Thursday, July 15, 2021

OLYMPICS 'SI,' IOC 'NO'

 

               Let me say from the beginning that I like the Olympics. Indeed, I’m a big fan, having covered eight of them (Summer Games in Los Angeles, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta and Sydney; Winter Games at Calgary, Albertville and Lillehammer), and rank the experiences among my most memorable.  For color, excitement and quality of athletic performance they can’t be surpassed. Many a grizzled pro has been touched by the Olympic aura and known to shed a tear on a medals platform.

               What I don’t like is the International Olympic Committee, which puts together the events.  It’s a self-appointed, self-perpetuating body that’s responsible only to itself, and a bunch of boodlers to boot. Its allegiance isn’t to the athletes or to sport in general but to itself—it’s perks, profits and whatever it can plunder. The world would be better off without it.

               For proof one need look no further than Olympiad XXXII (don’t you love those Roman numerals?), set to begin next Friday (July 23) in Tokyo. Already delayed for a year, it’s an Olympics that few really want, proceeding amidst a covid pandemic that has reached crisis proportions in its host country. Foreign visitors have been barred and domestic attendance sharply curtailed. Competitors must be masked and observe social distancing when they aren’t on their fields of play, even among their teammates. They’ve been asked to show up, perform and get out, with mingling or loitering not encouraged. So much for the international amity the Games are supposed to promote.

 Spectators must be masked throughout their visits. No cheering or shouting will be permitted, although one no knows how those edicts will be enforced. Be advised, though, that prime game seats will be filled by the VIP throng that always accompanies the Games— IOC functionaries, sports’ federation bureaucrats and sponsors and their pals. It’s estimated they’ll be more numerous than the 11,500 or so men and women who will compete. There’s no room for athletes’ families but plenty for them, and in Tokyo’s best hotels. The latter perk is ever the case.

The opposition to these Games has been most pronounced in Japan, a wealthy country with a disciplined population but one that was slow to react to the pandemic. Distribution of vaccines was hindered by the government’s refusal to accept international efficacy tests, insisting instead on ones involving only Japanese, and at first it allowed only physicians and nurses to administer the shots. Vaccines finally are widely available but the national vaccination rate of less than 20% lags well behind that of other developed lands, and hospitalizations have risen sharply of late. Ashai Shimbun, the country’s leading newspaper, last month called for the Games to be canceled on public-safety grounds. So did the Toyko Medical Practitioners’ Association.

Local opposition also has an economic basis. Like just about every recent Summer Games Tokyo’s costs far exceeded expectations, reportedly about doubling its $15 billion initial budget. The IOC put up only $1.5 billion, leaving the Japanese government and private interests holding the bag, and the ban on most foreign visitors rules out much recapture through tourism spending.   By contrast, the IOC makes most of its income from the awarded-in-advance sale of TV rights—coming to about $4 billion this time around—and will make out fine if the Games go off on schedule.

IOC members also do all right in the pocket-stuffing department, with bribery instances and allegations attending every recent Games, usually involving the awarding of the host cities. In this one, the chairman of the Tokyo Organization Committee had to resign when a French investigation showed his group made a $2 million payment to a firm run by the son of a prominent IOC member. And that’s just the one that came to light. “Swag bags” at IOC functions are famous for their opulence. No IOC member ever exited an airliner from the rear, it’s said.

It’s no wonder, then, that the “show must go on” mentality that’s long animated the Games also has obtained in this one. Hey, the show went on in Munich in 1972 after terrorists kidnapped and killed 11 Israeli athletes, and merely hiccuped in Atlanta in 1996 after a bomb blast in an outdoor evening concert in Olympic Plaza killed two people and injured more than 100. What’s a little flu compared to that?

The same ethos governs the way Olympic competitions are run. Putin’s Russia made a farce of the 2014 Winter Games it hosted in Sochi by sending out a battalion of doped-up athletes to dominate the medals board. Then it tried to hide its misdeeds with a B-Movie scheme to swap “clean” urine for dirty by passing the samples through a hole in the wall of the Games’ testing lab. It later doubled down on that offense by hindering efforts of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) to investigate it.

 A few sports federations, including the one governing track and field, booted the Russians from their events, but the harshest penalty the IOC could muster was to prohibit the Russian flag and anthem from its parades and victory stands.  Russian athletes competed In Rio in 2016 under those terms and will again in Tokyo under the supposedly neutral banner of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).  Better for business if you keep ‘em in, don’t you know?

Some sports, such as basketball, ice hockey, soccer, skiing, boxing and tennis, are so thoroughly international they don’t need the Olympic platform.  Most of the others stage annual world championships whose titles equal Olympic gold in achievement if not acclaim.  If they seek a bigger stage those activities could combine their events every four years and sell a TV package.

But yeah¸ I know, that probably ain’t gonna happen, so we must hold our noses to enjoy the Games. I suppose it’s possible for the IOC to reform itself, but its scam is too successful for that. Such is life.

