The press, could barely contain its snickers; Hunter has always had a pronounced distaste for reporters. But the glee over Hunter’s predicament was hardly confined to the media. Non-American sports officials were almost in full-celebration mode over the damage done to the American sports program. After all, the United States had been finger-pointing about drug use for years, seizing on fact, rumor and innuendo. The world was sick of America’s sanctimony and saw the Hunter case as the United States finally getting a bit of its own. Some also felt it confirmed suspicions that the American program didn’t police its athletes adequately and covered up its scandals.
Indeed, when a foreign competitor tests positive, the American establishment demands no mercy. But when it’s one of our kids, some wholesome Yank, officials generally find all kinds of extenuating circumstances. Typical was the case of the young swimmer Jessica Foschi, who in 1995, at age 15, tested positive for steroids. Foschi had a simple defense: someone must have put something in her drink. “I’m a good girl,” she said. “I’m try to do the right thing.” While her explanation was certainly possible (and she was a charming American teen), the bottom line has always been the test itself. Fair or not, there’s no room for explanations or conspiracy theories; the test itself talks the loudest. Still, U.S. Swimming rejected an international ban and reduced Foschi’s punishment to probation.
Which is why it should not go unnoticed that there is finally a positive sign that the United States Olympic Committee (USOC) may at long last be getting it right on drugs. It recently announced that all athletes, including pros, who might hope to compete in the Olympics must be willing to submit to random drug testing for up to a year ahead of the Games. For pros like the NBAers and NHLers, this means a possible drug exposure that does not exist in their leagues, where unions negotiate complex agreements on testing and take great pains to keep negative results secret. And unless a compromise can be found, pro basketballers and hockey players may decide the risk is not worth the reward, a reward many of them already consider, at best, a dubious honor.
But this is hardly a cause for concern. Indeed it may even be reason for celebration. America’s original Dream Team happened at a magnificent moment in time. But that moment was a decade ago. And since then, the Dream has turned tepid. With each subsequent Olympics, the effort has been more lackluster and the NBA all-stars less resemble a team. In Sydney, they strutted and flaunted their stuff-and barely bested disciplined teams from Lithuania and France that played to win, not to make the highlight films. Keeping them home might spare the NBA that final ignominy of defeat.
And in its first Olympic appearance, the NHL all-stars shamed themselves on and off the ice. They were quickly blown out of the tournament, losing to a Czech team that displayed the kind of passionate nationalism that produced America’s “Miracle on Ice” back in 1980. Then a few Yanks compounded their sorry play by trashing their Olympic village rooms, a pathetic (not to mention expensive) breech of protocol for which no one ever took responsibility.
Drugs remain the worst specter hanging over the Olympics. If the United States Olympic Committee has finally taken a modest step toward a credible attempt to purge them from our sports programs, then it deserves our applause. And if the pros want to stay home as a result, the Olympics won’t miss them at all.
