Olympic Cheating
Olympic Cheating
July 2012
Forward
I have     been a fan of the Olympics ever since I was a boy.  There is     something the Olympics that touches me in ways that regular sports     don't.  Sure, I love the thrills of watching amazing athletes     perform on a world stage.  However, what I love the most is the     sportsmanship. 
I love     to see hardened professional athletes walk in the Olympic parade and     see who much the chance to represent their country means to them.  I love to see the athletes join in the center to see the lighting of     the Olympic torch.  For the briefest of moments, it seems like     the dream of peace on earth can be a possibility.  I love to     see athletes shake hands and show their respect to their     competitors.
Most     of all, I love sportsmanship.  As they say, it is not just     about who wins, it is how you play the game.  When I cry... and     I cry several times at every Olympics... it is always due to the     sportsmanship.
Unfortunately not everybody embraces the value of sportsmanship. 
There are all kinds of ugly incidents at every Olympics.  There are     athletes who win stop at nothing to win.  If they aren't good     enough to win outright, then they turn to cheating... the opposite     of sportsmanship.
Cheaters never win, or so     they say.  Nonsense. Personally speaking, I think a lot of cheaters win. 
With the specter of drugs     tainting baseball, cycling, and track and field, these days we have     become so cynical that we assume practically all winners are under     suspicion. 
It really does seem that     ethics in sports and business have fallen to an all-time low.  I     noticed a blurb in Time Magazine this week that said �24% of Wall     Street executives say that illegal or unethical conduct may be     necessary to be successful in finance.�
It really does seem that     when the stakes are high enough, some people will cheat.  Just     because someone is a world-class athlete doesn�t guarantee the same     person has a well-developed sense of ethics.  Their mind-set is     simple. �Do whatever it takes to win.�
With the entire world     watching, every athlete dreams of the glory that comes from claiming     victory for his or her country.  Olympic glory carries so much     prestige that the athlete is guaranteed tremendous acclaim that will     stay with them for the rest of their lives. 
Considering there are now     7 billion people on the planet, winning Olympic Gold is an     exceptional accomplishment against brutal competition.  Often the     margin of victory is ridiculously small.  Considering the stakes at     hand and the remote odds of winning, sad to say, as the following stories will show,some people are willing to go     to extraordinary lengths to gain any possible advantage.
 
Professional Athletes attempt to compete against     Amateurs
Almost from the start of     the modern Olympics in 1896, there has been controversy over who is     eligible to compete and who isn�t. 
Fueling this debate is     the age-old tradition that only �amateurs� will compete in the     Olympics.  This idealistic concept has created a veritable Pandora�s     Box of abuse.
Two of the most famous     athletes in Olympic history fell prey to charges of competing while     �professional�. 
 
Jim Thorpe
Certainly the most famous     story involved America�s Jim Thorpe.
The 1912 Olympics     solidified Thorpe�s reputation as the �Greatest Athlete in the     World�.  History has not changed that opinion. 
Thorpe dominated his     peers by such a wide margin that he was later named the Greatest     Athlete of the Twentieth Century.
Jim Thorpe completely     dominated the 1912 Olympic Games.  Thorpe won Olympic gold medals     for the 1912 pentathlon and decathlon with ridiculous ease. 
Both events put a huge     premium on being an all-round athlete and Thorpe definitely fit the     bill.  He was the very best at whatever sport he attempted.
Upon giving the medals to     Thorpe at the Games, Sweden�s King Gustav exclaimed, �"You, sir, are     the greatest athlete in the world!"  That�s when Thorpe�s fame hit     its pinnacle.
Thorpe�s downfall came     shortly after the 1912 Olympics.  Rumors abounded that he had played     American football, baseball and basketball for money.  These rumors     dogged him wherever he went.  There was little doubt the rumors were     true.  An Indian by birth, sports were his only skill, his only way     to make money.
Tsk Tsk.  Thorpe lost his     Olympic titles after it was found he was paid for playing two     seasons of semi-professional baseball before competing in the     Olympics.  Thorpe was guilty of violating the amateurism rules.  He     fell victim to the purists.
As a footnote to this     story, in 1983, 30 years after his death, the International Olympic     Committee (IOC) restored all of Thorpe�s Olympic medals. 
 
Paavo Nurmi
Paavo Nurmi was Finland�s     greatest athlete.  Known as �the Flying Finn�, during the 1920s,     Nurmi was the best middle and long distance runner in the world.  He     set world records at distances between 1500 m and 20 km.  Nurmi     astounded the world by winning five gold medals at the Paris 1924     Summer Olympics.  This remains today the most track and field gold     medals at one Olympics in the history of the Games.  However, Nurmi     could hardly be considered a flash in the pan.  Overall, Nurmi won a     total of nine gold and three silver medals in the 12 events in which     he competed at the Olympic Games in 1920, 1924 and 1928.
When the 1932 Olympic     Games rolled around, Nurmi still had enough left in his tank to be     considered a serious medal contender again.  Nurmi had set his heart     on ending his career with a gold medal in the marathon event.
The marathon of course     has long been considered the most important distance event of all     thanks to its association with the immortal Greek who ran 26 miles     from Marathon to Athens to report the Greek victory over the     Persians� only to collapse and die.
Unfortunately Nurmi was     branded a professional and barred from running in Los Angeles.  The     main instigator of the ban was a Swedish official named Sigfrid     Edstr�m, president of the International Amateur Athletics Federation     and vice-president of the IOC (International Olympic Committee).
Edstr�m claimed that     Nurmi had received too much money for his travel expenses to a meet     in Germany.  How picky can you get?  This ungallant act was seen as     jealousy by many in Finland.  The ensuing bitterness took a long time to die.
At the time, Nurmi     traveled to Los Angeles and kept training at the Olympic Village     hoping they would relent at the last minute.  No such luck.  Despite     pleas from all the entrants of the marathon, Nurmi was not allowed     to compete at the Games.
Nurmi was bitter.  Even     though he had injuries, Nurmi claimed he would have won the marathon     by five minutes.
The     people of Finland were so incensed by the treatment of their     national hero that Finland refused to participate in the traditional Finland-Sweden international     athletics event again until 1939.  
 
