OLYMPIC CHEATING

Written by Rick Archer
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. 

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.

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 Edström, president of the International Amateur Athletics Federation and vice-president of the IOC (International Olympic Committee).

Edström 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.

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. 

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? 

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.   

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 épée 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.

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. 

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

DRUGS!!

Victory through enhanced chemistry!  Just don't get caught. 

Bending or breaking the rules of competition has been around as long as sport itself.  Finding a way to win can tempt an athlete to test the boundaries of fair play, as the difference between fortune and failure is using measured in fractions of a second. 

Most people don't cheat because there are eyes and cameras everywhere.  But what if there was an invisible and quite effective way to cheat?

When it comes to the idea of cheating in the Olympics, most people immediately think of drug-assisted victories.   Since the margin of victory is often infinitesimally small and the rewards so dramatically high, there is an overwhelmingly temptation for good athletes who don’t wish to settle for being “good” to turn to drugs to boost performance.  

Michelle Smith - Poster Girl for Getting Away With It

Michelle Smith was an Irish swimmer who was a triple gold medalist at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. She won the 400m individual medley, 400m freestyle and 200m individual medley. She also won the bronze medal for the 200m butterfly event for good measure.

Significant controversy followed one of those victories when celebrated U.S. swimmer Janet Evans accused Smith of doping at a press conference. Evans, a highly-respected athlete, was incensed. She immediately claimed Smith's unexpected victories could only be explained by one thing - Drugs.

Those accusations were never proven.  However, the facts surrounding the situation supports Evans' claims.  No Irish swimmer had ever won an Olympic medal until Smith came along and Smith's previous Olympic record had been "mediocre".

Suspicions about her suddenly improving performances at an age considered to be late in a swimmer's career had been raised earlier after her medal wins at the 1995 European Championships.  Moreover, Smith was viewed upon with suspicions thanks to guilt by association.  Her husband and coach, Erik de Bruin, a Dutch discus and shot put thrower, had failed a drug test in 1993 and had been suspended from competition. 

As it turned out, Smith should have quit while she was ahead. Smith received a four-year suspension in 1998 after being found guilty of tampering with a urine sample.

The ban was imposed after a urine sample taken during a routine random drug test was found to be contaminated with alcohol, a masking agent.  On closer inspection, the bodybuilding drug Androstenedione was found in her samples.

On an interesting note, Smith was not stripped of her Olympic medals from Atlanta., because her doping offense was detected sometime after the games. At the time, she was single-handedly responsible for Ireland's second-largest ever medal haul at one Olympics.  Thus, she remains Ireland's most successful Olympian ever.

People often point to Smith to build their case for "retroactive disqualification".  The problem is that it is far too easy to mask drug use at the time it is occurring.  Increasingly, the drug cheats are not caught till years later thanks to improvements in testing. 

People say that anyone who is caught at any point in their career should lose all credibility and their medals as well.

"Once a cheat, always a cheat". 

Shiwen Ye - The Newest Michelle Smith?

The first "cheating" controversy of the 2012 London Games involved a record-setting teenager who put up times that surpassed the times of the current world's fastest MALE swimmer.

Shiwen Ye of China stunned world swimming by winning gold in the 400m individual medley in a world-record time. It was her final 100m of freestyle, in which she recorded a split time of 58.68sec, that aroused suspicion. Over the last 50m of the race she was quicker than the Ryan Lochte, who won the men's 400m individual medley in the second-fastest time in history.

So how does a teenage girl manage to swim faster than the world's fastest man?  A lot of people are asking that exact question.

Interestingly enough, Shiwen Ye has people invoking the name of Michelle Smith.

John Leonard, an American who is the executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, said the 16-year-old's performance was "suspicious".  He said it brought back "a lot of awful memories" of the Irish swimmer Michelle Smith's race in the same event at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.  Smith, a relative unknown, burst on the scene at the 1996 in a blaze of glory winning race after race amid a wave of accusations and suspicions.  To everyone's delight, Smith failed a drug test just two years after the Atlanta Olympics when she tested positive for an anabolic steroid in 1998. So is Shiwen Ye the new Michelle Smith?

