery as soon as possible, though, then it seems he's making a bad decision. Especially when the only reason he qualified is because the overwhelming favorite had a horrible race. I think (only think mind you) that if I found myself in his place I'd bow out and say it was fate itself insisting that Hansen swim the 200 breast in Beijing.
I think USA Swimming is going to do whatever his doctors insist! If they insist, they will bring back Hansen for if Shanteau got sicker as a result of this malady, USA Swimming would take both an emotional and politically hit.
But USA Swimming doesn't have the legal right to take Shanteau off the team - look at the troubles our friend Nick D'Arcy has caused fighting his expulsion for a high profile criminal act. And doctors, like every other professional, can only recommend their patients do something; they can't order them to do it. Just point out they'll die if they don't. Shanteau has made his choice.
USA Swimming will consult with doctors and if the medical consensus says he needs surgery right away, they boot him off the team. They will we watching daily I bet.
America is a litigious society and the prospect of undue injury or a lawsuit ex post facto if things go untoward will not fare well with the legal eagles at USA Swimming.
What Eric has in his favor is that testicular cancer is a very "wimpy" cancer and has a 90-100% cure rate.
The debate will be which number is he closest to, the 90-percentile or the 100-percentile. That will determin what USAS does
This news really broke my heart to read. I don't blame Eric's decision to go for it - it sounds like he has a team monitoring his health by the minute, and it also sounds like they caught this far earlier than usual, so even in a month he'll still be ahead of the curve. Of course the doctors recommended "ASAP", that is the medical ideal, they'd be remiss to suggest otherwise. But that doesn't mean Eric won't be fine by waiting.
Also, as much as I'd like to see Hansen swim the 200 if Eric doesn't, Scott Usher finished 3rd at Trials. I think Eric would have to pull out in Beijing at the very last minute for us to see Brendan in that race.
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