Athletes Are Smoking? Only Amy Winehouse Can Save Them Now

When you say the words smoking athlete, what do you think of? Odds are that your thoughts veer more towards Anna Semenovich than a sweaty dude lighting up a Marlboro outside his gym. But it turns more athletes are mixing in their work-outs with their smoke-outs, even if it it ups their chances for getting cancer and emphysema. But, hey, who cares about that? Look at **cough** these pecs! Even runners who need to, you know, breathe efficiently are hooked on the normal tobacccky, but don’t want anyone to know their dirty, nicotine-stained secret.

“[Runners] are very secretive about it,” [Bart Yasso of Runner's World] says. “They don’t want anyone to know, and I know they’re not proud of it. These are people you never would have guessed were smokers. I encourage them to quit. It’s that addictive element — I understand where they’re coming from.” Yasso was once a smoker himself, but quit years ago when he started running.

At least he wizened up for the right reasons. Jon Delaney, pictured above, saw the light when he was reading his latest issue of OK! Magazine, probably while on the treadmill, dreaming of a smoke.

“Hopefully, maybe this year I can quit smoking. It needs to be soon. Another thing that makes me seriously think about it is the whole Amy Winehouse thing, that she has early signs of emphysema already. I don’t want to be that person. I don’t want to be that person with emphysema and cancer.”

Or crack pipe burns or herpes scabs. If you’re going to use her as a role model of prevention, you might want to go all the way and not stop with just the smoking.
Smokin’ athletes! Who says cigarettes and sports don’t mix? [LA Times]
Image [LA Times]