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Los Angeles, November 3, 2000 Dear Reader, With the announcement that wrestlers Alexander Leipold of Germany and Oyunbileg Purevbaatar of Mongolia, tested positive for banned substances at the Sydney Games, it appears that no more Sydney Games disqualifications are forthcoming. There was a good deal of confusion in press reports both during and after the Games regarding the number of positives reported by the International Olympic Committee at the 2000 Games. Part of the confusion stemmed from the high number of athletes who tested positive before arriving in Sydney as a result of non-IOC tests. Keep in mind that the IOC tests only immediately before and during the Games. The total number of positive tests reported by the IOC was 11. Nine of these were classified as "in competition" tests (meaning the testing took place right after a competition); two were out of competition. The IOC revoked six medals because of positive tests. Contrary to some reports, the 2000 Games did not produce the highest number of positive tests conducted during an Olympic Games. The IOC reported 12 positives in 1984 at Los Angeles. Two medallists in L.A. were among the guilty. At Seoul, where 10 positives were reported, five athletes lost their medals. Many athletes ended up not participating at Sydney because of pre-Games tests conducted by organizations other than the IOC. If you count all of the athletes busted by the IOC for tests in Sydney and all of athletes who did not compete as a result of non-IOC positives announced in August, September or early October, the number comes to at least 40. This total does not include any of the 27 athletes left home by the Chinese Olympic Committee, the "overwhelming majority" of whom, according to a team spokesperson, had "suspicious" blood tests. It does not count Petar Merkov and Marian Dimitrov, the Bulgarian kayakers who competed in Sydney despite reports that they tested positive for a banned diuretic in July. It does not include the five Italian gold medallists that, according to press reports, were among 61 elite Italian athletes showing elevated levels of human growth hormone during tests between March and August. Nor does it account for the many athletes such as Wu Yanyan of China, Doug Walker and Linford Christie of Great Britain, and Cezar Badita of Romania, who tested positive earlier in 2000 or back in 1999. Finally, we do not know how many athletes voluntarily pulled out of the Games because of fear of being caught or because of pending drug charges.
So what to make of all this? Clearly there is a long way to go in the fight against drugs. Until the IOC and other governing bodies implement truly effective tests for human growth hormone and EPO, a cloud of suspicion will hang over elite sport. That said, the IOC, the World Anti-Doping Agency, the national Olympic committees and the international federations deserve credit for catching more cheaters than ever before. SportsLetter finds something hypocritical about journalists who railed about weak doping enforcement before the Games and then gleefully proclaimed the 2000 Games as "drug tainted" because of the high number of positive tests. You cannot have it both ways
If a boxer and a wrestler had a fight, who would....Well, never mind. But, how about this? Could a college professor do a better job of predicting Olympic medal tallies than a sportswriter? Dartmouth professor Andrew Bernard and Yale colleague Meghan Busse used a theoretical model to predict how many medals various nations would win in Sydney. Another paper by Daniel Johnson, an economist from Wellesly College, and Harvard undergraduate Ayfer Ali used a different model. The academic studies both assumed that Gross National Product, population and previous performance at the Games were key determinants of medal production in Sydney. Sports Illustrated's Brian Cazaneuve relied on good old-fashioned reporting methods. Here are there top six picks.
Clearly, SI, did the best job of predicting the relative positions of the top six nations. Bernard and Busse hit the medal counts for the USA and France right on the head. However, before you become too enamored of the Bernard and Busse model, you should know that their calculations were based on the mistaken assumption that 888 medals would be awarded in Sydney. The real total was 928. Still, all in all, an impressive job by the prognosticators.
SI jinx … Sports Illustrated put Belarus gymnast Ivan Ivankov on the cover of the Olympic preview issue (doused in Goldfinger-esque paint), dubbing him "the world's best gymnast." The magazine predicted that Ivankov would win one gold medal and two silvers. Ivankov never mounted the podium.
Me and Mrs. Jones ... Marion Jones, of course, enjoyed a fabulous Olympics on the track, winning three gold medals and two bronze. But, Sydney was not the first occasion that Marion Jones won an Olympic medal. In 1900, American tennis star Marion Jones won two bronze medals, in women's singles and mixed doubles. According to Olympic historian David Wallechinsky, Jones didn't win a match in the singles competition, but she shared the bronze with Hedwiga Rosenbaumova. Jones' doubles partner, Brit Hugh "Laurie" Doherty, swept the gold medals in singles and men's doubles (playing with his brother Reginald Doherty).
Many observers (including filmmaker Bud Greenspan) are calling the night of September 25 the greatest night in track and field history. They may well be right. After all, what do you call a night that included Cathy Freeman's historic 400m win, Michael Johnson's 400m repeat, Haile Gebrselassie's duel with Paul Tergat in the 10,000, Gabriela Szabo's thriller over Sonia O'Sullivan in the 5,000, Maria Mutola's winning Mozambique's first-ever gold medal in the 800m, triple jumper Jonathan Edwards finally winning gold, and Stacy Dragila out-jumping Tatiana Grigorieva to win the first-ever women's pole vault? We'd say "priceless," but that one's been used.