Cold War Olympics
The stories of Thorpe and     Nurmi were to be repeated many times over the years.   In     particular, the arguments over the definition of �amateur versus     professional� became especially bitter during the Cold War.  The     Soviet bloc exploited this argument to great advantage. 
Gifted Russian athletes     were told to report to the Red Army where they could participate in state-supported year-round training without violating their amateur status.  U.S.     officials decried the hypocrisy of this system, but their pleas fell     on deaf ears.   The Russians had too many friends in high places to     lose this political tug of war.
No one single event illustrated the American     frustration with Russia�s so-called unethical system more than the     controversial 1972 Olympic Basketball finals.
a phantom Time-Out Kills the US Basketball Team
It was 1972 in     Munich.  The U.S. was playing Russia for Olympic gold.  It was a     huge showdown.  Since Basketball was a game that originated in the     USA, the sport had long been a huge source of pride for America.  At     63-0, the United States had never lost a single basketball game in     Olympic competition.
However, by 1972     the gap had finally been closed.  The Russians were favored mainly     because it was men against boys.  The Russian players were all at     least five to ten years older than their American counterparts.  However, these college kids gave the Russians a heck of a game.  With a group of U.S. collegians playing against the     quasi-professionals on the Russian side, the game was close     nonetheless.  This game had turned into a real nail-biter.
With the U.S. team     trailing 49�48 in the waning seconds of the contest, American guard     Doug Collins stole a Soviet pass at half court and was fouled hard     as he drove toward the basket.  Collins was knocked nearly senseless     as he was driven into the basket stanchion.  Shaking off the blow,     with just three seconds remaining on the game clock, Collins sank     the first free throw to tie the score at 49.
However, just as     Collins lifted the ball to begin his shooting motion while     attempting the second free throw, the horn from the scorer's table     sounded.  This was a huge distraction and     very unusual.  Horns are not supposed to go off while a player     is in the middle of shooting.  It marked the beginning of a     chain of events that would lead to the game's final three seconds     being mired in controversy for eternity. 
Although the     officials involved were later said to be merely incompetent rather     than conspiratorial, from this point on it sure seemed like either the referee or someone at the scorer�s table had     definite Russian sympathies. 
The unexpected     sound of the horn caused lead referee Renato Righetto to turn away     from the free throw attempt and look over to the scorer's table to     see what the reason was for the horn. However, no whistle was blown     and the play was not stopped.  Collins continued with his second     free throw and never broke his shooting motion.  The shot rattled     around.  Finally to the immense relief of the US fans, the ball     finally dropped through the net. 
This score put the     U.S. up by 50�49 with just 3 seconds to play.  It looked to the world like Doug Collin's key steal had rescued the     game for the American side.
Play was     immediately resumed, but nothing of significance happened in the     final 3 seconds. That's it.  Game over!  The US began to wildly celebrate their improbable come-from-behind 50-49 win. 
Suddenly to the     USA team�s dismay, the men were stopped mid-celebration and told the     clock had to be reset due to a time-out �not called�.  No one     understood what this meant.  If it wasn�t called, then so what?   Game over!!
Later testimony     made it seem unlikely that any such time-out had been called.  Nevertheless the officials gave the Russians the benefit of the     doubt.
Naturally the     Americans were furious, but the Russians won the protest.  The last 0:03 seconds would have to be       replayed.
Play resumed, but when a Soviet long pass went awry and landed out of bounds, the       buzzer sounded.  Game over. Again the Americans jumped       and whooped and hollered...
The American     celebration soon stopped when there yet was another mysterious horn from the scorer�s table during     the play.  
Something was wrong     again.
It seems that someone had re-set the clock was     reset to 00:50, not 00:03 as it should be. 
'So what?' the       Americans said.
3 seconds or 50 seconds, what difference       did it make as Russia failed to score? 
The Americans were     told the play didn�t count because the horn had gone off during the     play.  The horn went off because someone had noticed the clock had been     reset improperly. At this point, Dr William     Jones, the British secretary of FIBA, intervened � something the US     team maintained he had no authority to do � and ordered the clock to     be reset to 0:03 and the game restarted. The teams were     told the clock would be reset to three seconds because of an error     in re-starting the clock correctly.  What an interesting mistake. 
The     Americans were incredulous.  They could not believe someone     from a country said to be their ally would stab them in the back     like this.  Unfortunately the man was far too powerful.  Nothing could be done to overrule his authority.  The Americans     gave up and chose to replay the end of the game for the third time.
Meanwhile, despite     the fact that no "official" time out had ever been called, the     Russians had made an illegal substitution.  Smuggling in Ivan Edeshko was a key move.
Edeshko was one of the two men who had been trained to execute Russian�s special end of game play.  Edeshko's role was to throw a long     pass for a tall Russian named Alexander Belov. For the past year, Edeshko     and Belov had practiced this play time and again. 
This play had     failed moments earlier, but now thanks to the second try, this time the well-executed play worked to perfection.
Edeshko threw a     length-of-the-court pass to the giant Soviet player Alexander Belov.  At 7 feet, Belov towered over the two Americans assigned to guard     him.  A perfect pass allowed Belov to rise above the smaller men     beside him, catch the ball and lay it into the basket all in one     motion. 
As the ball     dropped through the net at the buzzer, one of the two smaller Americans watched helplessly as he     lay on the floor.  He had fallen     down after bouncing off the giant Belov while competing for the     ball. 
It was an     unbelievable finish to the game.  Russia had won 51-50.  The     image of the mighty conquering Russian and the helpless American     beneath him was     unforgettable.   
Naturally the     Americans protested.  They pointed out at least six irregularities     at the end of the game that had all been ruled in the Russian�s     favor.  Not one issue had gone the American�s way.   They contended     the game should be replayed from the 3 seconds point due to these     irregularities or simply replay the game in its entirety. 
Unfortunately, this appeal did little good.  The jury was     loaded against the Americans.  Of the five people on the panel,     three were from Communist countries. The representatives from Cuba,     Poland and the USSR all voted Soviet.  The U.S. appeal was     rejected 3-2.
The U.S. has     forever refused to accept the silver medal.
 
Taking Another Look at the "Amateur" Issue
Eventually,     however, some good came out of the strange defeat.  Watching massive grown men from the Soviet side     pound against the slender college kids from America throughout the     game plus the strange result garnered sympathy for the Americans     among the neutral countries of the world.
Almost     immediately, there was a definite shift in     attitudes among the Olympic hierarchy     about this �amateur� situation.  People     began to agree something was wrong.  As the Games had evolved through the 20th century, the definition of the amateur     athlete as an aristocratic gentleman had clearly become outdated. 
For some     time behind the scenes people had quietly admitted the advent of the     state-sponsored "full-time amateur athlete" of the Eastern Bloc     countries had eroded the ideology of the pure amateur.  They     acknowledged this put the self-financed amateurs of the Western     countries at a disadvantage.  
The ridiculous     outcome of the 1972 Basketball game served as a     catalyst to embolden people to suggest changes.  It stiffened the resolve among many     neutrals to stand up to the Russians and change the rules. 
Beginning with the next Olympics,     the amateur requirements began to be gradually phased out of the Olympic     Charter.  After the 1988     Games, the IOC decided to make all professional athletes eligible     for the Olympics.   Finally the world had a level playing field.
 
The Magic Sword
Throughout the     annals of Olympic cheating, Russia definitely holds the Gold Medal     for suspicious incidents.  The 1972 Basketball final is simply     Exhibit #1.
One of the most     blatant acts of cheating in Olympic history involved a Russian fencer named Boris Onishchenko
He was caught cheating by using a doctored     �p�e during the 1976 Games in Montreal.   Onishchenko, an army officer from Ukraine, was a respected modern     pentathlete who had won a silver medal in Munich four years earlier.
The British team,     who went on to win the gold medal in 1976, was the first to suspect     that Onishchenko was up to something.  During his bout against Great     Britain�s Adrian Parker, Onishchenko seemed to score at will against     a very good opponent. After Parker lost, he came back to the team     fuming. He was almost positive that Onishchenko had gotten points     without actually touching him.  In fact,     Parker said points seemed to be scored even when Onishchenko's     blade had missed by a     considerable distance.
However, these things had happened so fast     that there was no way to be sure.  The     British decided not to say anything.
It was Onishchenko's bad luck to have another match against an opponent from Great     Britain.  In his match against Great Britain�s Jim Fox, the entire     team watched closely.  Parker was right.  There was something fishy     going on here.  Onishchenko�s weapon appeared to register hits     without the foil appearing to touch the other man.
When Jim Fox     protested vehemently to the officials that his opponent was managing     to score without actually hitting him, officials took away the     Soviet athlete's sword and examined it. 
Onischenko was     allowed to continue with a replacement weapon, but soon afterwards     the news came through that he had been disqualified.  Inspection of     the first �p�e had revealed hidden wires that allowed the man to  register a     hit at will by means of pulling a hidden trigger.  This trigger allowed to control the electronic scoring system with his     hand.
Onishchenko exited     the Games in disgrace, with banner headlines around the world     denouncing him as 'Dishonest-shenko' and 'Boris the Cheat'.
Stories that he     was later banished to the Siberian salt mines were probably     exaggerated, but there was no doubt that his deliberate and brazen     attempt to cheat on the world stage humiliated the man for the     remainder of his life.
After reviewing     all the stories, I have decided to give Onischenko the Silver Medal     for Olympic Cheating.  It took a lot of imagination and a lot of     guts to try that stunt.
 
