Pubdate: Wed, 27 Sep 2000
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2000 The Toronto Star
Contact:  One Yonge St., Toronto ON, M5E 1E6
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Author: Rosie DiManno

OLYMPIC CHAMPS FASTER, STRONGER . . OR JUST HIGHER?

SYDNEY -- It's Getting So Only The Losers Are Credible

That makes the also rans those who finish way up the track and way down 
the standings the only athletes worthy of our unadulterated trust. 
Which includes a whole lotta Canadians. And who'd have thought that 
choking would turn out to be a redeeming quality?  

These Olympics, winding down towards the last weekend of competition, 
have been singularly splendid from an organizational point of view. The 
venues are top drawer. The volunteers are friendly to a fault. The 
entire atmosphere in Sydney has been joyful. And, yes, the competition 
has been breathtaking.  

But who do you believe anymore? Which athlete who mounts the podium can 
be looked at through unsquinty eyes and admired for the purity of their 
heart, the honesty of their excellence?  

Not A One

Not even the heroic Cathy Freeman or the magnificent Marion Jones or 
the wildly charming Massimiliano Rosolino. Gold medalists all, Olympic 
champions all, but tarnished ever so faintly by all the cheating and 
conniving and just plain stupidity of these Games.  

It's the innocent who will carry the burden of duplicity. Because we'll 
never know, not for certain.  

Who's clean? Who's dirty? As the testing mechanisms for performance 
enhancing drugs become more sophisticated, so too do the masking agents 
and subterfuges that some athletes embrace in their maddened lust for 
glory. Maybe that's the only way to compete these days. Maybe it should 
be no syringes barred and let the competitors do what they will to 
transform their bodies into high performance machines. It's their 
funeral and their pockmarked faces, their shrunken genitals, their 
brain tumours, their sterility, their moustaches on women and breasts 
on men.  

Florence Griffiths Joyner, resplendent in gold at the '88 Olympics, 
dies suddenly at age 44 with steroid use believed to be a contributing 
factor and still these keenly health conscious athletes treat their 
bodies like toxic waste dumps.  

Such a gamble to take, when most of these medallists won't even be 
remembered a month from now. It's a fleeting fame for the majority of 
Olympic champions and the roar of the crowd rapidly subsides. Then 
comes the ever after part and deals made with the devil will exact 
their due.  

Some Australian papers and maybe even those back home, dunno have taken 
to publishing a daily booted athlete table, along with a by country 
medal tally. These are the parallel anti Olympics, a running tally of 
the devious who've been outed by their own urine and blood, not to 
mention the Uzbekistan coach who was fined $10,000 for attempting to 
bring 15 vials of human growth hormone through Sydney Airport.  

As of last night, the anti doping patrol had conducted 323 out of 
competition urine tests, 760 in competition tests, and 227 EPO blood 
tests since Sept. 2. The Hall of Shame list includes: a Latvian rower, 
Iranian boxer, three Bulgarian weightlifters (including a female gold 
medalist), two Romanian weightlifters, a lifter from Norway, one from 
Taiwan. Canadian equestrian Eric Lamaze got done for cocaine pre 
Olympics and was kept off the squad even when an arbitrator ruled in 
his favour on the grounds of "exceptional circumstances." And let's not 
forget the 27 Chinese athletes who took themselves out of the Games 
before the Games began, as did American world shot put champion (and 
husband of 100 metre champion Marion Jones) C. J. Hunter.  

Meanwhile, scandalized Linford Christie, good for gold at Barcelona in 
the 100 metres, tries to sneak around the athletes' village and 
training venues in order to handle the runners he coaches. Such 
surreptitious behaviour is required because Christie like other drug 
positive athletes on the banned list is persona non grata at the 
Olympics.  

None of these individuals are worthy of our sympathy, probably. But 
surely one might spare a kind thought for Romanian gymnast Andreea 
Raducan, who was stripped yesterday of her gold medal in the individual 
all round event after being found guilty of taking a banned substance, 
pseudoephedrine.  

The 17 Year Old Had A Cold

She went to her team doctor for relief. He gave her a prescription, 
just as he'd done for five or six other members of the Romanian team 
who'd also come down with the sniffles. This is a physician 
specializing in the care of athletes and, presumably, well aware of 
which drugs are proscribed. None of Raducan's teammates tested 
positive. With Raducan, it's believed the drug registered more strongly 
in her urine because of her smaller size. This drug, by the way, is not 
on the International Gymnastic Federation's list of banned drugs but 
does appear on the IOC's no no list. So much for consistency.  

The IOC, rightly or wrongly wrongly, in my opinion has taken a zero 
tolerance position on all its banned drugs. (In practice, this is 
something less than zero, since much depends on the quality of legal 
representation an athlete can afford. A group of lawyers in Sydney have 
offered their professional services free of charge to all athletes, for 
any purpose, but the likes of the aforementioned C. J. Hunter, who's 
not even an actual Olympian for these Games, can apparently afford to 
hire himself "family friend" Johnnie Cochran.) That means the 
punishment is no different for a banned cold tablet, an anabolic 
steroid or a growth hormone.  

It might do well to remember the athlete's oath that was taken by 
Australian runner and former gold medal Hockeyroo Nova Peris Kneebone 
on the night of the opening ceremonies:  

"In the name of all competitors, I promise that we shall take part in 
these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern 
them, committing ourselves to a sport without doping and without drugs 
in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the 
honour of our teams."  

We'll never know how many athletes had their fingers crossed behind 
their backs at the time.  

Rosie DiManno usually appears Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. 
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