Thunder from down under ... At the Sydney Games, the boxing format was changed. Instead of the customary three three-minute rounds, the bouts consisted of four two-minute rounds. As expected, Cuba won the most boxing gold medals, with four, including heavyweight Felix Savon's record-tying third consecutive gold medal. U.S. boxers took home four medals. No American won a gold medal - the first time since 1948 that an American team was shut out of gold, excluding, of course, the boycotted Moscow Games. Add boxing … L.A.-based boxing journalist Steve Kim worked for NBC in Sydney and saw every fight in the tournament. He rated the top pro prospects: "The Simion brothers from Romania - Dorel, a welterweight who won the bronze, and Marin, who beat Fernando Vargas in the '96 Olympics and won a silver medal in Sydney. Both are very active, with crowd-pleasing and aggressive styles. Mexico's featherweight Francisco Bojado has excellent boxing skills, with great speed. Ricardo Williams and Ricardo "Rocky" Juarez both won silver medals and were the only two U.S. boxers to reach the finals. They're our best prospects in terms of pure natural talent and what it takes to succeed in the pros." Kim also touted the hard-hitting youngster Sven Paris, from Italy, and Mahamakadyz Abdullaev, from Uzbekistan, who beat Williams for the gold in a controversial final. Add boxing ... The fight of the tourney? Williams' 42-41 squeaker over Cuba's Diogenes Luna in the semi-finals. "It wasn't a pitcher's duel," said Kim.
Surfing the Web ... According to Gould Media, www.olympics.com received 683 million hits on Sept. 18. The one-day tally surpassed the 634 million hits that Nagano's official Web site received during the entire 16 days of those Games. (The site for the Atlanta Games received 187 million hits.) By September 26, the Sydney site had more than 7.2 billion hits. By the end of the Games, the site had tallied more than nine billion hits. This figure doesn't include the millions of hits "mistakenly" received by www.olympic.com - the official Web site for Olympic Paint. Master of their domains ... We've read many horror stories about people who've tried to make their fortunes by cybersquatting on valuable domain names. But some of these brainiacs apparently have not done their homework. How else to explain these Web sites: www.2002athensolympics.com (wonder how Salt Lake City feels about that); www.2003winterolympics.com and www.jeuxolympiques2003.com (the French accent doesn't help); and www.2005londonolympics.com (say what?). More Web madness: www.citiusaltiusfortius.com and www.citius-altius-fortius.com have also been reserved. As have samaranch.com, samaranch.net, samaranch.org. No word if anyone's taken www.angelopoulos-daskalaki.com.
All Greek to me ... There was much made of the medals snafu in Sydney, wherein a "Roman" Coliseum was imprinted on the Olympic medals. But the medal designers weren't the only ones who were confused. Journalist Allen St. John, in a feature article for Samsung's Olympic preview program, began his story: Citius, Altius, Fortius. Sounds like Ancient Greek to you? Well, you're right, so put away the dictionary - it means faster, higher, stronger." Yeah, in Latin. Add design ... Singling out the Sydney organizers for criticism of the medal design is not really fair. The Roman Coliseum design has been on Olympic medals since 1928.
Track marks … The 2000 U.S. Olympic Trials, held at Hornet Stadium on the Cal State Sacramento's campus this July, shattered the all-time ticket sales for such Trials, far ahead of the previous high set by Atlanta in 1996. But that wasn't good enough for Fresno Bee reporter John Canzano, who complained that USATF "could have secured something bigger in a large media market." Canzano noted that "Stanford Stadium holds 80,000, and the Los Angeles Coliseum, site of the 1984 Summer Games, has a base track and field capacity of 68,000 seats. Both were viewed by USATF as too large to fill." The Coliseum was also the site of the 1932 Games, but Canzano forgot about one small fact: the Coliseum's track was ripped out in 1993, to accommodate the L.A. Raiders football team. Add Sacramento ... After the trials, Simon Baker, Australia's representative on the IAAF's Athletes' Commission, went on Radio 2UE and questioned whether Michael Johnson and Maurice Greene withdrew from the 200m race to avoid mandatory drug tests. "It just looked like a couple of guys who wanted to avoid scrutiny," said Baker, a race walker who represented Australia at four Olympic Games. "You start to wonder when you suddenly have two athletes of that caliber pulling out. You start to think maybe there's a bit of pressure, maybe they're starting to think they have to be a bit more circumspect in terms of if they had finished first, second or third, they would have been specifically up for a drug test." Memo to Simon: both Johnson and Greene were tested earlier in the trials, after winning the 400m and 100m races, respectively.