Fred Lorz � the Would-Be Marathon champion
While I give     Russia the overall Team Gold Medal for cheating, Olympic cheating is     not even remotely limited to the Russians.  There have been American     scandals too. 
The marathon at     the St Louis Olympic Games of 1904 was held over a hilly course in     the middle of a scorching afternoon.  Marathon season is generally     in the fall and winter, not the summer.  Considering the heat, it     was no wonder that only 14 of the 32 starters made it to the finish.
First home after     three hours 13 minutes, was Fred Lorz, a New Yorker.  Lorz was     immediately proclaimed the winner. Lorz was greeted with great     fanfare.   Rushing to meet him was Alice Roosevelt, the daughter of     the President of the United States.  She     laughed with excitement as she placed a laurel wreath on his head.  Then the two posed for photographs together. 
Now it was time to award Lorz the gold     medal.  However, the officials were distracted by whispers heard at     the back of the stage.
The ceremony was     put on hold because a     couple of the spectators     in the crowd had recognized Lorz.  These people stepped forward to     tell the judges that something fishy was going on. 
The mouths of the officials dropped open with     disbelief.  It seemed that     Lorz, exhausted after nine miles of the race, decided to quit.  He hopped into his manager�s car that had been trailing the action to get a     breather. As Lorz recovered, his manager resumed following the race     from a discrete distance.  This went on for the next 11 miles. 
At the twenty-mile, even the car couldn't take it     any more.  The vehicle broke down in     the heat.  Lorz had no choice but to get     out.  Noticing the pack of runners up ahead     weren't that far away, on the spur of the     moment Lorz decided to finish the race with     the other runners.  There were six miles     left.
Now that he was     fresh, Lorz moved through the dead-tired pack of runners easily. Lorz climbed the ranks at a steady clip.  The     crowds cheered and clapped as Lorz amazingly found the strength to     catch and pass the entire field one runner at a time.
The     runners were surprised as he went by. 'Where did this guy come     from?' they thought.  'Haven't seen him the entire race!'
Lorz     completed his thrilling adventure by crossing the finish line first.  He was mobbed with congratulations.  What an exciting finish!
Meanwhile, none of the officials had noticed anything suspicious     because they were concentrating on the front runners.  To them,     they were just as impressed as everyone else. It just seemed like     Lorz had staged a magnificent comeback from the rear.
Everyone agreed with the officials.  To the casual onlookers, it seemed like Lorz had pulled off an impressive     �come from behind� rally. There was certainly no technology in place to check nor was     there any reason to doubt Lorz' credibility.  This was back in     the days when cheating was unheard of.
Well,     thanks to Lorz, he was the one who changed all that.  He was nearly     awarded the medal until the spectators brought his cheating to the     attention of the administrators.
Hearing the rumors     of what Lorz had done, the crowd's acclaim rapidly turned to abuse.  Although Lorz claimed it was all just a practical joke, he received     a lifetime ban.  
Imagine standing     on the podium prepared to accept the victory award after riding in a     car.  How pathetic!   I decided to award Lorz the Bronze medal for     cheating. 
Why give the Silver to Onishchenko and     the Bronze to Lorz?   To my mind, Lorz made a stupid     spur-of-the-moment decision based on the unusual circumstances.   Perhaps if he had given it more thought, he would have come to his     senses.  On the other hand, Onishchenko�s move was coldly     premeditated.  The Russian truly deserves the Silver.
As an interesting     footnote, after the race, Lorz returned to his career on Wall     Street. 
 
2012:  Iranians Set to Compete Against Israeli Jews
This is not a     cheating story, but I can�t help but comment nevertheless.  When it comes to "sportsmanship", I have     never quite figured out why certain Arab athletes refuse to compete     against athletes representing Israel. 
Okay, so they don�t like each other, but this usually makes for good     competition.  Witness the bloody Olympic water polo match between     Hungary and the Soviet Union in 1956 shortly after the Russians     invaded Hungary.  Now that was a brutal game. 
You would think     any Arab would appreciate the opportunity to claim victory over an     Israeli in a fair fight on the world stage.  That would bring far     more honor to their country as opposed to the cowardly cold-blooded     murder of defenseless Israelis in the 1972 Munich Olympics.  
For a moment     there, I thought that in 2012 we were about to make some progress on     this front, but I was wrong. 
Bahram Afsharzadeh,     the head of the Iranian Olympic Mission, said on Monday, July 23, that his     athletes would compete against Israeli athletes in the Games that     start this week.
Now however things     have changed.  Despite that statement from the head of the Iranian     Olympic committee asserting that Iranian athletes will compete     against Israelis in the 2012 London Olympic Games, a terrible     last-minute injury now makes any such matchup unlikely to occur.
The Washington     Post reported that when the Iranian team left for London on Sunday,     they departed without judo champion Javad Mahjoob, the only Iranian     athlete who had any possibility to compete against an Israeli. 
Ah gee, what a     shame.  Don�t you hate those strange last-minute injuries? 
Iranian officials     are quoted as saying that Mahjoob is suffering from a �critical     digestive system infection� and will not be able to travel to the     Games.  In addition, the official Iranian government Fars news     agency said that the Olympic chairman's words had been taken out of     context.  What he meant to say was that Iranian athletes would     compete against all athletes and did not name Israel specifically.
In the meantime,     there are skeptics who suggest that Mahjoob�s sudden ailment is an     excuse to keep him from facing off against Ariel Ze�evi in the     100-kilogram weight class.  No, really? 
On a historical     note, Iranian athletes withdrew from events against Israelis at the     2004 Athens Games and 2008 Beijing Games.   One story in particular     was particularly amusing.
In 2004, Iranian     judoist Arash Miresmaili was disqualified after he was found to be     overweight before a judo bout against Israeli Ehud Vaks.
Miresmaili had     gone on an eating binge the night before in a protest against the     IOC's recognition of the state of Israel.  The next morning     Miresmaili was too fat to fight.
After this unusual     patriotic gesture, it was reported that Iranian Olympic team     chairman Nassrollah Sajadi had suggested that the Iranian government     should give him $115,000 (the amount he would have received if he     had won the gold medal) as a reward for his actions).
How interesting.  This was surely an Olympic record for most money ever earned by     over-eating!  But wait, there�s more.
Mohammad Khatami,     then-President of Iran, was reported to have said that Miresmail's     refusal to fight the Israeli would be "recorded in the history of     Iranian glories".  Khatami added that the nation of Iran considered     Miresmaili to be "the champion of the 2004 Olympic Games."
Considering     Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals in Athens and Arab runner Hicham El     Guerrouj won gold in both the 1500 m and 5000 m, it is curious that     their accomplishments were overshadowed by the extraordinary     performance of the prolific Iranian overeater.
Could over-eating     perhaps someday become a regular Olympic Sport?  
Or at     the very least the thought could surely inspire a wonderful lampoon.
Did any of you     ever see Chris Farley lampoon synchronized swimming on Saturday     Night Live?  My gosh, what a Saturday Night Live skit the     �Over-Eating Competition� could be!
Everyone who wants     to watch raise their hand.
 
 BOYS WILL BE BOYS AND BOYS WILL BE GIRLS
Back to cheating,     not eating.  One time-honored tradition of Olympic cheating has     certain boys who decide to compete against women instead.  There     have been several highly suspicious stories along these lines.
Before the     technology of mandatory drug and gender testing, there were Irina and     Tamara Press. These two Russian sisters were noticeably large and     rather �manly� for being women. 
People would say     when it came to throwing the shotput, these girls were almost as     good as the boys.
The Press sisters     were definitely world-beaters.  Between them, Irina and Tamara won     five Olympic gold medals and one silver medal at the 1960 games in     Rome and the 1964 games in Tokyo.
As the following     Olympics approached, when an Olympic official had the nerve to ask     the Press sisters to �prove� their femininity, the pair     coincidentally retired on the spot. 
What a shame to     see them go at the peak of their careers.
Another famous story along these lines was that of Stella Walsh.  Born in Poland in 1911, Stanislawa Walasiewiczowna moved to     Cleveland with her family when she was two.  Although Walsh     lived in Cleveland, she represented Poland, her birth nation, at the     1932 and 1936 Olympic Games. Stella Walsh won the gold in the     100-metres in 1932, and took the silver four years later.
In her time, the Polish-American sprinter Walsh was the     fastest women on the planet.  She     set the world record for the 100 meters on 3 different occasions,     earning the title of the "World's Fastest Woman". 
Walsh would go on     to set 20 world records. She won 41 AAU titles in events such as     sprints, long jump and discus throw.  After her long and illustrious     career, she was inducted into the U.S. Track and Field Hall of Fame     in 1975.
Tragically, five     years later she was shot and killed outside a Cleveland shopping     mall.  Police autopsies revealed Walsh had male genitals and both     male and female chromosomes - a condition known as �mosaicism�.   Thanks to this bizarre accident, a secret Walsh had managed to     conceal since her childhood was out: Stella should have been named     Stan... or Stella the Fella.
Dora Ratjen was a     German athlete who competed in the 1936 Olympics in the High Jump.  This would not be much of a story except for one thing:  Dora was, in fact, actually Hermann Ratjen, a     detail not discovered until after the Second World War, when he was     found working as a waiter -- not a waitress -- in Hamburg.  
Hermann was a very     slender man who was coerced by the leaders of the Hitler Youth into tightly binding     his genitals and competing against women. The German Olympic team     had struggled in the previous Olympic Games.  So it was thought     entering a man here and there on the women�s side of things might     remedy the situation. 
Ah, don�t you love that constant need to prove Aryan Superiority?  But in the end, the joke was on them and so were their theories of Aryan     superiority.
Ratjen finished fourth, behind three actual women. 
There have been     other odd tales over the years.  As sex changes become more     prevalent, the question of who is a boy and who     is a girl is one issue that has taken on more and more     controversy. 
As     you can see in the picture, Caster Semenya has the physique of a     football running back. victory in the women�s 800 meters at the 2009 World Championships     raised serious questions.  
The South African     runner�s sex became a question mark amid understandable speculation regarding her     masculine-looking physique. She wasn�t allowed to compete for almost     a year. Then she was reinstated without a clear explanation.
You should get to see     Semenya at the London Olympics.  He/she is slated to run. 
I have to be honest; I     agree with the skeptics.  Semenya has rather impressive arm muscles for a     girl.  Maybe too impressive.   
I expect to hear more     about this story.
 