Ye's time in her final 100 was nearly a dead heat with Lochte's final 100. How does a 16-year-old girl keep pace with a 27-year-old man on a night he is acclaimed as best male swimmer in the world?

Swimming World columnist John Lohn had this to say:

"When it comes to doping and allegations of drug use, China hasn't done itself any favors. Its track record opens itself up — to a degree — to a level of doubt. Such is the way things go when a country has been cited for a systematic doping program, which was in effect in the early 1990s.

Remember, the Chinese women won 12 of 16 gold medals at the 1994 World Championships under a cloud of suspicion. Still, the accusations fired at Ye are out of line in this age of drug testing. Instead of dirtying her achievement with unfounded claims and doubts, it would be wiser to appreciate a performance which was legendary and put a check mark next to her name."

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 1/20^th 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! 

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 Bärbel Wöckel 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.

	China's Li Zhesi fails doping test Updated: June 9, 2012, 12:04 PM ET Associated Press BEIJING -- The Associated Press is reporting that Chinese swimmer Li Zhesi tested positive for EPO in March 2012. The official Xinhua News Agency, the Chinese state media, says swimmer Li Zhesi who was part of the country's winning team at the 2009 world championships has tested positive for doping. The 16-year-old Li Zhesi tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug EPO in March. This is a major announcement for the Chinese team. China has spent the past decade rebuilding its swimming program following a series of doping scandals that devastated the sport in 1990s.
The 16-year old Zhesi was the 2010 Asian Games Champion in the 50 free (at only 14 years old) and also anchored the Chinese medley relay that won the 2009 World Championships that is the current World Record holder. In 2011, she anchored the prelims round of the silver-medal relay in the same event.EPO is a hormone that boosts the body's production of red blood cells.  EPO is a substance that occurs naturally in the body, and controls red blood cell production. But an excess of EPO, used artificially, can severely ramp up red blood cell production, which in turn can take more oxygen to the muscles during athletic output – which can drastically improve performance. This announcement, made by official Chinese state media, will bring back old feelings about the Chinese swimmers in the late 80's and early 90's, where it is believed by most (and confirmed in some cases) that institutional doping was rampant in the Chinese federation as they dominated major swimming.

Chinese Olympians Subjected to State-Sponsored Doping

John Stuart
Fairfax Media 
Fairfax Australia
Last updated 12:08 27/07/2012

Chinese Olympians were subjected to a state-sponsored doping regime which was modeled on eastern Europe, says a retired Chinese Olympic doctor.

Steroids and human growth hormones were officially treated as part of ''scientific training'' as China emerged as a sporting power through the 1980s and into the 1990s, she says.

Athletes often did not know what they were being injected with and medical staff who refused to participate were marginalized, she says.

''It was rampant in the 1980s,'' Xue Yinxian told Fairfax Media in her home in Beijing's eastern suburbs. ''One had to accept it.''

The testimony of Dr Xue, whose elite roles included chief medical supervisor for the Chinese gymnastic team as it vied with the former Soviet Union for gold medals in the 1980s, will not surprise many veterans of Olympic sports.

Dr Xue does not allege that all successful Chinese athletes used drugs and has refrained, at this stage, from publicizing names.

But it is the first time anyone in the system has publicly contradicted Beijing's line that a slew of embarrassing doping busts, particularly among the Chinese swimming team in the 1990s, was merely the result of ambitious individual athletes and ignorant provincial coaches. Her allegation comes as most of China's 394-strong Olympic team arrives in London for the opening ceremony tonight, London time.

China is expected to put on another strong performance, although pundits predict the US may regain top place on the gold medal table after China's home-town success in 2008.

A Chinese official said yesterday that the country had largely solved its problem with deliberate use of performance-enhancing drugs and he was confident there would be no Chinese drugs scandals in London (note: Shiwen Ye changed that).

After the humiliation of the 1998 world swimming titles in Perth, he said China had adopted a much tougher regime, with drug testing removed from the main sports administration and placed in a separate agency.

A routine customs check of a swimmer's bag found enough human growth hormone to supply the entire women's swimming team for the duration of the meet.

''For the world of sports, in particular to the Chinese, the 1998 championships in Perth was a bad incident,'' said Zhao Jian, the deputy director-general of the China Anti-Doping Agency.

