12/22/24
July 21, 2005
USA Can Keep 2000 Track Gold: The Court of Arbitration for Sport has ruled that the 2000 Olympic Champions in the 4x100m relay can keep their gold medals ... well, except for Jerome Young, who's a dirty rotten cheater. Also dirty rotten cheaters: the USOC, who caught Young doping in 1999 but covered it up; and relay team members Alvin and Calvin Harrison, who are currently serving suspensions for post-2000 doping offenses. Hurrah for the champs!
Hey Amateur, you competed in '96 - whilst still protecting your annonimity - give us some scoopage! I'm dying to know. And for the record, the USTFA is a bunch of lying cheaters. Drives me nuts the way they protect the good cheaters and expose the bad ones. Cough, Marion Jones, cough.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 11:54 AM on July 21, 2005
Why is'nt Congress conducting hearings on this? I for one am outraged! Do'nt they have anything better to do with their time?
posted by volfire at 01:16 PM on July 21, 2005
Why isnt congress doing something about this? Um...because who gives a flying shit? Every track star dopes, and if he/she doesnt then they arent competitive. I am betting you think that is what congress can fix, but I think you are wrong. Why dont we try to remove track all together instead of waisting our congress' time with shit that doesnt matter.
posted by BubbaG at 02:00 PM on July 21, 2005
Bubba: Check it out.
posted by fabulon7 at 02:18 PM on July 21, 2005
And they wonder why viewing numbers for track have dropped so much the last decade. Even a decade ago, there used to be a lot more televised races even on network TV (in North America at least), but one drug scandal after another, combined with at least the impression of apathy and cover-ups at the highest levels of the sport, make it hard to watch even the Golden Spike events without the nagging feeling that everyone is doping, and the real test is not on the track or in the pit, but in the testing room afterwards. The USTFA, though their inability to deal with this issue properly, is killing their sport in the eyes of the public. And for millennia, it was the most majestic and purest form of human competition there ever was, so that's one hell of a dubious accomplishment.
posted by chicobangs at 02:19 PM on July 21, 2005
u cn red?
posted by volfire at 05:06 PM on July 21, 2005
Alvin and Calvin - didn't they have their own cartoon show?
posted by JJ at 04:48 AM on July 22, 2005
WeedyMcSmokey, here's the photographic evidence. Special honours to the Olympic trivia guru who can correctly identify this event. We finished seventh, by the way. No doubt something smells bad at USTFA and the USOC. (Also I have little doubt that Marion Jones is guilty, but that's a topic for another day.) More to the immediate point, this most recent decision by the CAS is completely ridiculous. How can Jerome Young be disqualified, but not the rest of the team? What kind of twisted logic is that? On the other hand, to respond to chicobangs, I think that public perception vastly overestimates the incidence of doping in track and field. I really do not believe that "everybody's doing it." Even in the men's 100m I think that there are clean athletes in the top 10 in the world. But you are absolutely right that the USTFA has done nothing to improve public perception of these athletes or their sport. By failing to catch the offenders, they have punished everybody.
posted by Amateur at 07:58 AM on July 22, 2005
Ah, my friend, I watched you compete (my roommate is an avid canoeist and kayaker). Congratulations on living out such a great dream. Wow, I'm buttressed by some serious Canuck pride right now. Today will be a good day.
posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 08:16 AM on July 22, 2005
Someone call for an Olympic trivia guru? Looks like a K4 1000 metre race to me. I'm gonna take a punt and say you guys finished seventh in the final.
posted by JJ at 08:23 AM on July 22, 2005
I should have realized that the SportsFilter crowd is not a representative sample of sports fans.
posted by Amateur at 08:42 AM on July 22, 2005
Amateur is a kayaker! YAAAAAY!!!!
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:34 AM on July 22, 2005
Is Amateur our only Olympian? If there are others, I need their help.
posted by JJ at 10:12 AM on July 22, 2005
Ah, the pride of the USofA! Should we be complaining that it took 5 years?