THE     TEAM SILVER MEDAL FOR AN ENTIRE COUNTRY CHEATING GOES TO SPAIN
In its Cold War     prime, Russia elevated Olympic cheating to an art form, but one year     Spain did something far more shameful than Russia could ever conceive.
Talk about sinking     to new depths in order to reach the top of the podium.  What the Spanish team did was a disgrace to     humanity - they cheated in the Paralympics.  Spain was willing     to cheat to beat handicapped athletes!!
The Paralympics is     a noble endeavor that allows handicapped people a chance to compete.  What a wonderful idea, one that is quite in keeping with the Olympic     spirit.  The Paralympics has grown to become a major     international multi-sport event where athletes with a physical     disability compete.  This includes athletes with mobility     disabilities, amputations, blindness, and cerebral palsy.
In 2000, the     Spanish intellectually-disabled basketball team captured gold at the     Sydney Paralympics with a stellar performance on the court.
But the glory quickly faded when the Spanish Paralympic Committee later discovered     evidence that 10 of the 12 team members had no mental deficiency     whatsover. 
Following a tip     from one of the Spanish basketball players who was revolted by what     had happened, Carlos Ribagorda, an undercover journalist, revealed     that the players on Spain�s team had not actually undergone the     testing required to prove mental deficiency.  It turned out that ten     of the twelve players on the Spain basketball team were perfectly     normal.
It wasn�t just the     basketball team either.  Participants in table tennis, track and     field, and swimming events were also not disabled.
Gee, what a thrill     it must have been to fake being a moron so they could defeat a bunch     of legitimate handicapped people on the basketball court.  So who�s     the real moron here?
This makes us all     really wonder about Spain a little bit.  It isn�t like Spain has a     losing tradition and is badly in need of respect.  On the contrary, for the past decade Spain has enjoyed one of the finest streaks of sports success in the     world.  Soccer, basketball, tennis� Spain is a world leader in many     sports. 
So, really, now,     what would possess someone to cheat in the Paralympics?  Is the     prestige really worth going to these lengths?   I�m not sure it gets     a lot worse than that.  When it comes to     poor sportsmanship, this is perhaps the most pathetic story I have     ever heard short of Tonya Harding.
Personally, I     would allow the director of the Spanish team who came up with this     stunt to compete in the intellectually-disabled category without     hesitation.  After all, by definition, that man had to have been a     complete idiot.
 
THE     SUSPICIOUS CASE OF THE TINY TUMBLERS
The young ladies �     or should we say �toddlers�? ... of the Chinese Women�s Gymnastics     team were the breakout stars of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.  They     held off a serious challenge from the U.S. Women�s team to narrowly     win the team Gold Medal.
However, their     victory became the biggest scandal of the 2008 Games because the     experts all agreed the Chinese were using underage gymnasts.
Women�s Gymnastics     is a weird sport.  Being �young� is not a disadvantage when it comes     to women�s gymnastics because this sport favors flexibility over     strength.  Just like basketball is the refuge for overgrown     athletes, women�s gymnastics favors tiny little urchins whose     backbones have not yet solidified. 
What began as     whispers among the media and gymnastics insiders about the ages of     three of China's female Olympic gymnasts -- Jiang Yuyuan, Yang Yilin     and He Kexin (pictured middle) --     grew into ear-shattering, head-hurting shouts after the Olympics     concluded.
Despite assurances     by Chinese officials that all three were 16, the minimum age of     eligibility for Olympic competition, newly discovered documents and     records would prove otherwise.
The New York Times     first looked into the age of China's gymnasts with a story that     focused primarily on He Kexin, the gold medal winner on the uneven     bars.  Her birth date on numerous online records was listed as     January 1, 1994.  2008 minus 1994 equals 14. 
If these records     were correct, He Kexin was 14 when the Games began and therefore     ineligible to compete. 
When the world was     officially introduced to He Kexin, even those unwise to the ways of     competitive gymnastics could tell that something was not right with     the girl.  At 4-foot 8-inches tall and weighing 72 pounds, the     Beijing native appeared significantly younger than most of her     Chinese teammates and younger than her American and European     counterparts as well.
Bela Karolyi, the     world's foremost expert on female gymnasts, routinely referred to     the 2008 Chinese team as "half people" in his role as commentator to     NBC during the Olympics.  Practically every night Karolyi would     rail against the Chinese for engaging in age falsification.
After China barely     outscored the U.S. in the qualification round, Karolyi had this to     say about the Chinese gymnastics officials:
�These people think we are stupid...We     are in the business of gymnastics. We know what a kid of 14 or 15 or     16 looks like.  What kind of slap in the face is this? They are 13,     14 years old and they get lined up and the government backs them and     the federation runs away and hides.  There is an age limit and it     can't be controlled.�
However, when     confronted with the incriminating documents, the Chinese Olympic officials would     not back down.  They forcefully defended He Kexin's eligibility.  They maintained that when asked, they submitted proper passport     documentation to the IOC. 
He Kexin's passport says her date of birth is     January 1, 1992, making her 16 and old enough to compete. However, as     Karoyli told the AP, "passports mean nothing."
The 2008 problems     were nothing new.  China has a rich history of age falsification in     Olympics competition.  At the 2000 Sydney Olympics, three years     after the minimum age was raised to 16 in gymnastics, Chinese     gymnast Yang Yun competed and won a bronze medal in the uneven     bars.  Apparently the uneven bars favor the flexibility of youth. 
Yang's passport said she was born on December 24, 1984 and turning     16 in the year of the Games, making her eligible. However, Yang     later confessed in a television interview that she was only 14 at     the time of the competition and that she and her coaches had lied     about her age.
As in the case of     Yang Yun, the existing records prior to the Olympics -- local     registries, athletic records and news articles -- were all correct,     whereas the documentation she showed Olympic officials to confirm     her eligibility proved to be false. It is no coincidence that He     Kexin's passport was issued on February 14, 2008, a mere 6 months     before the Olympics.
What did the IOC     have to say about the scandal?  President Jacques Rogge said, "The     IOC relies on the international federations, who are exclusively     responsible for the eligibility of athletes. It's not the task of     the IOC to check every one of the 10,000 athletes."
Rogge is correct     that the IOC need not check everyone.  However, when you receive a     complaint about an athlete who hasn�t even reached puberty, it     wouldn�t hurt to check out two or three in the interest of fairness,     especially the ones who look like they're ten.
It is     really pathetic when the second place finisher looks old enough to     be the winner's babysitter.
 