He said China had always taken a strong stance against doping and had never condoned it, but the incident prompted China to enter a ''routine, strict and legal track''.

Mr Zhao said concerns had now shifted to ''accidental'' steroid consumption, brought about by eating illegally adulterated Chinese red meat, but the general subject remains sensitive.

Internet searches for ''china'' and ''sports doping'' were blocked in Beijing yesterday, while a search for ''drugs'' coupled with the names of prominent athletes identified by Dr Xue resulted in the internet connection being temporarily severed.

Dr Xue says she fought a long but losing battle against the systematic use of drugs in elite sport since China closed the door on the Cultural Revolution and began opening to the world.

She said its top sports official told a meeting in October 1978 that performance-enhancing drugs were simply new things that should be utilised, provided they were properly understood.

''He gave the example of how a woman could use tampons to continue training while having her period,'' he said. ''And so it was with human growth hormones, which he described as a scientific training method. Whoever rejected them would face punishment or criticism.''

The Chinese women's swimming team came from obscurity to win 12 of 16 gold medals at the 1994 world titles in Rome, prompting suspicion among competitors, not least the Australian team.

Then just one month after Rome (Wikipedia), the Chinese had 11 athletes test positive for the banned drugs and anabolic steroids at the 1994 Asian Games at Hiroshima.  7 were swimmers. Two of the 7 who tested positive at the Asian games had been among the swimming victors at Rome.

In 1998, the Chinese team imploded for a second time in Perth.  Breaststroker Yuan Yuan, a silver medalist at the Rome 1994 world championships, was caught trying to smuggle 13 vials of banned growth hormone hidden in a thermos flask in her luggage into Australia ahead of the 1998 Worlds.

Le Jingyi (above & below)

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.  

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.

Marion Jones - Poster Girl for Drug Cheating

Ben Johnson's story was just the first.  We had no way of knowing it, but his story would be repeated many times over the next 20 years. 

American sprint champions Tim Montgomery, Jerome Young and Justin Gatlin were similarly busted.  Their stories bring up an important point.  While the U.S. has not been accused of systematically doping its athletes, there can be no doubt that many American athletes have made individual decisions to use drugs.  America has had its fair share of drug cheats too. 

Drug use in sports has become a world-wide problem.  As a result, these days, no one assumes the winner is the winner until the drug lab confirms it.  Even then, the medals have been known to change hands years later.

The best example is the famous American sprinter Marion Jones who was stripped of all her medals 7 years after her victories in the 2000 Sydney Olympics.  Her story shows that "retroactive disqualification" has begun.

Jones retained attorneys for battles on many fronts. 

She needed lawyers for her BALCO grand jury testimony, for negotiations with the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in her fight to avoid being banned from competition, for the defamation lawsuit she filed against BALCO founder Victor Conte, the man who accused her of taking performance-enhancing drugs, and for taking on her track coach Dan Pfaff in a breach-of-contract suit.

Jones lost every court single fight.  Her biggest problem was that she was guilty. 

In the end, Jones was stripped of her medals and forced to publicly admit that she had used performance-enhancing drugs.  Then she went to jail for six months.

It was an incredible fall from grace… one of the worst falls in sports history.

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.

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.

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 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!"

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. 

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.

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.

The Canadian Skaters

A similar judging controversy occurred at the 2002 Olympic Figure Skating Finals in Salt Lake. 

When competition ended in the pairs skating event at the Salt Lake City Olympics, fans in the audience and around the world thought they knew who'd won. Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier circled the ice triumphantly, while fans chanted "Six! Six!" demanding a perfect score for the talented duo's magnificent performance.

Those fans were silenced, however, by scores that handed the gold medal to the Russian team of Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, even though Sikharulidze had failed to appropriately land one of his double-axels.

Jamie Salé and David Pelletier's second-place finish in the 2002 Winter Olympic pairs event shocked fans and experts around the world.  The announcers on TV had gasped noticeably when the ordinals popped up on the arena scoreboard.  Their startled reaction was so unfeigned that the world instantly sat up and took notice.

The headlines said it all: "Canadian Figure Skaters Robbed!"

This tit for tat agreement would guarantee votes coming from the Russians for the French ice dancing competitors competing a few days later.

