Maybe it happened after all the Olympic drug scandals, after 1988 when sprinter Ben Johnson ran 100 meters in 9.79 seconds, a world record, an Olympic gold, a startling run, only to have it all taken away when he tested positive for drugs. Maybe it happened later, after Marion Jones won five Olympic medals and made a lot of money playing America’s athletic sweetheart. She so angrily and passionately denied ever using performance-enhancing drugs. She’s in prison now serving time for perjury, and U.S. Track and Field sent a vicious letter to President Bush pleading that he not pardon her. It’s hard to stay idealistic after that.
Maybe it happened after the Salt Lake City Olympic bribery scandal. Maybe it happened after Pete Rose, Charlie Hustle, the guy who loved baseball more than anyone, got himself thrown out for gambling on the sport. Maybe it happened when football talk involved calculating how much room a team has under the salary cap. Maybe it happened when an NBA referee admitted selling information to big-money gamblers.
Whenever it happened, it’s striking how much less fun sports have become the last few years. Here we are in China, a couple of days before the Olympics begin, and there just isn’t much talk about, you know, the Olympics. It seems like every story you hear is about pollution or paranoia or performance enhancers or politics.
On Wednesday, the big talk was about the American cyclists who had insulted the nation by walking off the plane wearing masks. The cyclists quickly released an apology statement, insisting that the masks were “in no way meant to serve as an environmental or political statement.” But of course it was a statement. We had been told again and again the air here in China is not fit for breathing. That’s the reason you wear a mask.
On Wednesday, the big talk was of protesters in Tiananmen Square holding up banners demanding a free Tibet and speaking out about China’s record on human rights. Everyone is watching closely to see how the Chinese government will deal with criticism; journalists are constantly testing Web sites to see which ones have been blocked (the Amnesty International site and the official Free Tibet site appear to be a couple that have been blocked). In this case, reporters reported, there were no arrests.
On Wednesday, the big talk was about American Joey Cheek, an Olympic gold medalist in speedskating at the 2006 Winter Games, who said his visa to China had been suddenly revoked. Cheek started “Team Darfur,” a collection of athletes trying to raise awareness of the crisis in Darfur. He also has been loudly critical of the Chinese government for what he considers to be a muzzling of athletes.
On Wednesday, the big talk was drugs. Swimmer Dara Torres, who will become the first American woman to compete in five Olympics, held a press conference, and again answered questions about the drug suspicions that surround her, suspicions that exist because she is swimming faster than ever at age 41 and because her story in today’s world is, literally, unbelievable.
Torres has taken extra drug tests, she has given blood, she brazenly has attacked drug users (even on Wednesday, calling them people who “have no conscience”). Still, she cannot escape the doubts because that’s where we are in sports, because skepticism is all the rage, because suspicion is the passion, because we’ve been fooled before and, as The Who sang, we won’t get fooled again.