 
So that raises the question.  Just how hard is it to beat     the drug tests?
The     answer will vary depending on who you ask that question to, but apparently it is not that hard to beat the tests most of the time.  Here's why. 
The trainer has     a huge     advantage because he goes first.  A trainer will give an     athlete an injection of steroids.  Then the trainer will draw     blood and urine.  At this point the trainer will analyze the     results just like a lab would.  The trainer sees what shows up     on the Toxicology screen.  The problems are clear to him.
At this point,     the trainer goes about finding     a way to mask the results. If     the trainer has a brain, he won't let the athlete be tested outside     the clinic until he     has found a way to disguise the drug use well ahead of time.  Once his own results no longer show drug use, the athlete     is probably safe from detection.
At this point in time, the     athletes and the trainers seem to have a strong upper hand. The drug     testers are playing "Black" in chess.  They are often     being asked to detect drugs that have never even been seen before.
However the testing     agencies have one very potent advantage - they get to keep frozen     blood samples for eight years. Since new tests are     being developed all the time, four years from now the testing might     begin to detect what was fashionable four years earlier.  
As the tests grow more     sophisticated, the labs have the right to go back and test the blood again     whenever they want to.  There's always the chance something will pop up.  This has a     real chance of working because the trainer who develops masking     techniques today has no idea what     tactics might be used four or five years in the future. 
Coincidentally, at this     very moment Lance Armstrong is being sued again.  It seems that a     very old blood sample has come up positive thanks to retesting using     new techniques.  Now Armstrong is back in court forced to     fight the same old battle for the umpteenth time.
The stakes are high.  They are trying to strip Armstrong of all his Tour de France     victories.  This possibility of "retroactive     disqualification" has to strike terror in every person's heart who     has ever used drugs to attain a victory. 
This raises the bizarre     specter that someday in the future, Gold Medals will not be handed out till     8 years after the race was run. 
 
East Germany
Before there was China, there was East Germany.  The case for "retroactive disqualification" is     further bolstered by the farce of the East German spots machine.  Russia and China     have long been accused of doping their athletes.     However, East Germany wrote the book.  Their flagrant use of     steroids makes the Russians and Chinese seem like     amateurs. 
Throughout the Fifties and Sixties following the war, East     Germany accomplished little in the Olympics. Then     the East Germans suddenly became a sporting powerhouse in the 70s and 80s.
Practically overnight, the East German athletes were now the     equal of the much larger United States and Soviet Union.  Pretty     impressive considering the East German population was at best 1/20th the size of their larger rivals.
In 1976, 1980, and 1988 (they skipped 84),     East Germany came in second in the Summer Olympics     just behind the Soviet Union and well ahead of larger West Germany.  Apparently all the German ubermenches must have gotten stuck on the East German     side at the conclusion of World War II.
East Germany�s     performance was even better at the Winter Games.  Over a span of     five winter games, East Germany had four second place rankings and a     first in the 1984 Winter Olympics.
East Germany won 20 Gold Medals in 1972. East     Germany won 40 Gold Medals in 1976. So how does a     country of fewer than 17 million people manage to double its Olympic     output from 20 to 40 gold medals in just four years?  Drugs, and     plenty of them! 
It is widely     believed that doping (predominantly anabolic steroids) allowed East     Germany, with its small population, to become a world sports leader in those     two decades.
Here's another statistic. In 1988, at the peak of the East German     sports machine, East Germany won 102 medals with 17 million people.  The USA won 94 medals with a population of 240 million.  Considering the United States is consider the world's superpower     when it comes to athletics, you have to wonder how on earth the East     Germans got away with so much cheating.
There are reports     that thousands of East German athletes were given     performance-enhancing steroids in an effort to prove East German     superiority over the West.  Many of the athletes later claimed the officials told them they were     simply taking �special� vitamins.
Special indeed!  These 'vitamins' worked miracles.  East Germans became a mighty force in amateur     sport, particularly in the swimming pool where     the results of the wonder vitamins were especially spectacular.  
But with the     medals and titles came serious negative health side effects, such as     hormonal changes and organ damage.  Steroid     use is dangerous. It can do serious damage to the heart and to the     liver.  The women athletes in     particular suffered many health problems in later years.
Throughout the Eighties, everyone was pretty sure what was going on     in East Germany, but they couldn't catch them.  The worst thing to     ever happen to East Germany was the fall of the Berlin Wall.  As the     Wall fell, so the veil of secrecy surrounding the East German sports     success.  Although many documents showing     the East German drug use were destroyed, the practice was so     wide-spread that evidence kept popping up everywhere.  The     world gasped when they realized the extent of the doping that had     gone on behind the Iron Curtain.
In the Nineties, a German court found     ex-East German sports boss Manfred Ewald and his medical director,     Manfred Hoeppner, culpable for what it called "systematic and     overall doping in East German competitive sports" until the fall of     the Berlin Wall in 1989.
 
Marita Koch
The story of Marita Koch     is a good     example of what was discovered once East German records were     analyzed.  Marita Koch is a former sprint track and field     athlete who was part of the amazing East German sports machine back     in the Seventies and Eighties. 
Before retiring       in 1987, Marita Koch won the       European Championships at 400 meters in 1978, 1982 and 1986. 
She was one of Germany's most successful       athletes.  During her career,       Koch collected     a remarkable 16 world records in outdoor sprints and 14     world records in indoor events.
Marita Koch       never failed a drug test nor did she ever acknowledge any       taint.
Koch insisted: "At the World Championships in       Helsinki in 1983 I had to go to dope-testing three times and       always I was clean. The same applies to my career overall. I       was a mature and responsible athlete."
Ordinarily we       would clap in recognition of her remarkable achievements and       move on to the next subject.  However, there's more to       the story (that seems common with drug users).
After East       Germany fell, Koch's achievements, along with the       extraordinary performances of many other East German female       athletes, came under scrutiny. Her       success had aroused suspicion that they were achieved with the       aid of performance-enhancing drugs that were not detectable at       the time.
In 1991 German anti-drug activists Brigitte Berendonk and Werner Franke were able to save several       doctoral theses and other documents written by scientists       working for the East German drug research program.  Apparently someone forgot to       destroy them. 
The documents listed the dosage and       timetables for the administration of anabolic steroids to       many athletes of the former GDR, one of them being Marita       Koch. According to the sources, Koch used the anabolic       steroid Oral-Turinabol from 1981 to 1984 with dosages       ranging from 530 to 1460 mg/year.
Koch refused to publicly admit to       this.  However, a letter written by Marita Koch to the head of the state-owned       pharmaceutical company was discovered by researcher Werner       Franke.  In the letter, Koch complained because she believed       her teammate B�rbel W�ckel was receiving larger doses of       steroids thanks to a relative working in the company.
Busted.
 
The       Chinese Women's Swimming Program
There was a       rumor that after the fall of Berlin Wall in 1989, several of       the East German doctors reappeared in China.  Interestingly, it was right about that time that China's       women swimmers began to win big.  Coincidence?   Probably not. 
At the 1992       Barcelona Olympics, the Chinese women had a very strong       showing.  They won gold in 4 of the 15 events.  That was just a hint of things to come.  1994 was the       blockbuster year.  At the 1994 World Aquatic       Championships in Rome, China won an amazing 12 of 16 events.
The leader of       the Red Tsunami was a tall woman named Le Jingyi (pictured)       with a ripped body.  With her powerful 6' 1'' frame,       muscular shoulders and preposterously narrow waist, this       woman had a tapered physique more commonly associated with a       male college football linebacker. 
After sweeping       practically every event in 1994, two years later at the 1996       Atlanta Olympics, the Chinese women won just one swimming       event.  Le Jingyi, the world famous swimmer, rescued       Chinese honor with the single victory in the 100m Freestyle       event.
From 12       victories to just one was quite a change.  After her       victory, Le Jingyi was asked a very curious question.  "Why it is that China's swimmers instantly became world       beaters in 1994 and have just as quickly disappeared from       the winner's podium?"
Le Jingyi        (translated): "I think it        is because the champions retired immediately after they        won a gold medal, we all did. The athletes after us are        not as good as us."
That is an       interesting explanation, but there might be another       explanation that makes more sense.  Maybe the Chinese       stopped using the steroids because they knew the drug       testing at the Atlanta Olympics would be unbelievably       rigorous.  Being caught on the world stage was too big       a risk.
The Nineties       were a decade of shame for China.  After that sweep in       Rome, seven Chinese swimmers tested positive for steroids at       the Hiroshima 1994 Asian Games held just one month after       Rome.  How pathetic. Nor was this just a random event.  A sports scientist at San Diego State tallied 32 Chinese       swimmers caught for drug offenses in the 1990s. Two of them       were caught twice.
It is said that       China's bid for the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games forced the       country to behave.  China vowed to establish a       world-recognized anti-doping program.  However there       have been further incidents that suggest the drug practice       continues to this day.  In addition to the earlier       story about Shiwen Ye at the 2012 London Games, here are two       other stories written in 2012 about the issue.
 
