Suspension of belief is required to enjoy the spirit of the Olympics

UNFORTUNATELY, enjoyment of the Olympic Games often requires something that one associates with screen or theatrical drama, or fiction: a suspension of disbelief.

Fri, 03 Aug, 2012 - 01:00

Matt Cooper

Over the years many of the events have been dogged by allegations or proof of cheating by way of the use of performance enhancing drugs. Athletics in particular has suffered from this problem, and not just the infamous 100 metres race in 1988 when Ben Johnson was stripped of his title but five other of the eight finalists are known to have had drug allegations at various times of their career.

Swimming too has featured in the list of shame, most notoriously when Irishwoman Michelle Smith de Bruin performed incredibly in winning four medals at the 1996 Atlanta games, despite having never previously indicated such ability. In 1998 Smith herself deliberately contaminated a surprise drug test, leading to her ban and exit from the sport. She retains her medals — because, as her supporters rightly point out, she never tested positive before 1998 — but she maintains a low profile.

For many years of watching the Tour de France we have become aware of the widespread use of prohibited substances by cyclists. Add in other power and endurance sports and then consider that even the horses have been at it, as happened when Cian O’Connor was stripped of his gold medal in show jumping for Ireland after the 2004 games. It becomes clear that many of the Olympic sports have been corrupted, often regularly. And yet we want to believe when we watch these Olympiads achieve medal positions, break world and Olympic records. We want to believe that the winning athletes are abiding by the rules, not cheating, not putting their own health at risk by blood doping, improper use of steroids and the use of other chemicals.

Unfortunately, our hopes have been tested since the very first day of these Olympics, last Saturday. The winner of cycling’s Olympic road race last Saturday, Kazakhstan’s Alexandre Vinokourov, was difficult to applaud. He had been suspended for two years in 2007 for blood doping, a ban he fought and actions for which apparently he has shown little contrition. He had announced that he was quitting the sport last year, after he crashed out of the Tour de France last year, but here he was again, and successful too.

Some elements of the British media were upset that the favourite for the race, Mark Cavendish, had lost out badly, but the captain of his team David Millar had served his own two year ban nearly a decade ago. Millar has since been a fervent anti-doping activist since, and bitterly regrets his cheating, but would his past have been revisited if he had won rather than Vinokourov, or had he led out Cavendish to success?

Bradley Wiggins has been one of the great stories of the Olympics, his victory in the individual time trial adding to his six previous medals (four of which were gold), and his recent Tour de France victory. Wiggins has been outspoken too in his opposition to drug use but his stated admiration in recent years for the most controversial cyclist of all time, Lance Armstrong, has surprised and dismayed many. Yet who wants to feel anything other than admiration for the personable Wiggins?

Unfortunately, that happens unless you suspend disbelief. That has been especially the case this week with the swimming.

YE Shiwen, the 16-year-old Chinese swimmer, had her 400m medley swim in world record time on Saturday described as “disturbing” by American John Leonard, the executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association since 1989. She swam in a time of 4:28.43, taking more than a second off the old record, and her final 50 metres was 0.17 quicker than that of the men’s winner Ryan Lochte in the men’s 400m medley earlier that evening.

Leonard said that the coaches he represents felt the swim was “unbelievable”. “We want to be very careful about calling it doping,” Leonard said. “History in our sport will tell you that every time we see something, and I will put quotation marks around this, ‘unbelievable’, history shows us that it turns out later on there was doping involved.” Leonard, who also referred to “a lot of awful memories” of Michelle Smith, said that Ye “looks like superwoman. Any time someone has looked like superwoman in the history of our sport they have later been found guilty of doping”.

Not surprisingly, the Chinese were furious. The 16-year-old had to face direct questions too from the media, which, if she is clean, is a pretty rotten thing to have to face straight after victory. Ye’s father said: “Western media has always been arrogant, and suspicious of Chinese people.” Chinese officials, and indeed many western swimming officials, have pointed out that she has been passed as clean by the Word Anti-Doping Agency.

Adrian Moorhouse, who won gold for Great Britain at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, said: “I think it is sour grapes. I think it’s insulting actually. You saw the Chinese swimmers in 1990, they were the size of houses, this girl is quite small, light, she’s just in good shape.

“They might have just found their Michael Phelps. They might have just found this really, really talented kid who can work really, really hard, and has actually got the perfect shape and actually can cope with all the pressure that’s thrown at her.”

The problem, however, is that forty Chinese swimmers tested positive for banned substances during the 1990s, and seven before the Beijing Games in 2008. As recently as last month, 16-year-old world champion in the 4x100m medley Li Zhesi tested positive for the blood boosting drug EPO.

The contrast in the treatment of Ye and the Lithuanian prodigy Ruta Meilutyte is interesting though, to say the least. The latter is just 15 and she too is now an Olympic gold medallist, in the 100 metres breaststroke. Her improvement is even more pronounced than Ye’s but there has been no innuendo attached.

PART of that may be down to the fact that Meilutyte’s story is the stuff of Hollywood fiction, yes the type of thing that requires the suspension of disbelief. Her mother was killed in a traffic accident in Vilnius in 2001; her grandmother has had to raise Ruta and her two older brothers. Her father was an economic migrant to England, bringing Ruta with him four years ago and it was there, in Plymouth, that she received most of the training that has brought her to the top of the world.

Teenage girls can develop as swimmers very quickly and this is what appears to have happened here. Yet while nobody doubts the young Lithuanian the young Chinese girl is a figure of suspicion. History tells us there is good reason, even if the doubts are unfounded.

The track and field athletics starts tonight. This is the part of the Olympics I enjoy the most, as is the case for many people. We do so despite the almost routine cheating that has taken place for decades now and the best efforts of administrators to counter it. So from tonight I’m going to suspend my disbelief, admire the speed, endurance and courage on display, and reflect upon the dedication and sacrifice required to reach this point. And hope that this generation of heroes does not include the usual drug cheats.