Monday, October 02, 2000
Romanian gymnast was scapegoat at Drug Games
Policy should have made one exception
SYDNEY, Australia — She was so short, you could barely see her, so slight the big conference hall gobbled her words until they sounded like chirps from a distant cricket. The latest Olympic drug cheat was a towering 4 feet, 10 inches, an imposing 82-pounder. A real giant.
“I took an innocent pill because I wasn't feeling well,” said the Romanian gymnast Andreea Raducan. That dose, containing the banned drug pseudoephedrine, cost her the gold medal she'd won in the women's all-around.
You can think what you want about the “Olympic movement” and its on-again, off-again, let's-make-it-look-good war on doping. But when they get down to busting little girls for taking cold medicine, something is way out of whack.
“I accept the (decision),” said Ion Tiriac, the president of the Romanian Olympic Committee. “But don't somehow we miss the point?”
"Without compromise'
Well, yes. When weightlifters leave syringes and urine in the waiting areas of the Sydney airport before the Games ... when a female hammer thrower who looks like Captain America is escorted off the field for failing a drug test ... when the husband of a famous American track star flunks four tests in a row for the same drug, then says he didn't know he was taking it, then sure, it's time to crack down.
And maybe when you do crack down, you do it by making no exceptions. The court that rejected Raducan's appeal concluded anti-doping rules “must be enforced without compromise.”
But this wasn't deception. This wasn't some (un)clean-and-jerk, mood-swinging freak whose eyes were yellow from the pills and the injections. It wasn't an American with endorsement deals and appearance money on the line.
It was a little kid with a cold.
You go, International Olympic Committee.
We're calling these the Drug Games, which isn't fair unless you want to dedicate the 2000 Olympics to the walking pharmacies from Bulgaria. Housekeepers at the Athletes Village have been forbidden from cleaning the Bulgarians' rooms, because of the number of used syringes and the threat of infection.
The real cheaters
Graham Richardson, overseer of the Village said the Bulgars held “the record” for most used needles. Two of his housekeepers were stuck while picking up trash.
You can recognize the Bulgarians. They're the ones hammer-throwing the porch furniture. Their rooms will have to be bulldozed when the Olympics are done. What's the half-life of a used needle?
We digress.
“I believe the IOC fights against doping. So do I,” said Ion Tiriac. He might have made a better case for himself had four of his jocks not already been kicked out of competition.
Meanwhile, the small child with the head cold is out her medal.
You could blame the Romanian doctors for not knowing any better, or ignoring what they knew. You could say the IOC is being silly, but that would be giving its members too much credit. Truth is, there is so much money at stake, no one wants to take the drug issue head on. That would bring a credibility problem and put an Olympic-sized match to the whole “ideal” of the Games.
So, they bust a few to appease the many. That one of the few happened to be an athlete with a cold, well, them's the breaks. Next time, kid, gargle.
Paul Daugherty welcomes your comments at 768-8454.
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DAUGHERTY: Romanian gymnast was scapegoat at Drug Games
