The Spanish moderator explained the silver medalist from China would be a little late. He was taking a drug test.
”He better hope it`s multiple choice,” said the guy next to me.
They`re all suspects here, all those fine athletic specimens who marched into the Stadi Olimpic and into our summer. Magic Johnson is as guilty as Ben Johnson, tiny Shannon Miller of Oklahoma as suspicious as huge Haixia Zheng of Zhengshou. They all cheat. They must prove they don`t.
A South African ping-pong player, Cheryl Roberts, tested positive for stimulants and was not allowed into these Olympics. I can not imagine what drug possibly could help you play better ping-pong. Maybe she just assumed if you are going to be a world-class athlete, you have to take something.
Ben Johnson sent that message not just to us, but to all athletes. Drugs work. Johnson himself, smaller, slower, made the semifinals, but stumbled out of the starting blocks and finished last in his heat, missing the finals.
”I believe Ben is running clean,” said Carl Lewis. ”Everything I see tells me he is.”
He sees 10.7 seconds instead of 9.8. Losing ensures innocence.
The problem is not, never was, taking drugs. The problem is getting caught.
The suspects, still wearing their Olympic medals, are escorted to a mirrored room with an official witness and asked to make a deposit. Multiply unease in a public restroom by a thousand.
”Totally embarrassing,” U.S. weightlifter Mario Martinez said. American weightlifters are not doing well here. They have been tested already seven times this year.
”It`s impossible to get our sport totally clean,” U.S. lifter Bryan Jacob said. ”But it is worth all the indignities as long as they are trying to clean it up.”
Two British weightlifters have been sent home for steroids. A British sprinter, Jason Livingston, known ironically as Little Ben because he resembles Johnson, was dismissed after testing positive, twice, for drugs.
There may be more revelations and expulsions, if not the eruption in Seoul that fixed Johnson as the most celebrated cheater ever. Much of the heavy work was done before the Games. We had the Butch Reynolds case in the U.S. We also had U.S. discus champion Kamy Keshmiri, with the longest throw in the world this year, banned for drugs.
Six Nigerians were excluded for drug abuse. Katrin Krabbe of Germany, world champion sprinter, technically was cleared but is obviously absent. She had provided identical clean specimens for testing on two different continents at two different times of the year. Hey, it could happen.
Greatest suspicion falls on the Chinese, the newest successful player in international sports. Some of their swimmers look like some of our
weightlifters, with more acne and facial hair than is usual in the adolescent Oriental.
After China swimmer Yong Zhuang won the women`s 100 freestyle, the conclusion jumped at was steroids. Swimmers don`t test automatically, and Zhuang was not chosen for review.
”I`m not accusing anybody, but when it`s winner-take-all, you`d like to see everyone tested,” said American Jenny Thompson, who was.
With a pool of a billion bodies to choose from, it is likely the Chinese could find the odd breaststroker and shot putter, but it is easier to believe the search would take a lot longer than an injection.
”You will have a drug-free Olympics when you have a drug-free society,” Lewis said.
That sounds good but avoids the issue. The Olympics are supposed to be better than society. That is why we give them all this attention and their heroes so much of our admiration. If what`s going on here is just another night out, we`re all wasting our time.
Greeks used mushrooms, early marathoners used strychnine. A cyclist-Knut Jensen-died in the 1960 Olympics after taking amphetamines. Five cyclists were disqualified at Munich. Seven weightlifters at Montreal.
None of this is new, and none of this is over.
Six South Korean athletes were reinstated for these Games after being banned for steroids. Their federation explained they had eaten a dog that had been given steroids.
Equestrian Eric Navet of France was suspended not because he personally took drugs but because the International Equestrian Federation said his horse, Quito de Baussy, used cortisol, a steroid.
Navet might be contending for a gold medal today if he had chosen the Korean solution. Obviously, he should have eaten his horse.
