Pubdate: Thu, 01 Mar 2001
Source: Deseret News (UT)
Copyright: 2001 Deseret News Publishing Corp.
Contact:  30 East 100 South., P.O. Box 1257, Salt Lake City, UT 84110
Website: http://www.desnews.com/
Author: Selena Roberts - New York Times

WILL PROFESSIONALS PLAY IN THE OLYMPICS?

USOC drug-test rule 'broadsides' Dream Teams The recent decision by the 
U.S. Olympic Committee to end the exemption from random drug testing for 
professional athletes could threaten the participation of American Dream 
Teams in both Olympic hockey and basketball.

Under a resolution approved by the USOC's executive committee Friday, any 
professional athlete who wants to be an Olympian will have to submit his or 
her name up to a year in advance of the Games. The names will be put into a 
pool of players used in the No Advance Notice program.

Whether a player is at home, at practice or at a game, an official could 
appear and ask for an impromptu test aimed at detecting steroids and 
steroid-masking agents. Executives from the NBA, the NHL and the unions 
that represent their players were left bewildered this week by the USOC's 
decision.

Officials from both leagues said they wanted details before commenting on 
the specifics, but they expressed concerns on several issues: The privacy 
of their athletes under new USOC guidelines, which will no longer grant 
confidentiality to anyone who tests positive. The logistics of providing a 
list of potential Olympians 12 months in advance. The issue of whether a 
positive test under Olympic standards may be applied to a separate 
punishment within an athlete's own league. The USOC action came with 
little, if any, consultation with the leagues from its chief executive 
officer, Scott Blackmun. What seems clear, however, is that if American 
players in the NBA and NHL refuse to participate, they will be barred from 
the Olympics.

"As far as I know, Scott Blackmun has never talked to Gary Bettman," said 
the NHL's chief legal counsel, Bill Daly, referring to the league's 
commissioner. "And Scott Blackmun has never talked to me. I've read that he 
has approached the NHL Players Association, but I'm hard-pressed to find 
anyone he has spoken to there.

I don't know where this is coming from. Obviously, we're willing to work 
with whomever we have to work with to get this resolved.

But we haven't seen what they've done." "They've broadsided everyone," said 
one NBA official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "They've thrown 
down a gauntlet without giving anyone any details.

It's hard to tell if they are serious or if this is just a public relations 
ploy."

While the USOC, which plans to meet with both the hockey and basketball 
unions, may be flexible on some details, they are firm on principle, even 
if it means alienating the Dream Teams.

"We are prepared, and this was discussed, to have some athletes refuse to 
participate," Blackmun said. "If that's the case, we'll go on without them. 
"I hope it doesn't come to that. But if we start to customize our 
anti-doping policy to accommodate the Dream Teams, we're not being 
consistent with our message."

In the past, American professional athletes, including minor league 
baseball players who make up the Olympic baseball team, were tested only 
after being named to the Olympic team. Now, they will be part of the same 
12-month no-notice pool as nearly 8,000 other potential Olympians from 
other sports.

Suddenly, NHL officials, who previously had until December to submit a 
complete list of players for the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, 
are not sure how to proceed.

"We have been proceeding down a path," Daly said, "to get all the drug 
agencies and national associations on the same page with a protocol that 
doesn't seek to evade random, unified testing at all, but that gives us a 
set procedures that our players can be aware of in advance.

To get hit out of left field with something that says the players might be 
subject to testing today when they don't even know if they're even going to 
have anything to do with the Olympics - it's just hard to speculate on what 
this means. "The USOC has been very vocal with respect to how this would 
impact the NBA and NHL without having touched base with us. It may have 
been presumptuous for them." The genesis of the USOC's approach stems from 
its debacle in Sydney. During the Summer Games, a published report 
disclosed that C.J. Hunter, the husband of the track diva Marion Jones, 
tested positive for the steroid nandrolone two months earlier.

As Hunter denied that he knowingly took a banned substance, America's 
testing system came under attack. "We had a lot of coverage in Sydney and 
heard a lot of accusations that we were hiding on the drug issue, covering 
up the ball and that we weren't sincere in our commitment," Blackmun said. 
"A lot of people knew that wasn't true. But we had to ask ourselves: What 
can we do differently?" As part of its effort to take control of the 
drug-testing issue, the USOC's executive committee resolved to put 
professional athletes from basketball, hockey and baseball under the same 
drug-testing umbrella as the other Olympic hopefuls.

"We fully intend to talk to the player associations before we lay down a 
hard and fast rule and put meat on the bone," Blackmun said. "But the 
principle has been established."

The special treatment given to professional players in the past appears to 
be over. The USOC is asserting its new authority in dealing with the Dream 
Teams. When American NHL players ransacked their apartments in the Olympic 
Village during the 1998 Nagano Winter Games, the USOC was powerless to 
determine who the culprits were.

That incident has become one example of how the luster has rubbed off on 
the Dream Teams. The U.S. basketball team, decorated with the NBA's big 
stars, had its invincibility shaken when team-oriented international squads 
nearly upset them at the Sydney Games.

As a result of various incidents related to the Dream Teams, it is hard to 
predict whether the USOC will face a harsh public backlash should the pro 
athletes decline to participate in the Olympic movement. "All we want is to 
have everyone tested by the same standard," Blackmun said. "We want to a 
system that is fair for everyone, no exceptions."
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