 
Ben Johnson - Poster Boy for Drug Cheating
On an individual     basis, Ben Johnson of Canada is the most famous athlete in sports     when it comes to discussing the advantages and the dangers of using     performance-enhancing drugs.  Johnson     suffered the most astounding fall from grace of any athlete in     history during the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
In 1988, Ben Johnson electrified the world     when he upset Carl Lewis, the gifted American sprinter, in the Olympic 100 meters.  Not only did Johnson handily beat     Lewis, the unquestioned superstar of the previous 1984 Olympics in     Los Angeles, it was �how� he beat Lewis that had people amazed.
Lewis     and Johnson were bitter rivals from way back.  At the start,     Carl Lewis had thoroughly dominated Johnson.  Lewis won Olympic     Gold in 1984 while Johnson was forced to settle for Bronze.  The race had not been close.
In 1985, after seven consecutive losses, Johnson finally beat Carl     Lewis. From that point on, the two men went back and forth in their     struggle for dominance.  Then something strange happened in     1987.  The world record for the 100 meters was 9.93.  Carl     Lewis had been on the verge of breaking that record several times,     but had only a series of near-misses to show for it.
In the 1987 World     Championships, Ben Johnson set an unbelievable new world record with     9.83.  Johnson had just shaved 1/10th of a second off the     record.  That was an incredible achievement.
Meanwhile Carl Lewis     was beside himself with astonishment and horror at seeing his great     rival embarrass him so badly in this head to head race. 
Following Johnson's     defeat of Lewis in Rome, Lewis started trying to explain away his     defeat. He first claimed that Johnson had false-started, then he     alluded to a stomach virus which had weakened him. Finally, without     naming names, Lewis said "There are a lot of people coming out of     nowhere. I don�t think they are doing it without drugs."
This was the start of     Carl Lewis� calling on the sport of track and field to be cleaned up     in terms of the illegal use of performance-enhancing drugs. Lewis'     words didn't amount to much.  While cynics noted that the     problem had been in the sport for many years, they pointed out that     it didn�t become a cause for Lewis until he was actually defeated.  Many people were fed up with the man thanks to Lewis's egotistical     attitude and lack of humility, so at the time, practically no one     rushed to defend Carl Lewis or his statements.
During a controversial     interview with the BBC, Lewis said:
There are gold      medalists at this meet who are on drugs, that [100 meters] race      will be looked at for many years, for more reasons than one.
Johnson's response was:
When Carl Lewis was      winning everything, I never said a word against him. And when      the next guy comes along and beats me, I won�t complain about      that either.
This set up the rivalry     leading into the 1988 Olympic Games.
As the Games     approached, the two men squared off at a track meet Zurich, Switzerland on August 17.  This was their first rematch since the fateful 1987 World     Championships.  Both men stood to make     $250,000 in appearance money.  Not bad.
That money alone should     give us an idea of the high stakes involved for both men in being     the best.  There are a lot of people in this world who might     seriously consider taking drugs for that kind of money.  The     temptation must be overwhelming.
During this     much-anticipated race, Lewis, as he often did, trailed at 70 meters     and then soared to victory, eclipsing Johnson a meter from the line.     He was immediately installed in popular opinion as the favorite to     retain the Olympic gold he had won in Los Angeles in 1984.
Afterwards, Carl Lewis opened his mouth again, something he was     known for.
"The gold      medal for the Olympic 100 meters is mine," Lewis said. "I will      never again lose to Johnson."
Johnson had something of his own to say at Zurich.  It was an     eerie prophecy of sorts.
"Things are going      smoothly for me now. Losing is a possibility in Seoul. But I      will make sure that won't happen."
One month later at the Seoul Olympics, Ben     Johnson would indeed make Lewis eat his words.  Johnson     completely humiliated his proud rival.
On September 24     1988, Johnson beat Lewis in the 100m final at the Olympics, lowering     his own 9.83 world record down to 9.79 seconds in     the process.
Johnson would     later remark that he would have been even faster had he not raised     his hand in the air just before he finished the race.
Johnson had just     set a preposterous new world record. Most     records are broken by shaving off a single micro-second here or a     mili-second there.  Johnson had trimmed an unbelievable     four-hundredths of a second off the world record. 
Now that doesn�t     sound like much, but in a short race like the 100 meters, it is very difficult for a normal human     to improve as much as Johnson did over all the people who have run     this race before him.  
At the time,     Johnson�s time was considered to be the greatest breakthrough in     track and field since Bob Beamon�s amazing long jump in Mexico     1968. 
Johnson didn�t     seem fazed at all by his seemingly miraculous accomplishment.  In an     interview shortly after the race, he was quoted
�I'd like to      say my name is Benjamin Sinclair Johnson Jr and this world      record will last 50 years, maybe 100.�
Do you like     irony?  Johnson�s record did not last 100 years.  In fact, Johnson�s new world record only last 3 days. 
Johnson�s drug     test had just caught up with him.  Overnight the greatest breakthrough in track history was transformed     into the greatest Olympic scandal of all time.  The     world was absolutely totally blown away by the enormity of the news.   
In the Olympic     Doping Control Center, less than half a mile from where Johnson had     received his gold medal, Dr Park Jong-Sei had found that one of the numbered urine samples taken from the     first four finishers contained stanozolol, a dangerous anabolic     steroid.
The number     belonged to Ben Johnson.  This confirmed the suspicions of one     American trainer who had noted before the race that the Canadian's     eyes were yellow.  The trainer said this was the result of his liver     working overtime processing steroids.
Confronted with     the allegations, Johnson lied through his teeth. He claimed that the     positive test surely stemmed from a spiked herbal drink the night     before the race.  His competitors were trying to sabotage him. 
So how did Johnson     explain his inflated deltoid muscles and jaundiced eyes?
Johnson was     subsequently stripped of his gold medal and world record and banned     from competition for two years. The disgrace of the event was a     black eye on Canadian amateur sport and pushed the drugs-in-sport     issue to the forefront like never before.
The disgraced     Johnson was stripped of his gold and forced to watch as his great     rival Carl Lewis regained his status as the world�s fastest human.  What a bitter pill to swallow.  But then Johnson was used to     swallowing pills.  Maybe it was time for a bitter one.
 Johnson quickly     flew out of Seoul, feebly continuing to protest his innocence even     as he boarded the plane.  Johnson raced at the next Olympics in     Barcelona after serving a two-year suspension but didn�t do too     well. 
Taking note that     he wasn�t much of a runner without steroids, Johnson went back to     the juice.  He was banned for life a year later in 1993 after he     tested positive again.  At that point, any remaining doubt as to his     innocence or his honesty was long gone.
Truth be told, the     Seoul Games of 1988 were ugly in many ways.  Nearly 15 years later,     it was discovered that several American track athletes tested     positive for drugs before those same Seoul Games.  Allegedly among     them was Carl Lewis, the man who was awarded the gold medal after     Johnson's disqualification.  Another runner under suspicion was     Florence Joyner-Griffith.  She never failed a drug test, but was     judged guilty by association.
However Lewis and Flo-Jo weren�t     caught.  Johnson was.  He became the goat for all the rest to hide     behind.
 
