|
The IOC: Deserving of more than a snicker?
By Christopher Galakoutis
| Thursday, December 17 2009 10:32:51 AM |
| |
|
|
In a well-written piece on the International Olympic Committee/Katerina Thanou story this past week titled “Tough Justice ensures gold glitters,” by John Leicester of the Associated Press, the writer takes a stand alongside the IOC that many readers will be sympathetic to.
Outside of the legal questions central to this case, that HellenicAthletes.com has previously written about and sides with Ms. Thanou on, the AP piece does a good job raising important arguments as well as documenting the difficult position the IOC found itself in trying to decide a resolution to the case.
Mr. Leicester quotes IOC vice president Thomas Bach, who explained that, “Awarding a gold medal means granting an honor and so the question is whether today she (Thanou) would deserve such an honor.” Mr. Bach added, “We are of the opinion that she does not deserve that honor.”
What is true from Mr. Bach’s statement is that opinions can change over time. New facts often come to light that call into question results and awards from years past.
But what his statement should make obvious to everyone is that the IOC is incapable of stamping any medal as clean at the time of its award. It took confirmed doper Marion Jones losing her Sydney medals (credit for that bust belongs elsewhere, not with the IOC) for the IOC to take a stand and ensure in their minds those medals were then awarded to a “clean” athlete.
The obvious question though is why the IOC awarded the medals to Jones in the first place.
The answer is that in many cases cheating, or strong suspicions that a certain athlete cheated -- obtained from say, non-analytical positives such as in the BALCO case, is only determined years after the fact.
“It was a moral standpoint we wanted to express,” said Mr. Bach in the AP piece. “This is exactly the message that we wanted to send, that the gold medal carries also the values with it.”
One wonders though if Mr. Bach is referring to all gold medals or just the medal the IOC is refusing to award to Ms. Thanou.
Justin Gatlin, for instance, tested positive in 2006. He is the Olympic gold medalist from 2004 in the men’s 100m. Like Ms. Thanou in 2000, there is no evidence that Mr. Gatlin did anything wrong in 2004. There are many examples.
Accepting a "one strike and you’re out" retroactive approach with doping code violators is not disagreeable. But in that new, tough standard era for the IOC does a Gatlin get to keep his, or does he need to prove today that, ethically, he deserves the medal, too?
In the AP piece, Mr. Bach argued that taking Ms. Thanou’s silver medal away would mean, “…sanctioning her retroactively and this is another issue.”
With all due respect to Mr. Bach, that is a cop out. A decision to strip Ms. Thanou of that silver medal absent any hard evidence would have opened a Pandora’s box, and embarrassed both the IOC and the IAAF. Mr. Bach knows this.
The IOC has a problem on its hands if it doesn’t look at other cases under its new hard-line regime. Its handling of the Thanou case will be seen -- if not now then eventually -- as arbitrary and vindictive.
I have written in the past that discriminating in such a manner threatens to reduce the IOC to an organization that relies more on the applause meter (and the prejudices of those doing the applauding) and less on sound legal principles and policies that are applied evenly to each and every athlete.
For it seems to us that under the IOC’s tougher standard there are Olympic medalists out there today who probably do not deserve them. And by its own actions this past week, the IOC has drawn attention to every medal it has ever awarded.
It has also ensured that at future award ceremonies, many will only snicker.
*****
.jpg) |
|
Chris Galakoutis is a business and sports writer, as well as the founder and managing editor of HellenicAthletes.com. He can be reached at Chris@hellenicathletes.com
|
© 2009 HellenicAthletes.com.
All Rights Reserved.
This article may NOT be reproduced without the expressed, written permission of the author, in accordance with United States and international copyright laws. Selective quotations are permissible as long as the author and this web site are acknowledged through hyperlink to: www.hellenicathletes.com
|
