And while everyone is concentrating on Jason Giambi and Barry Bonds, the world's leading anti-doping official is now turning his attention to American track and field star Marion Jones:
Marion Jones should be stripped of her five Olympic medals if allegations that she used banned drugs before the 2000 Sydney Games are true, World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound said Friday . . ."Maybe in the past we weren't rigorous enough in going back after the East Germans," Pound said, referring to the communist state's doping program in the 1970s and '80s. "But there's a new president in town, and he's much more unequivocal on this whole question."
That's one heck of an understatement. And maybe if the IOC had bothered to go after the East Germans back then (when in many cases East Bloc athletes really were being doped up without their knowledge), we wouldn't be staring down quite as large of a problem as we have right now.
Here's another detail I find a little troubling:
Whether the medals can be revoked could depend on an interpretation of the IOC's rule on statute of limitations.Under the IOC charter, Olympic decisions can be challenged within three years of the games' closing ceremony. The Sydney Olympics ended more than four years ago, on Oct. 1, 2000.
But Pound said that rule may not apply, because there was no actual decision in this case.
How's that for lawyerly hair-splitting? In the past, one of my readers, Beau Dure, has accused Pound of bending rules to the breaking point in order to catch athletes who use steroids. Statements like that go a long way to reinforcing that impression.
One last detail: Set your VCRs and DVRs for ABC at 10:00 p.m. EST for tonight's edition of 20/20, and the interview with BALCO founder Victor Conte.
UPDATE: In some comments concerning a bylined article by Conte that appears in next week's issue of ESPN: The Magazine, Coach Speak, who apparently was once an elite track athlete, talks about why he didn't juice:
This article simply confirms what all of us that are/were involved in Track & Field at the elite level suspected. If you want to get paid, you have to juice. All of us made different choices. Some chose to do it clean, some chose to cheat. I chose to do it clean. I ran fast, but not fast enough. Would I have made lots of $$ if I cheated. Yes.Why didn't I? Because I knew that one day I would be a coach. How could I preach about accountability, integrity and sportsmanship knowing what choices I made in the past.
Despite the recent revelations about Marion Jones, Jason Giambi, and Barry Bonds, I fear that many young, gifted athletes will choose to cheat just like their heroes.
Very interesting.
Was a “decision” ever made in the cases of all the East Germans? If we’re going to rewrite history, where do we stop?
Just asking the questions.
Maybe we should ask Shirley Babashoff. So now Pound catches the same crap as Babashoff did in 76. A…”phony careerist and human necktie…still grabbing at the free shrimp from the VIP buffet” wrote Sally Jenkins in August in the WP. And more…
“Why is Pound beating up on the U.S. track federation, when it doesn’t even control American drug testing? Why is he screaming?” It’s because, according to Jenkins he defended Ben Johnson and moved the WADA office to Montreal, in other words he’s just another anti-American Canuck.
“I detest Pound on principle as a hypocrite who attacks the easiest and most vulnerable targets he can find for the sake of his own advancement. He should be summarily dislodged from his job for betraying his chief responsibility as the head of WADA, to be measured and fair. Personally, I find him utterly devoid of any real Olympic spirit or spirit of justice. The Romans believed that the enforcement of an absolutely just law, without any regard for possible exceptions, resulted in absolute injustice. Or as Martin Luther King put it, “an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.”
Tell it to “Surly” Shirley Babashoff.
Charles — I’m curious to know how you equate Babashoff with Pound. Babashoff was a swimmer with a legitimate gripe. Pound has a lot of fans for his anti-doping zeal, but he also has his share of critics for being quick to judge those under suspicion (particularly, it seems, if they’re American), and some may ask whether it’s a conflict of interest for someone who has been through some bruising political battles within the IOC to be in charge of WADA.
Again, though, he has a lot of fans, and I didn’t hear anyone officially object when he was re-appointed a few weeks ago.
That’s the point though Beau, Babashoff’s gripe was not considered legitimate at the time (1976). Pound’s contention, in August, was “utterly devoid of any real Olympic spirit or spirit of justice.” In other words illegitimate. If Babashoff had a big dog like Pound yelling accusations at the East Germans in ‘76, her reputation and her life might have been entirely different. Arguably, she was the greatest female swimmer of all time.
They both were considered illegitimate at the time and unfortunately for Babashoff, her’s was the greater loss.
I see your point in the sense that the Olympics would have been better with some serious anti-doping work in the ’70s to go along with what we have now (thanks in very, very large part to the U.S. and particularly the UCLA lab, I have to add). I’m still not sold on the Babashoff-Pound comparison beyond that. Babashoff was an athlete done wrong, and she cried foul helplessly. Pound is in a position of absolute power, and we all know the saying about that. (In fact, the Post gave him space for a long rebuttal that failed to rebut anything Jenkins said.)