 
Flo Jo - The     Poster Girl for Successful Drug Cheating
Who can ever forget     her?  Florence Griffith     Joyner was not only the fastest woman in history,     she may have been the most beautiful too.  Florence     Griffith Joyner, or "Flo Jo" as she was often     called, was the woman who combined the speed of Mercury with the body     and beauty of Venus. She was sculpted to perfection.
In 1988, Flo Jo set the     record for the fastest women's 100 meters in history at 10.49.  That record still stands today.  No other woman has come close     to that.
Flo Jo owns another     record as well... one that is a bit stranger.  Until Flo Jo     came along, no woman in modern history had held the world speed     record for more than five years.  Most only kept it for a year.  But Flo Jo has kept the record for 24 years.  That alone should     tell you there is something strange about this woman.
She is either a man, an alien     or she hides a very deep secret.  Since no one in their right     mind would accuse     Flo Jo of being a man like they did Stella Walsh, let's hope that can't be the     secret.  Flo Jo might be an alien, but I doubt that too.  Florence Griffith     Joyner's secret is that she is considered the most prominent track star to     get away with drug cheating.
Today thanks to     Marion Jones and Ben Johnson, we don�t believe anybody anymore.  No     one seems above suspicion.   After all, the stories of Jones and     Johnson turned out to be just the tip of the iceberg. 
Practically every     day the sports section lists a new name of someone being accused of     success through better pharmacology.   Worse, for every person that     gets caught, there are still suspicions that the winners were simply     ones that didn�t get caught.
The stakes of the     game being as high as they are and the chances of being caught small     thanks to the ability to disguise drug intake, in the past twenty     years there has been a long parade of sports champions such as Lance     Armstrong whose victories have become tainted by suspicion.
Another thing that is strange about Flo-Jo is that she came out of     nowhere to run the three fastest women�s 100 meters in history.
Theoretically,     athletes are supposed to show early promise and steady progress.  Not Flo Jo.  She had disappeared from competition for over a year only to burst back on the scene like a fiery     comet.
Flo Jo�s personal     best before the 1988 US Trials was 10.96.  This was a very good time     but well outside world record pace of 10.76.  Furthermore her best time had come five     years earlier.  There was nothing in Flo Jo's     past that hinted she might someday be the fastest woman in recorded     history.
Flo Jo had given     up on athletics in 1986.  She spent the best part of the next year working as a bank clerk during the day and styling hair in the     evenings.  When she decided to return to athletics in April 1987 she     was 15 pounds overweight.
The extra weight     didn�t seem to matter.  A little over four months later Flo Jo won     200m silver at the world championships in Rome.  From there she just     kept on getting better. In just 15 months Flo Jo had metamorphosed     from a fat, average sprinter to a taut world-beater.
Flo Jo stunned the     world at the 1988 U.S. Olympic Trials.
Flo Jo's previous best time was 10.96 from 1983. The world record was 10.76 set by Evelyn Ashford in 1984.
In round one, Flo Jo posted a stunning wind-aided 10.60.  In sprints you are     supposed to improve in the hundredths� .01 or .02.  Not our Flo Jo. 
Flo Jo was just     warming up.  In the quarters she was timed at 10.49 ( Youtube ).  Flo Jo had just broken Evelyn Ashford's world record by the     massive margin of 0.27 seconds. This was     ridiculous.
More phenomenal     times followed. The following day she won her semi-final in 10.70.
In the finals, Flo     Jo destroyed the field winning in 10.61. 
In the space of 24 hours Flo-Jo had just run the three fastest legal women's 100m races in     history.
In so     doing, she had improved on her own previous fastest time by half a     second.
The word     �impossible� was coined for situations like this.  Flo Jo had just     done something that was considered impossible.  The woman was     unbelievable!!
When the news hit     the track world, everyone was incredulous.  One of the most     fascinating comments was made by none other than Ben Johnson     himself.
"There's no way Florence ran 10.49," he     said. "I just don't believe it."
Johnson was not     alone.  Scores of people in the track community publicly questioned     the validity of her performance.  In fact, the     level of disbelief was so high that people looked for explanations.  The consensus was that the wind at her back had made the difference. 
Mind     you, there are instruments that are in place to measure the wind.  These instruments said there wasn't any wind.  No matter, the     instruments must have been wrong. That's right, it must have been     the wind!  No one dared mention what everyone really thought.
When Flo Jo     reached Seoul, the eyes of the entire world were upon her.
Flo Jo did not     disappoint.  She delivered one the great performances in Olympic     history.
Flo-Jo won gold in     the 100m, the 200m and the 4x100m, and silver in the 4x400m.
In the 100 meters     she broke the Olympic record twice and produced a stunning     performance to win the final in a wind-assisted 10.54.
Thanks to Ben     Johnson, the Seoul Olympics were be dominated by talk of     performance-enhancing drugs.  Inevitably, given the sudden and     astonishing nature of her ascent, some pointed their fingers at Flo Jo�     but to no avail. 
Griffith Joyner     took 11 different tests for performance-enhancing drugs in 1988. She     passed every single one of them.
Prince Alexandre     de M�rode, chairman of the IOC's medical commission, later said that     Joyner-Griffith had been singled out for particularly rigorous     testing in Seoul.
"Since there were rumors at the time,     we performed all possible and imaginable analyses on her.  We never     found anything. There should not be the slightest suspicion."
Nevertheless, the     rumors followed Flo-Jo for the rest of her career.  The reason was     simple � Joyner-Griffith had improved far too much in far too little     time.  Her overnight success was enough in most people�s minds to     dismiss her victories as drug-aided. 
There is a very     sad and very strange footnote to the story of Florence Joyner-Griffith.
Flo Jo retired in 1988 after her stunning run of     success.  However, in 1998, just ten years after Flo Jo's brilliant Olympic performance, this beautiful, superbly athletic woman was dead. 
Florence Joyner-Griffith had suffered an     epileptic seizure during an airline flight.  She was taken to a hospital upon landing.  As she rested in the     hospital, she died in her sleep due to asphyxiation caused by another epileptic seizure. 
Flo Jo was dead at 38.  Wrap your mind around that age.  What totally healthy person     dies suddenly and mysteriously at 38?
The skeptics paused for     a brief moment of respect, then ungallantly began to ask if past steroid use could have caused damage that     went undetected.  Naturally they did an autopsy.
During the autopsy, her strained heart offered only     hints that she may have had chemical help.  The Orange County coroner's     office noted that the autopsy records showed that she did not die     from drugs or banned substances and that tissue and organ tests     revealed none of the changes associated with recent steroid use. The     coroner had requested that Griffith-Joyner's body specifically be     tested for steroids,     but was informed that there was not enough urine in her bladder and     that the test could not accurately be performed on other biological     samples.
The glamorous     goddess of American track, who came, conquered and quickly vanished,     finished her brief life with a batting average of 1.000 when it came     to steroid testing.  
No scientific test     ever made Florence Griffith-Joyner out to be a liar.  Even on her     deathbed there was no proof.
That     didn't stop people anyone for a second.  The woman's death was     so eerie that it seemed likely to suspect previous steroid use was     surely to blame.
It     was left to Brazilian middle-distance runner Joaquim Cruz to offer     the most damning criticism ever publicly raised.  Cruz stated, "The athletes are the first ones to suspect, especially the athletes     who work hard and find it really difficult to improve their times," says Cruz, who won Olympic gold in 1984 and silver in 1988 in the     800-meter run. "Those athletes are the ones who know who is there     competing clean and who is not."
What athletes also see is which records seem realistic and which do     not. Griffith-Joyner's sudden improvement was far beyond what     athletes consider "realistic".  Evelyn Ashford's 100-meter     record of 10.76, set in 1984, was whittled to 10.49 in Indianapolis     in 1988. The margin of difference was more than double any previous     improvement.  Nor has anyone even remotely approached those     speeds since. 
After 24 years without a serious challenge, Griffith-Joyner's     records in the 100 and 200 meter dashes have joined the ranks of the     eternally suspect. 
Direct evidence of doping has never been presented against     Griffith-Joyner, but suspicions began at the start of the 1988     season, when she returned after a long layoff. She had never won a     world championship, but now the runners were supposed to accept that     a woman with nearly two years of layoff was suddenly the fastest     woman in the world.  Her body had also morphed from slender to     ripped.
During the Olympics that year, Cruz was asked what he thought about     Ben Johnson's positive steroid test. Cruz answered, but also offered     opinions on other competitors, thereby breaking a universal     athletes' code to not name names. In doing so, he also made it all     right for journalists and critics to speculate about who might be     doping.
"Florence, in 1984,      you could see an extremely feminine person, but today she looks      more like a man than a woman," Cruz said in the interview.
"And Jackie Joyner (Flo Jo's sister in law) herself, she     looks like a gorilla, so these people, they must be doing something     that isn't normal to gain all these muscles."
When Cruz     saw his name in print next to these words, his first reaction was to deny that he made the comments.  He also     apologized to Joyner-Kersee in person.
However, when a tape of the     comments surfaced, Cruz was openly vilified.  There was no more      denying what he had said. 
Cruz, who today coaches     high school and works with a group of elite runners near Los     Angeles, says he was scorned by the fans, but he was never ostracized by athletes for what he said.
"In the (Olympic) village I became the hero," Cruz says. "Everybody     said, 'Yeah Cruz! Keep up the good work.'"
The     reputation of Flo Jo took a bigger hit a year later when sprinter Darrell     Robinson, in a paid interview with a German magazine, said he had     given her human growth hormone.
Griffith-Joyner denied it, and when they both     appeared on the "Today" show, she said, "Darrell, you are a     compulsive, crazy, lying lunatic!"
It is     likely the     dark cloud of circumstantial evidence will follow the story of Florence Griffith-Joyner for     eternity. 
But     Florence Griffith-Joyner is certainly not the only one with a cloud     hanging over her reputation.
Is Lance Armstrong     guilty?  Maybe. 
Is Roger Clemens     guilty?  Maybe. 
Is Barry Bonds guilty?  Maybe. 
I don�t know the     answer for any of these people, but I am suspicious. 
Thanks mostly to     the story of Flo Jo, whenever someone comes out of nowhere to be     wonderful, I shrug my shoulders and idly wonder if they will get     caught or not.  Or "when" they will be     caught.
Thanks to lessons     learned from Marion Jones and Ben Johnson, and yes, sad to say, even Flo Jo, my attitude is cynical. 
When it comes to sports these days, if it�s too good     to be true, then it probably isn�t.
 
