When A Costume Is A Mirror

 Today is Halloween.  I am going trick-or-treating...in drag.

Seriously, I am going in costume...

I mean, what else am I going to do with an old helmet and high-viz ankle straps (Does anybody still make those?) or utility workers' vest?  Really!

PEDs For The Mind?

Sports leagues and governing bodies are cracking down on the use of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).  At least, they want you to think they are.

Of course, if the overlords and oligarchs that reign over teams and tournaments are going to assure the public that their favorite performers aren't examples of "better living through chemistry," they have to clearly define what constitutes a PED.

Usually, those substances are seen as the ones that build muscle mass or sensitize nerves so that athletes can hit harder, jump higher, run or pedal faster or longer or exceed whatever they thought they (and their competitors') physical limits were.

Now, any athlete and anyone who coaches, trains or teaches one can tell you that the mind is as important as the body.  So, should drugs that calm or excite a person--or expand his or her consciousness--also be considered PEDs?

If so, someone who wanted to win the race, game or match, or set a new world record, but believed, shall we say, that the end justifies the means, might want to check out this:

Now, I'm sure that the pharmacy, located in Flushing (the "Chinatown" of Queens) is perfectly legit.  I couldn't help but to wonder, though, just what sorts of drugs Confucius would prescribe or dispense--and whether FIFA, the IOC, UCI or other governing bodies would approve of them.   

The Lance Armstrong--Or The Donald Trump-- Of Chess?

I rarely truck in conspiracy theories. (Really!) But, every once in a while, a seemingly-farfetched explanation for something turns out to be a precursor for the truth.

Case in point:  What Elon Musk said about the meteoric rise of Hans Niemann.  The 19-year-old Californian by way of the Netherlands and Hawaii beat the then-reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen last month.  

Musk claimed that Niemann had help.  OK, that's understandable:  After all, almost no-one, even in the world of competitive chess, had heard of Niemann just a few months ago, and prodigies are usually well-established by Niemann's age. But Musk claimed that Niemann's "boost" came not from friends or family, or from a performance-enhancing drug. (What kind of PED would help a chess player, I don't know.  But I'm sure there must be at least one.) Rather, the world's richest man-child came up with an explanation that even I, in either of the puberties I experienced or under the influence of anything I might or might not have tried, could have come up with. The new chess champion, Musk averred, was guided by vibrating anal beads that signaled the correct moves.

You can't make this stuff up.  At least I can't.  But Elon Musk can.  Maybe that's why he's rich and I'm not.

Anyway, it seems that Musk was right on at least one count:  Niemann cheated, not only against Carlsen, but in earlier matches.  Chess.com's investigative report says as much.  Niemann responded in true Trumpian fashion by starting a lawsuit against them, Carlsen and chess streamer Hikaru Nakamura.  

Now, to be fair, other chess masters and fans have characterized Carlsen's recent form as "fragile." In other words, it's not inconceivable that someone--even, perhaps, Niemann--could have beaten him.  And participants in the major grandmaster tournaments normally have to pass through several stages of screening before being assigned to a table and chair. 

A chess "champion" and "top" cyclist?

 

There is, however, another part of Niemann's history--or, more specifically, the way he's framed it--that could lead one to doubt his credibility.  

When he was a child, he lived in the Netherlands, where his parents--one Danish, the other Hawaiian--were working in the IT industry. He started to take chess classes at the age of eight, at the same time he was in the thrall of another kind of competition.  "He liked to get on his racing bike to participate in competitions."  An eight-year-old in a bike race is not unusual in bike-obsessed Netherlands.  So one part of his claim--that he raced--is not only plausible, but a matter of record.  

However, the way he or anyone else could categorize his juvenile cycling career depends on how he or anyone else defines a single word:  "top."  As in, "top cyclist."   As in, "one of the top cyclists in the nation for my age."

Again, to be fair, there is little doubt that he was indeed racing as a child.  Nor is it a "stretch" to believe him when he says that he was "advancing much more rapidly in cycling than in chess."  But the only results CyclingTips could unearth in its investigation were from the 2012 National Championships.  In that race--five laps on a short circuit totaling 7 kilometers, or about 4.5 miles, he finished a minute behind the leader in a 12-minute competition.  That made him 25th out of the 35 young entrants.

So...Does Hans Niemann's Trumpian relationship to the truth and fair play make him a Lance Armstrong of the competitive chess world?  Or does his Lance Armstrong-like willingness to win at all costs make him the competitive chess world's equivalent of Donald Trump?