Cathal Dennehy: A clue to American indifference to doping down Mexico way

This pharmacy in a beachside city on Mexico’s Pacific coast, was not targeting locals, but tourists.

On prescription: Cathal Dennehy on the menu of goods of offer south of the border.

The goal was to get rid of a headache, to find some ibuprofen and make it go away. And that, Your Honour, is how I found myself in a Mexican pharmacy last October, studying a menu of performance-enhancing drugs.

The card was plonked on the counter by the lady working there, who encouraged me to peruse it as she rang up the ibuprofen transaction – an inspired and no doubt well-rehearsed piece of cross-selling. On it were the infamous All Stars of doping: Clenbuterol, which once powered Alberto Contador up the mountains of France; stanozolol, the steroid Ben Johnson got popped for at the 1988 Seoul Olympics; human growth hormone, which baseball star Alex Rodriguez used to inject into his stomach.