Sunday, July 18, 2004

Marathon Man According to the Sydney Morning Herald: The US 4x400 metres relay team, led by Michael Johnson, is likely to be stripped of its Sydney Olympics gold medal because one of its members tested positive for nandrolone in 1999. David Wharton, writing in the LA Times, explains why this action has taken over four years: The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency has a strict policy about guarding athletes' privacy in such matters.  A USADA spokesman said the agency rarely comments on -- or acknowledges the existence of -- drug cases until a violation is confirmed. This isn't the criminal justice system where, for example, a felony sexual assault against Kobe Bryant is public record.  In Olympic sports, anti-doping officials rarely disclose positive tests or charges until the matter is resolved weeks or months later. -- Or years later, in this case. The reductio ad absurdum of this policy is that the USADA will one day reveal that Phidippides, the messenger who expired after running 26 miles from Marathon to Athens to deliver the news of the Greek victory over the Persians in 490 BC, died not of exhaustion as previously thought, but from an overdose of banned substances. 10:51:59 PM