Irish name tarnished by scandals, says Hickey

PAT HICKEY, Olympic Council of Ireland president, has admitted that Ireland’s name has ‘a bad name’ internationally due the drug scandals that have tainted medals won at two of the last three Games.

Michelle Smith won three gold medals and one bronze in the pool at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. Though she kept her medals, her achievements were sullied when she was handed a four-year ban in 1998 after being found guilty of tampering with a urine sample. Eight years later, Cian O’Connor won show jumping gold in Athens aboard Waterford Crystal before being subsequently stripped of the award after the horse tested positive for a banned substance.

“I would dearly love to see a medal because it lifts the whole thing,” said Hickey at yesterday’s unveiling of the Irish Olympic team’s uniform for the opening ceremony.

“I just hope if we do win a medal this time that it is not tainted in any shape or form.

“I am sick to death of going to Olympics and then finding out later that something has gone wrong.

“I was the happiest man in the horse arena in Athens last time around and what unfolded afterwards was just incomprehensible.

“Ireland has a bad name at the moment in this whole area, not only with humans but with animals.

“This time around it is my fervent wish that there is no hint of any scandal involving drugs with this Irish team.”

Hickey went on to give a specific anecdotal example of how the rest of the Olympic movement has come to view Ireland.

Last year while in Guatemala, the Dubliner joined a conversation between Dick Pound, the former chair of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), and a number of his fellow IOC colleagues.

“They were talking about some drug issue,” says Hickey, “and he turned around to me and said ‘it’s all right Pat, we’re talking about doping humans only at the moment, not animals’.”

Hickey echoed the general call for realism yesterday in relation to medal expectations and also claimed Ireland would not be alone among European nations who he believes will have to come to terms with the changing face of the global Olympic movement.

“Going out to the Games and actually winning medals is a different scene because the Chinese are determined to knock the Americans and the Russians off the (medal table) pedestal.

“Europe in general will find it difficult in the medal scene this time around but you are never without hope. With five boxers, there is always a great chance depending on how the draw works out.

“As president of the European Olympic Committee, it is something I hear continually in my meetings throughout Europe. It is going to be tight for Europe with medals this time around so it is not just something Irish Olympians need to be thinking about.”

Hickey will chair a meeting of the continent’s 49 Olympic representatives in Athens in September where a full debrief of the Beijing Games will be undertaken but he takes a more optimistic tone when discussing the pollution levels in the Chinese capital. A number of reports have claimed that the pollution levels are still far in excess of those demanded by UN guidelines, prompting Chinese officials to wheel out the familiar promises regarding the closures of factories and reductions in levels of traffic.

“I have no worries whatsoever. I have lived through two scares. My first Games was in Los Angeles in 1984 and they told us we couldn’t breath and that we would need gas masks. Los Angeles was perfect. Then the same thing happened in Seoul in ‘88. Seoul would be very similar to Beijing. They cleaned up Seoul like you never saw and they were a perfect games. China will be the very same.”