The IOC went ahead and upgraded the Canadians to a gold medal.  However, the Russians were allowed to keep their gold medal.  This was a very curious compromise given what had been discovered.  Shouldn’t the Russians be punished for their involvement in this scandal?

Alas, the whitewash was in.  This strange decision proved that cheaters do indeed win. 

The controversy rocked the public's confidence and led the sport to clean up its act. The International Skating Union developed a new judging system that seemed to be a definite improvement.

Nevertheless, whether it’s boxing, figure skating, gymnastics, or even a peculiar sport like synchronized swimming, as long as the human element is involved in the determining the outcome, there will always be controversy as well as the potential for cheating.

TONYA HARDING, THE UNDISPUTED GOLD MEDAL WINNER FOR OLYMPIC CHEATING

The story of Tonya Harding offers a disturbing peek into the darkest regions of the human soul.  It shows what can happen when someone who isn't wired together particularly well in the first place suffers too many close losses in a brief period of time. 

Just because a competitor has physical gifts doesn't guarantee they have the psychological make-up necessary to succeed at the highest levels of sport.  Learning to deal with the pain of losing is just as much a part of the game as learning how to win.

Not everyone has the strength to deal with the disappointment of a narrow loss after putting their heart and soul into the dream of winning. In the Olympics, for every winner, there isn't just one loser, there are often a dozen or so people who thought they had a legitimate chance of winning.  There are bound to be some who don't handle losing very well. They are tempted to do something unethical.

Like the others, Tonya Harding cheated because she wanted to win.  That much is clear.  Cheaters abound in all Olympic sports.   Where her story deviated from the norm was her decision to actually hurt a rival.  Until Harding came along, that was unheard of.

1991 – Almost on Top of the World

Once upon a time, Tonya Harding had stood tall on the world platform.  In 1991 Harding became the US National figure skating champion.  She had beaten both Kristi Yamaguchi and Nancy Kerrigan to take first place.  Tonya Harding was officially America's best female figure skater.

Harding didn’t know it at the time, but that would be the high water mark.  From this point on, Harding began a slow descent that drove her over the edge with frustration.

The fall didn’t happen all at once.  In fact, Harding followed her US victory with a strong showing at the 1991 World Championships.  She finished in second place.

You would think she was happy.  After all, finishing one spot behind was her contemporary Nancy Kerrigan.  But Harding didn’t care about Kerrigan at that point. 

Tonya Harding was furious because she had narrowly missed becoming the World Champion.  Harding could not believe that Kristi Yamaguchi had passed her to win the World title.  How could Harding let Yamaguchi slip ahead of her to win the top prize?  For crying out loud, Harding had just beaten this woman one month earlier back in the USA! 

Harding had barely missed becoming the best skater in the world. It was that close. The anguish of losing to someone she should have beaten was almost more than Harding could bear.

1992 – A series of near misses

Harding slipped another notch in 1992.  It started with the 1992 US Nationals.  In this event, Kristi Yamaguchi replaced Harding as the US Champion.  Even more galling, Nancy Kerrigan finished second.  Harding had slipped all the way to third.  

Both rivals had passed her.  No matter. Harding was sure this was just an aberration.  She would beat both of them at the upcoming 1992 Winter Olympics in Albertville.  No such luck.  It was a terrific showing for the Americans.  Not only did Kristi Yamaguchi win the women’s figure skating crown and Nancy Kerrigan took the Bronze Medal.  Midori Ito of Japan finished second.

So where was Harding?  Harding was beside herself with frustration.  Harding had been in front of Kerrigan for most of the competition only to see her rival edge her out for the Bronze on the final round.  Harding finished fourth.  She was forced to watch in the shadows as Yamaguchi and Kerrigan climbed the pedestals to receive their medals.  Harding could not believe that Kerrigan had just nosed her out for the final medal.  She was consumed with despair. 

First Yamaguchi had passed her.  Now Kerrigan had passed her.  This feeling was awful because Harding knew she was a better skater than Kerrigan.  Harding fumed with bitterness at narrowly missing winning an Olympic medal.  This anger became the prime source of her resentment towards the world in general and Kerrigan in particular.

