Drugs, Dick Pound, The Olympics and Corruption.
Posted by admin at 8:18 pm
So I have been reading this book called “Inside the Olympics” by Dick Pound. He is a Canadian IOC member, and head of WADA. The world anti doping agency. He says some amazing things. I just want to share some of what he says in his book with you.
When talking about the Olympics vs Professional Sports Dick says, “We delivered pure sport, in which every event, every match, every bout meant something. It was not, as in commercial sport, a matter of watching endless, meaningless games in a season that went on and on, to be followed by interminable play-offs…What we delivered was sportsmanship, the youth of the entire world, each the best that his or her country had to offer, competing for the most intangible but most prized reward imaginable, the dream that if, on the day, everything were to go absolutely right, a competitior might, just might become an Olympic Champion.”
He goes on to say “I don’t care how many Super Bowl rings someone may have won, along with the bonus money. Nothing in the world can compare with the magic of the Olympic dream.”
I couldn’t agree more. I have had the opportunity to hold in my hand one of my friends 2008 Gold Medal from Beijing and I didn’t even want to let it go. Made me think of all of the hours in the gym and on the track that I had put in, and that had never amounted to anything for me. I have to say I am proud of him yet jealous non the less. It upsets me to think that if I had chose a different sport I could have been robbed of this simply because someone may have bribed the judges or officials. HOW CORRUPT!
He also discusses in his book how now a days sport from amateur to professional is so corrupt with drugs and scandals. We should not that it is note just the athletes and coaches cheating but even officials are involved. Especially in sports like boxing, gymnastics and we cant forget the officals from the Salt Lake City Olympics where the Canadian pair were robbed from gold.
It’s not fair for officials, who are grown adults to be so corrupt. Dick really puts it in perspective when he says, “What about the athlete who started figure skating at age eight; who practiced alone on cold rinks early in the morning for years; who spent a fortune in coaching, choreography, costumes, renting ice time and traveling to competitions? These athletes may have delayed studies and made other personal sacrifices, all in pursuit of finding out just how good they might be aainst all the other athletes in the world, only to have this trivialized as a result of some secret offstage deal made by the judges.”
This makes me glad that I chose a non-judgement, opiniated sport.
Dick is a little bit controversial too. He can be quoted in his book saying, “It seems to me that drug use affects far more American youth than the Iraq war…” Now if that isn’t bold I am not sure what is. This is how he gets noticed especially because he talks about professional sports such as the NBA, NHL and NFL etc. Some of these sports governing bodies have the most ridiculous testing standards ever with little or no consequences.
He also talks about one of my favorite subjects currently, BALCO and THG aka “The clear.”
“What happened here is that scientists, doctors, coaches and trainers, plus athletes with whom they were in contact, deliberately set out to develop, distribute and use a new performance-enhancing drug that would not be identified in the normal testing process. It is an approach that is completely antithetical to everything that sport stands for and involves sophisticated manipulation of molecules of known steroids. Cheating became a sordid business, entertained into for profit on one side and corruption of sport on the other.”
This just makes me wonder…How many drugs in sport are being used that there currently aren’t any tests for? A whole heck of a lot I bet. Recently Carmella Jeter just ran a 10.68 in the womens 100m. Only to be topped by two other women in history. Marion Jones (we all know how that ended) and Flo-Jo (died of heart complications) hmmmmmmmmmmm I wonder why??? lol Seriously this woman won by nearly 2m over an experienced and talented field. How can she be soooooo far ahead of her competition? SOME PEOPLE WILL DO ANYTHING TO WIN. Ask yourself this…if someone offered you a magic pill saying if you take this pill you will win every race, there is no test for it so you cant get caught. Would you take it? Most people would if they knew there would be no consequences besides winning. Also what if we did find a way to test for EVERYTHING?…how many of your sports heroes would fall from the top because they had been doing drugs? We would lose a ton of our own heroes and so many records would be stripped. Are sports like track and field just a game on how to beat the system?