   

 

 

Thursday, July 1, 2021

NEWS & VIEWS

 

 

NEWS:  A noted track athlete was suspended when a performance-enhancing drug was found in her system. She blamed it on a burrito.

VIEWS: Ay, caramba!

Shelby Houlihan, who holds the American women’s records in the 1,500- and 5,000-meter runs, last month was handed a four-year competitive ban when she tested positive for nandrolone, a hairy-chested steroid favored by weightlifters, after a December race. It eliminated her from contention for this year’s Olympics.

Houlihan reacted with dismay and made a list of everything she’d eaten during the week before the test. She said the likely culprit was a burrito she’d purchased at a food truck near her Beaverton, Oregon, home that might have contained pork raised in Mexico. Some Mexican meat producers are said to use steroids to beef up their animals.

Her contention, rejected by a sports court, caused many eyes to roll, but it had been tried before, and successfully. In 2015 Duane Brown, an offensive tackle for the Houston Texans of the National Football League, beat a 10-game league drugs rap when he produced restaurant receipts indicating he’d scarfed at least 10 hamburgers and two steaks during a pre-test trip to Mexico. Apparently, size counts in such matters.

Further, the burrito defense isn’t the most unlikely ever offered. In 2011 several members of the North Korean women’s national soccer team said their positive pre-Olympic tests stemmed from a native deer-musk remedy they’d taken after being struck by lightning.  American bicyclist Tyler Hamilton said his elevated testosterone level was due to his having absorbed a “vanished twin” into his body in utero.

American sprinter Dennis Mitchell claimed his 1998 ban stemmed from his having had sex with his wife four times the night before the positive drug test. “It was her birthday,” he explained. Another American sprinter, Lashawn Merritt, made an opposite claim, saying he’d taken a penis-enhancing product called ExtenZe just before his 2010 test. “Any penalty I have received will not overshadow the embarrassment and humiliation I feel,” he lamented.

NEWS: Major League Baseball announces a crackdown on pitchers’ use of sticky substances on baseballs.

VIEW: Get a grip!

               Finding itself in an era of pitcher domination, MLB last week instituted 10-game suspensions for pitchers found to be doctoring balls, and said it would actively enforce the ruling. The backdrop to the declaration is several years of declining batting averages and soaring strikeout rates. Not long ago a batting average of .230 and a 100-a-year strikeout pace gave position players tickets to the minors. Today such stats are, um, average.

               Another impetus for the move is the newish baseball stat of “spin rate”, which measures a delivery’s rotations and is much on the lips of the game’s TV and radio announcers. High spin rates allow pitches to better retain their velocity and “break” more sharply. Having a better grip on the ball helps with that. A lot.

               Doctored baseballs go back to the game’s earliest days, with enforcement against them waxing and waning over the years. One notable (and confessed) diamond physician, Gaylord Perry, played hide and seek with the umps over a 21-year career (1962-83) that resulted in 314 wins and a Hall of Fame berth. Apparently, today’s pitchers haven’t needed to be as creative as Perry in fashioning their potions; a browse of the internet reveals that commercial products with names like Spin It, Spider Tack and Gorilla Gold are readily available to stickum seekers.

               The first week of the ban created some interesting displays; Oakland A’s pitcher Sergio Romo dropped (and quickly raised) his pants when approached by umps for an on-the-mound inspection. The first pitcher to be ejected was the Seattle Mariners’ Hector Santiago, in a game last Sunday. He squawked loudly, claiming his only stick-aid was sweat mixed with legal resin.  Expect to hear that defense repeated in days to come amid much sturm und drang.

NEWS: Several pro-team athletes say “no” to covid vaccines.

               VIEWS: Just say “yes.”

               While our professional sports are joyfully kicking the traces of about a year and a half of restrictions caused by the covid virus, rearguard actions are being waged. Among the recalcitrant are Anthony Rizzo and Jason Heyward of the Chicago Cubs. Due to their stances and those of unnamed others, the Cubs say they are unable to reach the 85% vaxxed mark for all personnel MLB has set to allow teams to return all their activities to pre-covid “normals.” As of the last official pronouncement, eight of the majors’ 30 teams had fallen short.

               Rizzo and Heyward are veteran players and reputed clubhouse leaders of their team. Both said they weren’t anti-vax but want to “see more data” before receiving their jabs, although neither specified what that data might be. Their choices will sit heavily on their teammates, who must continue to observe masking and social-distancing protocols in their dugouts, weight and locker rooms and medical and training facilities until the 85% cutoff is met.

               Yeah, I know, not getting vaxxed has become a “freedom” issue with some, although that particular freedom amounts to a willingness to catch and pass on a potentially fatal illness that continues to spread. And yeah, big-time jocks have the same right of expression as the rest of us, whether or not we applaud what they say. But the prominence and wealth their positions command do, or should, carry with them greater-than-usual responsibility, making them role models even if they don’t wish it. They should ask themselves how they’d like to live in a world that follows their examples.