Summer Olympics 2000 Steroids, angry mobs became stories of Sydney

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Friday, September 29
Steroids, angry mobs became stories of Sydney
By Mark Kreidler
Special to ESPN.com

SYDNEY, Australia -- Well, Irv, another thrilling, down-to-the-wire finish here, but it looks like we'll be going with Marie-Jose Perec as this Olympiad's winner of the coveted Greatest Theatrics Produced By A Non-Participant golden chalice.

And let us just take this moment to thank all of our finalists, who once again have reminded the audience that it's not about what you actually do at the Games, it's about how often the cameras of the world to swing your way, whether you want them to or not.

It was a brutally close race this year. In the one corner stood C.J. Hunter, a man not normally considered a sprinter, who nonetheless displayed tremendous closing speed by crying at a news conference called to refute four positive tests for steroids. In another corner wobbled the gentlemen from the IOC, led by Prince Alexandre de Merode, who decided the middle of the Games was the perfect time to start mentioning how many countries, the U.S. foremost among them, had essentially covered up drug scandals in the past.

You had your Carl Lewis, who made the Aussie papers about a million times, apparently for being in Australia. You had your Dick Ebersol, the NBC guy, who got more face- and quote-time than several thousand of the participating athletes here while explaining that his network's dull ratings for the Games could be safely blamed on the existence of the equator.

Tough field. But we're going with Perec, the Frenchwoman who won both the 200-and 400-meter gold medals in Atlanta in 1996, for managing to inject herself into the Cathy Freeman story without so much as donning her country's colors.

From the time she arrived in Australia, Perec provided the international media with an almost limitless source of rumor, intrigue, false sightings, high drama and stunning turnaround -- in short, everything you'd want from an Olympian, so long as you don't count the part about actually competing in the Olympics.

Perec was thought to be at least nominally standing between Freeman and her destiny in the women's 400. Instead, Perec actually became the story at a couple of moments in which you'd have thought it impossible to detract attention from Freeman. She refused to show up with her countrymates. She practiced in secrecy. She failed even to contact the French national team, which honestly had no idea where she was most of the time. She granted no interviews, yet went on her web site with several postings, including one in which she claimed to be "freaked out" by the entire Olympic atmosphere in general and the intrusive media in particular.

She intimated that she was being driven crazy by all the pressure. And then, of course, she bolted the country on the eve of the 400s, claiming to have been harassed and threatened in her hotel despite the fact that hotel security and security cameras could find no trace of any such incident. Then her boyfriend got into a scrape with a cameraman at the Melbourne airport.

Once safely away from the screaming hordes -- we never saw any, but there must have been some -- Perec granted an interview to the French sports daily L'Equipe in which she said she felt confident she would have run a faster time than did Freeman in her triumphant, politically charged race to victory in the 400.

"Life is really bizarre, no?" Perec said.

For you, my dear, it always is.

Notables

Most Impressive Flame-Out: Naim Suleymanoglu, aka the Pocket Hercules. The man came to Sydney looking for a third straight weightlifting gold medal basically after having taken the four years since Atlanta as an extended break, during which time he reportedly mostly drank, smoke and chased women. Even at that, he was almost automatically ceded a medal of some color even by his competitors, who consider him the best of all time. On the opening night of his competition, Herc chose as his starting lift a weight that would have set an Olympic record, stormed onto the stage and promptly whiffed three straight times. It was brilliant while it lasted.

Greatest Indictment of the Current Drug Policies: Sixteen-year-old Andreea Raducan was stripped of her gold medal in the individual all-around portion of women's gymnastics after testing positive for a banned substance contained in a cold-medicine tablet given to her by the Romanian team doctor -- and people actually found themselves saying, "Well, she should have known not to take anything at all, right?"

Best Scene That Didn't Occur: The pair of shoes set on the mat, silent declaration by the great Russian Greco-Roman wrestler, Alexander Karelin, that he was hanging it up after going 14 straight years without a defeat. In the gold-medal match, Kareline was beaten 1-0 by American Rulon Gardner, perhaps the greatest upset in the history of the sport. He never did set those shoes on the mat.

Your next Los Angeles Dodgers Manager: Tommy Lasorda. Tan, rested, ready.

Moment That Someone Will Call Ironic, But Mostly It Was Just Rich: Australian long-jumper Jai Taurima, who said during pre-Olympic training that the dark-skinned jumpers from the warm-weather countries would have trouble in Sydney's cool spring weather, led his competition going into the final jump. He was beaten by Ivan Pedroso, who, last we checked, was still from Cuba.

Mark Kreidler is a columnist for the Sacramento Bee, which has a Web site at http://www.sacbee.com/.

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