In     retrospect, Flo Jo was the woman straight out of Greek Mythology.
She     had the speed of Mercury, the beauty of Aphrodite... and the life     script of Achilles.
Achilles, of course, was half human, half god.  For the brief     time he was alive, Achilles was the most feared warrior on earth.  But thanks to his unprotected heel, he had that one single fatal     flaw.  Achilles conquered everything in sight and experienced     intense glory... only to suddenly die at a young age from the     poisoned arrow.
Who     is to say that Flo Jo didn't die of a similar poisoned arrow? 
She     most likely made a dangerous life choice which later struck her down     at an age much too young to make any sense.  Is it better to     live a long and comfortable life or is it better to reach for the     glory and risk an early death?
Florence Griffith-Joyner was our modern day Achilles. 
 
Final Thoughts     about the Drug Problem
The     mysterious death of Florence Griffith-Joyner is very important     because many people - including medical professionals - openly     suggested her sudden death could be related to past steroid use.  Whatever the real cause of Flo Jo's death, it underscored the     dangers of steroid use. There can be no doubt steroid use carries a     great risk of health consequences. 
The     truth is that little is known about the long term effects of steroid     use.  However, the early reports are in and the picture is not pretty.  The former athletes of East Germany are reporting all sorts of     health and psychological problems directly attributed to steroid use     20 to 30 years ago.
Seized documents of the East German secret     police Stasi revealed that as many as 10,000 East German athletes were involved in the state-sponsored attempt to build a     country of 16 million into a sports power rivaling the United States     and the Soviet Union.
Today an estimated 500 to 2,000 former     East German athletes are believed to be experiencing significant     health problems associated with steroids, including liver tumors,     heart disease, testicular and breast cancer, gynecological problems,     infertility, depression and eating disorders.  Some     female athletes have reported miscarriages and have had children     born with deformities like club feet.
Given this situation, what person in their right     mind would turn to drugs?
Sad     to say, even given the knowledge, quite a few athletes are more than     willing to make the Devil's Bargain.  Given that masking     techniques appear to be running ahead of detection techniques, the     temptation to achieve glory and financial gain TODAY seems to     outweigh the well-known risks somewhere in the distant FUTURE.
Some     people say, "Well, since you can't catch all of them and lots of     cheaters are winning against the people who play by the rules, why     not just make steroid use legal?  Level the playing field for     everyone. After all, that's how they solved the amateur versus     professional issue.  If those idiot athletes want to kill     themselves, that's their choice."
Having given this some thought, I disagree. 
First, records are important.  It isn't fair to the athletes     who competed in the pre-drug era to have their performances erased     or compared to these clearly-tainted modern day results.  However, this reason is trivial compared to the health risks the     athletes would likely face.
If we     make steroid use legal, that would not only give athletes permission     to take enormous health risks, it would almost force them to     participate or have no hope of winning.  Now practically every     athlete in the world would be forced to begin using drugs to stay     even with their peers or simply retire from their sport.
The     counter-argument to that is that most people with a brain wouldn't     dream of deliberately hurting themselves. 
Don't     be ridiculous. If taking drugs is the only way to climb to the top     of their sport, many will choose to do so.  Take hockey players     for example.
In the     National Hockey League, players were continually suffering gruesome     injuries to their face.  Every season, dozens of players would     routinely lose eyes, teeth, and facial bones to high sticks and     fast-moving pucks.  The danger was getting so great the league     asked the players to voluntarily begin wearing helmets.  Some     complied, but most of the players refused.  They didn't want to     do anything that would reduce their peripheral vision.  Finally     the league had to put its foot down and "insist" that the players     wear helmets for their own good.  Once it became mandatory, the     athletes gave in.
Given     this lesson, we know that since athletes are born risk-takers, we     don't dare even dream of legalizing the drugs. 
The only way to stop drug use in sports is to     keep them illegal, keep improving the tests and, more important than     anything, increase the penalties.  Not only take away all     medals and ban athletes for life on the first or second offense,     also make them pay fines. 
Moreover, keep freezing that blood and let the athletes understand     that their samples will be tested again with the newer methods every     few years.  Since that is how most of the drug cheats are being     caught these days - retroactively - the paranoia might actually make     them think twice.  Imagine how Lance Armstrong feels knowing     his entire career could be wiped out if just the right test comes     along.
 
WHY NOT JUST BRIBE THE JUDGE?
Unfortunately,     there are many Olympic sports where the winner is determined by     other human beings.  Any sport that requires judges to determine the     winner is ripe for controversy.  This �subjective� element in highly     competitive sports such as gymnastics, boxing, diving, and figure     skating routinely brings out the temper in many observers.  I might     add I dislike dance competitions for the same reason.  It is very     difficult to accept some of the decisions.
But there isn�t     much anyone can do about it.  How can anyone effectively dispute     someone's subjective opinion?  They were     hired to call it as they see it.  The decision of the judges is     final.
That doesn�t keep     people from trying.  Hardly.  The announcers are the worst.  They     routinely question any judge�s decision that hurts a hometown hero.  That sort of negativity may be bad for the viewer�s blood pressure,     but since it improves ratings, blaming the judges becomes a national     pastime during the Olympics.
Some of the     decisions are so glaringly bad that people actually wonder if the     judges are crooked.  For example, to this day, I still think     something underhanded took place at that bizarre 1972 Russia-USA     basketball game. 
Although the     secret of what happened behind the scenes at the 1972 basketball game has never been revealed, here are two famous controversies involving Olympic judges that     prove shady dealings have indeed taken place in the past.
Roy Jones
When Roy Jones     lost the boxing gold medal at Seoul in 1988, his loss was considered     the worst example of crooked judges in Olympic history.  2 judges     voted Jones the winner of his match, 3 judges voted Jones the     loser.  Only one problem � every neutral observer in the world     thought Jones had won by a wide margin. 
Jones had     dominated his weight class for the entire Olympics.  He won his     first match by knockout.  He won his next two matches 5-0 by the     vote of the judges.  He won the next one 4-1.
The final match     against South Korean Park Si-Hun wasn�t even close.  Jones won in a     rout.  Jones was so unthreatened he barely bothered to raise his     guard.  He landed 86 punches to Park's 32.   The South Korean took     two standing eight counts and was twice warned by the referee.  NBC's Count-A-Punch recorder scored the rounds 20-3, 30-15 and 36-14     in Jones's favor.  It was an utterly one-sided affair.
And yet Jones     lost.
In a highly     controversial 3-2 judge's decision, South Korean boxer Park Si-Hun     was given the nod over American Roy Jones.  Allegedly, Park himself was so surprised that he apologized to Jones afterward. 
The     verdict sparked a world outrage.  It didn�t help that     Park was from the host country.  Something was very wrong here.  Hot accusations were leveled at the judges who had voted against Roy     Jones.
One judge shortly     thereafter admitted the decision was a mistake.  What a joke!  The     judge said, �I felt bad that this man (Park) had been so badly     defeated in his home country.  I knew the other four judges would     vote for Jones, so I gave a sympathy vote to the South Korean to     save face�. 
What a crock.  That story is BS-speak for �someone gave me money to throw the     match�.
Eventually, all     three judges voting against Jones were suspended.
Meanwhile,     everyone was so disgusted by the result that Roy Jones was named the     outstanding boxer of the tournament.
However, the scandal was whitewashed     just like the 1972 basketball result.  The official IOC     investigation in 1997 found no wrongdoing.  To this day, the IOC     still officially stands by the decision.