NBC, the bad news ... Many media pundits noted that NBC's Sydney ratings were down considerably from past Olympics. It's true the Sydney Games averaged only a 13.8 rating in prime time, the lowest ratings since the 1968 Games, and well below the network's projected rating of 17.5. And, it's true that NBC's ratings were approximately 36 percent below what Atlanta registered in 1996, and 21 percent lower than the Seoul Games. NBC, the good news ... But the news wasn't all bad for NBC. The network won the coveted prime-time ratings contest every night during the Games. During the first week of the Games, NBC's viewership exceeded the viewing audience of ABC, CBS and Fox combined. An average of 59 million Americans watched the Olympic Games each night; approximately 185 million American viewers watched at least part of the Games - or 84 percent of U.S. households with televisions. Add numbers ... NBC's ratings were 93 percent higher than the average prime-time rating. (The last time the Games were held in the fall, in Seoul, they were only 35 percent higher.) And "The Today Show," NBC's morning program which aired live from Sydney, killed the competition. Add numbers ... NBC can also point to the fact that the television landscape has changed considerably in the last decade. According to Nielsen Media research, in 1988 the average home received fewer than 30 television channels. Today, the average home receives 60. In addition, cable television has mushroomed, reaching over two-thirds of U.S. homes (compared to 50 percent in the late 1980s). And, hardly anyone had heard of the Internet in 1988. Add television ... The Sydney Games were broadcast in more countries and territories than any Olympics in history: 220 countries televised the Games, up from 214 in Atlanta and 193 in Barcelona. The price of gold … In Britain, the public pumped £60 million (US $87.3 million) into the World Class Performance Programme, since 1996, through the National Lottery. The program supported 24 sports, including 13 sports represented at the Sydney Games, where Britain won 28 medals. The cost per medal? About £2.1 million ($3.01 million). According to www.sportcal.com, Britain's two medals in modern pentathlon were the best bargain at roughly £486,437 ($707,766) a medal. Contrast that to gymnastics at £4,871,522 ($7.1 million), with no medals, and swimming at £6,035,015, ($8.8 million), with no medals. With Steve Redgrave at the helm, rowing received the most funding from the program - £9,598,048 ($14 million).
The more things change ... Gender in Televised Sports: 1989, 1993 and 1999, a recent study commissioned by the Amateur Athletic Foundation, reports that television still does not provide comprehensive, quality coverage of women's sports. Co-investigators Dr. Margaret Carlisle Duncan and Dr. Michael Messner analyzed ESPN's "SportsCenter" as well as three local news shows in Los Angeles. Duncan and Messner found that local news shows have improved slightly since they last examined the industry in 1993, though men's sports reports outnumber women's stories by a 6:1 ratio and women's sports represent only 8.7 percent of the total sports news segment. Unfortunately, according to Duncan and Messner, many of the longer, more detailed women's sports stories are of the "gag" variety - including features on the "Laker Girl" tryouts and nude bungee jumping. Add study ... ESPN's "SportsCenter," analyzed over a three-week span, fared worse than the local news shows. The show aired "proportionately less coverage of women's sports" than the local sports news shows, according to the study. A miniscule 2.2 percent of "SportsCenter" was devoted to women's sports, and the male-to-female story proportion was a whopping 15:1. Not a single "SportsCenter" program began with a women's story. More study ... Gender in Televised Sports also presented a qualitative analysis of the coverage of the 1999 U.S. Open Tennis Tournament, the NCAA Division I basketball tournament and WNBA broadcasts. The study concluded that while the technical production of women's sports events has improved, it falls short of the men's coverage. For example, broadcasts of women's events, in general, used fewer relays and statistical graphics than broadcasts of men's sports. The postgame shows following men's and women's games differ significantly. The men's postgame shows were "substantially longer and offer in-depth analysis and dramatic recaps that left the viewers feeling that they had watched an exciting, important and dramatic event." In contrast, the women's postgame shows were "short and hurried ... leaving women's basketball fans feeling that perhaps ESPN was in a hurry to get someplace else." Add study … The study noted that the commentators on local sports news and "SportsCenter" show ethnic diversity - 61 percent were white, 39 percent were people of color. But the vast majority of these commentators were men - some 96.8 percent - suggesting, the authors write, that "this is still a highly sex-segregated occupation." You can read the report by going to www.AAFla.org and clicking on AAF Research Reports.(PDF) This month's mascot, Phar Lap, the champion racehorse and an Australian hero. After his mysterious death in 1932 in Northern California, Phar Lap was stuffed and put on display in the Melbourne Museum where he stood from 1933 to 1997. The museum closed for renovations in 1997 and reopened this year with a refurbished Phar Lap placed once again on prominent display as of October 21, 2000, where he is the museum's most popular exhibit.
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