The next humiliation came one month later.  In the 1992 World Figure Skating Championships, Yamaguchi reigned supreme again.   Nancy Kerrigan skated beautifully to capture Second place.  Harding slipped all the way to sixth place.  Now her confidence was really shaken.

1993 - Another Difficult Year

After Kristi Yamaguchi won all three major championships in 1992, she decided to go out on top and turn professional.  This left the field open for Kerrigan and Harding to fight it out for the top spot. 

This is when Harding began to obsess on Kerrigan.  She was worried because it seemed like she and Kerrigan were going in opposite directions.  Kerrigan had finished 2nd, 3rd, and 2nd in last year's major competitions.  Harding had finished 3rd, 4th, and 6th.  This was unacceptable.  Harding vowed that in 1993 she would catch Kerrigan and regain her spot as America's top figure skater.

Easier said than done.  Unfortunately, it was Nancy Kerrigan who won the 1993 US National Women’s Figure Skating Championship.  Harding finished fourth.  Not even close.  The harder she tried, the worse she did.  Harding was fit to be tied. 

To everyone's surprise, Kerrigan's run of strong finishes was broken when she slipped to 5^th place in the 1993 World Championships.  Harding should have been able to take advantage, but Harding did not even appear.  In the middle of a divorce, Harding was a mess.  She had failed to even qualify for the Worlds team.  1993 had been no better than 1992.  In fact, 1993 was worse.

Harding began to fixate on the upcoming 1994 Winter Olympics.  This would be her last best chance at world glory.

Rivals

You could not have asked for two more different women than Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding. 

Harding was a raw athlete who came from the wrong side of the tracks. Harding had more natural ability, but far less training. Harding resented Kerrigan because she believed Kerrigan had gotten all the breaks in the life.  Harding believed if she had gotten the same kind coaching as Kerrigan, she would have been unbeatable.

Harding also knew she was plain.  She wasn’t happy about that either.  Kerrigan on the other hand was a stately, beautiful young woman.  When you put the two of them on ice together, all eyes naturally went to Kerrigan and Harding knew it.

Kerrigan was your archetypal disciplined hard worker who got the most out what talent she had.  She was a polished skater who was more ‘aristocrat’ than ‘athlete’.  What Kerrigan lacked in talent she made up for with poise and constant training. 

Gillooly decided he needed a hitman.  Literally. He found a low-life buddy named Shane Stuart who was willing to do the job. 

On January 6, 1994, as Kerrigan left the ice after practice, Stuart came out of nowhere to club Kerrigan in the knee with a collapsible police baton.  As Kerrigan screamed in pain,  Stuart ran away and escaped.

Kerrigan collapsed and began to sob profusely.  The blow hurt terribly, but Kerrigan also cried because she thought her Olympic dream was over.  She wailed "Why, why, why?"

Incredibly, the entire incident was caught on camera.  Kerrigan could be seen falling down and grabbing her knee.  This dramatic video became a round-the-clock staple of nearly every news organization in the world for days after the attack. 

Listening to the young girl’s plaintive wail made the entire nation... make that the entire world... feel extreme sympathy.

Physically Kerrigan wasn’t 100%, but everyone could see she was able to skate well enough to potentially medal.  The US Skating Association went ahead and gave the spot they were saving to Kerrigan.  Now Kerrigan was on the Olympic team as well. 

While Kerrigan's star was rising in the days leading up Lillehammer, Harding found herself in a heap of trouble.  Harding was in the middle of a criminal investigation into the attack on Kerrigan.

The plot had unraveled almost immediately.  On the same day as the attack, the police had received an anonymous tip that pointed them straight to Jeff Gillooly. 

This led to a bizarre situation.  Kerrigan was fully aware that Harding was behind her attack.  However, Kerrigan had no choice but to share the ice with the same woman who had tried to hurt her.  This scenario was incredibly stressful for both women, but the press loved it. 

The media covered Nancy Kerrigan non-stop.  Kerrigan had become the biggest star in the world. Thanks to the world-wide outpouring of sympathy, the fame Kerrigan had acquired from the attack led to further professional opportunities. 

It was reported that Nancy Kerrigan had signed contracts for $9.5 million before the Olympic competition had even begun.  Talk about turning lemons into lemonade!

