Hey, Rocket, try to top these alibis

• The bar of creativity and shamelessness, after all, is higher than Ross Rebagliati's old associates. And who, pray tell, is Rebagliati? He's a Canadian snowboarder whom the International Olympic Committee stripped of a gold medal in 1998 for testing positive for marijuana. Rebagliati explained that he hadn't smoked the forbidden weed since the previous April, but he had been exposed to some second-hand smoke during a New Year's Eve party with friends in Whistler, British Columbia. An appeal board actually ruled in Rebagliati's favor, making the unofficial tune of the Nagano Games O' Cannabis.
• Earlier this year, Italian soccer player Marco Borriello blamed a positive drug test on an ointment he had rubbed on a, ahem, private part because his Argentine model girlfriend had passed on an infection. Borriello's ultimately unsuccessful spin was the inevitable variation on a defense Olympian Dennis Mitchell used nearly a decade earlier.
• Mitchell explained illegal levels of testosterone in his body on drinking several bottles of beer and having sex with his wife at least four times the night before the 1998 test. At his disciplinary hearing, Mitchell reportedly told the panel, "It was the lady's birthday; she deserved a treat," which may help explain why USA Track and Field accepted his defense. The International Association of Athletics Federations didn't buy it, though, banning him for two years.
• Cyclist Tyler Hamilton countered a positive test for blood doping with an evil-twin defense. With a straight face, Hamilton explained that a "vanishing twin" died in his mother's womb, leaving with him the incriminating-looking foreign blood. His defense will live on long after anybody remembers any of his cycling accomplishments.
• Spanish discus thrower David Martinez didn't have an evil twin — real or imagined — to blame for a positive test for anabolic steroids, so he tried the old infected pig-meat defense. Tennis player Petr Korda tried passing off a positive drug test after he won the 1998 Australian Open on eating too much veal, only to have medical science laugh in his face. Chinese track coach Ma Junren blamed three of his record-setting runners testing positive for EPO on a supplement containing dried caterpillars and turtle blood.
• German runner Dieter Baumann claimed a failed steroid test was the result of someone injecting his toothpaste with the forbidden enhancers. High jumper Javier Sotomayor blamed a positive cocaine test on the CIA or an anti-Cuban mafia spiking his food. Uzbekistan track coach Sergei Voynov explained he had a stockpile of growth hormone to treat baldness.
• British bobsledder Lenny Paul's excuse for a failed doping test? Tainted spaghetti Bolognese. Not to be outdone, British shotputter Paul Edwards blamed a positive steroids test on drinking shampoo. Please, people, read the instructions: Rinse. Repeat. But do not drink.
• When the world was a much more innocent place, Zambian tennis player Lighton Ndefwayl offered a litany of excuses for losing a match to Musumba Bwayla. Calling Bwayla "a stupid man and a hopeless player," Ndefwayl said he lost "because my jock strap was too tight" and because his opponent's incessant flatulence while serving caused concentration lapses.
• Soccer player Darren Barnard was explaining he'd have to sit out five months because he slipped on puppy pee? When Brazilian soccer player Ramalho was explaining how he spent three days sick in bed because he swallowed a suppository intended to treat a dental condition? When outfielder Marty Cordova had to miss nearly a week because of a severe sunburn suffered when he fell asleep at a tanning salon?