Richard BF

This week is going to be a bit of an Olympics week at our place, much to my flat mate’s chagrin, so excuse me if the focus is a bit sporty for the next few weeks.

One of the annoying things about the opening ceremony, was Bruce McAvaney’s continued use of the phrase “under a cloud” when referring to the careers of athletes currently under investigation for doping. If you’re not in Sydney, then I’m sure you have your own Bruce McAvaney, and most likely your own network’s family friendly version of the phrase “fucked, for cheating”.

The IOC are so strong on doping, that current chairman Jacques Rogge even spent around 20 seconds of his speech on it during the 13 or so hours that was the opening ceremony.

Instead of trying to not mention drugs, our commentators should be making a point of it, particularly for our young sporting kids coming up through the ranks. It is bad enough that drugs are banned, giving them a good marketing boost amongst youngsters, but then not making any reference to them in the actual arena that we’re supposed to be protecting from abuse, is just plain irresponsible.

If it is good enough for Jacques, then why can’t Bruce be a little more open about it? How about saying something like this instead?

The U.S. team of course without sprinter Torri Edwards, whose career is currently under a cloud in tatters because she’s a fucking drug cheat who is bad for the sport, a bad influence on kids coming up through the ranks, and a second rate runner who doesn’t deserve a place at the world’s ultimate sporting table.

Or perhaps something along those lines. The message would then start to sink in a little I reckon.

In fact doping seems to be so rife, well, not that it ever wasn’t, just that we’re now much more aware of it, that there’s even a drug cheats related blog, unofficial of course.

And why do they insist on calling it by the medical term doping? Trying to dumb it down perhaps? Why not call it drugging, taking steroids or of course the ever obvious cheating by shooting up illegal drugs.

And as for the drugs themselves, surely the history of drug use would be enough to turn some folks off, if only it was mentioned in the media. This page on MedicineNet gives a good history of drugs in sport, covering of all things the ancient athletic practice of eating sheeps’ testicles and mixing wine and strychnine. Yum.

The Olympic charter, like most things these days, is online for your reading pleasure, so there’s really no excuse for this kind of behaviour. I particularly like this IOC summary:

According to the Olympic Charter, established by Pierre de Coubertin, the goal of the Olympic Movement is to contribute to building a peaceful and better world by educating youth through sport practised without discrimination of any kind and in the Olympic spirit, which requires mutual understanding with a spirit of friendship, solidarity and fair play.

It is just the atheletes who are yet to actually get it, so perhaps the term under a cloud is quite appropriate after all.