Meanwhile, Harding became the most hated woman in the world. It was a sportswriter's dream when Tonya's trailer park world collided with the artsy aesthetics of figure skating and the classy Kerrigan.  “The Whack Heard Around The World," as it was known in the headlines, was the beginning of Harding's tabloid notoriety.

On the other hand, once the Olympics ended, Harding’s world came crashing down on her. She admitted in a plea bargain that she had been involved with ex-husband Jeff Gillooly in the scheme to injure Kerrigan right from the start. By coming clean, Harding was at least able to avoid jail time. Gillooly wasn’t so lucky. He got two years in prison.

Harding was subsequently stripped of her national title and banned from amateur skating.  Harding had lost the only thing she had ever cared about.  It was also the only thing she was good at.  Harding began a rapid descent into the abyss.  Barred from skating, she had nothing else with which to support herself other than her bad reputation.  At this point, Harding reverted to the Trailer Park lifestyle.  She turned into a complete hillbilly.  Never a pretty girl to begin with, Harding gained a great deal weight and wore a perpetual frown.  She competed in female boxing and went on some wild drinking sprees.  To make things worse, she released a sex tape that was so bad it was rumored to cause blindness.

In this bizarre tale of two women, it is illuminating to see how badly Harding’s plan backfired on her.   What a bunch of misfits!  Not only did the incompetent hitman fail to inflict any serious injury on Kerrigan, someone in her camp turned her in to the cops almost immediately.

Maybe it really is true that cheaters never win, but certainly not cheaters as pathetic as Tonya Harding.  Without a doubt, her final epitaph will point out that Harding is the all-time icon for poor sportsmanship.  What a thing to be remembered for.

The Brighter Side of the Olympics

For all the horrible stories I have listed, please remember that the Olympics can also be incredibly inspiring. My favorite Olympic sports stories are about people like Jesse Jones, a black man who shattered Hitler’s myth of Aryan supremacy at the 1936 Berlin Games by winning the 100 meters.  Another great story was watching little Kerri Strug with her badly-swollen sprained ankle nail a vault to give the Americans a razor-thin victory over the Russians in 1996 Atlanta.  Such courage to overcome certain pain and still perform!!

Abebe Bikila

However my favorite Olympic story is about an unknown runner from Ethiopia named Abebe Bikila.  Bikila was a last-minute replacement in the marathon for an injured teammate in the 1960 Rome Olympics.

Bikila had absolutely no presence on the world stage.  No one had ever heard of this guy before.  In the days leading up to the race, out of nowhere a rumor emerged that Bikila's unofficial personal best for the marathon was even better than the world record.  However this was widely dismissed as impossible blather.  How ridiculous!   Who were these Africans trying to fool?

The rumor turned out to be true.  Bikila would win the race, shatter the Olympic record and set a new world best.  However, what Bikila is most famous for is getting up on the podium without shoes.  That’s when everyone in the stadium realized that Bikila had run the entire 26 miles barefooted on the burning hot, frequently rutted concrete.  He had done this because his delegation was too poor to find him proper equipment.

The entire world was incredulous.  How on earth did this man set a world record for running a 26 mile race barefooted?  The pain must have been unbearable!

Bikila’s victory was the first hint of things to come. It marked the rise and future dominance of East African middle- and long-distance runners. 

However, what I liked bestwas the powerful symbolism.  This was a huge upset victory for the little guy against tyranny and prejudice. 

Bikila’s victory came in Italy, the land that had cruelly oppressed the Ethiopian people for centuries.  Back home, Bikila became an instant national hero.  He had embarrassed the Italians in much the same way that Jesse Owens had embarrassed Hitler and the German 'supermen'.

Even more interesting, Bikila’s victory came in the presence of the all-white South African team back in the days of apartheid.  What do you suppose went through their bigoted, hate-filled minds as they watched the first black African to ever win a gold medal in Olympic history cross the finish line? 

In world-record time no less!  And barefoot too...

Bikila’s victory came against the vastly better funded and better-equipped Soviet, U.S. and European athletes.  He beat the greatest sports machines on the planet all by himself.  No coaches, no equipment, no special diet, and certainly no scientific training regimen.  It was just Bikila against the world.