Drug Scandal Hits Pigeon Racing; Yes, Pigeon Racing

Every season--no matter what the sport is--we here too many stories about athletes using drugs either of the performance enhancing variety or recreational, but this story is unlike any you have ever heard of before. It involves 'athletes,' and these are taking drugs--but they are not your typical athletes.

They are birds; pigeons in fact.

Pigeon racing is a big deal in some countries over seas and pretty profitable. For some reason the Belgian pigeon racing foundation thought it needed to send samples (I'm assuming blood) to get tested by the National Horse Racing Authority of Southern Africa.

Because where else would you send samples from pigeons to get tested for PEDs (and other drugs). As it turns out six of these birds had traces of cocaine and painkillers in their systems.

I'm not making this up.

It makes sense I guess. The way the 'sport' works is the birds get released at a given spot and they 'race' back to their home loft. What better way to get  the hyped up and ready to fly than by giving them an 8-ball and telling them to fun.

Pretty silly, right? There is actually a ton of money to be made in pigeon racing. In May a racing pigeon was sold for about $400K.

[NESN]

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