In the last 40 years, the Olympics have been defined not only by the achievements of its athletes, but the lengths to which they went in order to accentuate their performances.
The individual names are legion: Ben Johnson, Marion Jones, Lance Armstrong, Tyson Gay. These are some of the most famous athletes who had to return Olympic medals as drug cheats.
But in addition, there were entire teams, entire countries which were caught cheating. Chinese swimmers received a lot of attention because of their performance improvements over a short period of time, and the scrutiny has remained since some Chinese swimmers who tested positive for a banned steroid were allowed to compete in Paris. Too, the swimmers had their suspensions reversed behind closed doors.
Russian athletes, especially from 2010 to 2016, were beneficiaries of a state-sponsored system which not only allowed athletes to take performance-enhancing drugs, but a weakened testing system where scientists looked the other way when samples were switched in the lab. To this day, Russian athletes have been barred from competing for their country in not only the Olympics, but other sports. Indeed, it was less than a year ago when FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, ended the ban on the Russian federation.
While eyes were watching the Paris Olympics, celebrities in the stands, and the quality (or lack thereof) in some newer events, there were almost no stories about athletes being caught in drug testing. The list thus far has been extremely short: Iraq’s Sajjag Sehen, Nigeria’s Cynthia Ongunsemilore, Afghanistan’s Mohammad Samim Faizad, and Congo’s Dominique Lasconi Mulamba.
Somehow, I can’t believe that only four athletes doped at these Olympics. It’s not because of empirical evidence, but what I know about human nature and the “if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying” ethic that is endemic in many athletic endeavors.
I also don’t think you’re going to see a post-Olympic flurry of announcements surrounding drug cheats. Critics have charged that the World Anti-Doping Agency, the thin line keeping cheating at bay in sport, has been weakened through underfunding as well as undermining actions by some national governing bodies of athletics.
Six weeks ago, former swimmer Michael Phelps sounded the alarm on Capitol Hill.
“As athletes,” he told a Congressional committee, “our faith can no longer be blindly placed in the World Anti-Doping Agency, an organization that continues to proves that it is either incapable or unwilling to enforce its policies consistently around the world.”
Travis Tygart, the head of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, went so far as to accuse WADA of having too cozy a relationship with the Chinese government.
“It’s the fox guarding the henhouse. When you have sport leaders who have an interest in the decision that they’re making, that can’t be an independent decision,” he told Congress.
It’s amazing that the World Anti-Doping Agency, which had done yeoman work in the wake of the Bay Area Laboratory Company (BALCO) scandals, has been rendered toothless in the last few years. It’s a fall reminiscent of those experienced by the disgraced athletes.
