Olympic Rant #8 Dopey blasts dwarf win
‘YOU’RE
a drug cheat.’
‘No
you’re a drug cheat.’
‘You’re
a druggie.’
Nah,
you’re a druggie; nah, nah, nah.’
Back
and forth across the Olympic the pool, the accusations fly like shuttlecocks;
it is water badminton.
The latest design in shuttlecocks for water badminton
expected to be an Olympic sport in 2020
Chinese
swimmer Shiwen Ye was the catalyst for the first of a barrage of snide remarks when she
won the 400m individual medley. It should have been a fairy tale result as Ye
easily swam her personal best and snatched a world record. But it turned into a
fairy tale directed by Tim Burton as the dark news unfolded that the Chinese
schoolgirl had swum a faster final 50m than Ryan Lochte who had won the men’s
equivalent and relegated super swimmer Michael Phelps to a medal-less fourth in the process.
At first no
one quite yelled out Ye was a drug cheat: that would be against the Olympic spirit of these carping back-biting Games.
Lochte
served up just a hint of suspicion as he told journos the American camp
discussed it over dinner. ‘She’s fast,’ he told reporters, just in case any of
the scribes had not noticed.
It
was wise to help out the world’s media with an indisputable piece of copy. It
was not only the swim which had the world’s media declaring there were two Shiwen.
Yes. I am not sure about the exact proportion
but let’s say half the world’s media believe her name is Ye Shiwen. I am with
the “Shiwen Ye” half because that is all she writes in the official Games
website. For those wishing to argue the toss at your own dinner party, Ye is the family name.
Australian
swimming commentator and former Olympic medallist Susie O’Neill was known as
Madam Butterfly in her heyday. She was more Madam Math as she gave her opinion
of the swim of Mademoiselle Ye. ‘Every time we see a good Chinese swimmer….there’s
just that .0001 per cent at the back of mind.’
It
might have been at the back of Madam Butterfly’s mind but it butterflew to the front
of her lips.
The
coyness of such remarks failed to impress a former Chinese swimming official
who did not confucius with maths or dinner-party banter in returning the water
shuttlecock.
Shanghai Chen was the head of the Chinese Olympic medical
team in Los Angeles, Seoul and Barcelona. ‘America’s (Michael) Phelps broke
seven world records! Is he normal?’ Dr Chen asked.
Before a journo could ask the sensible question ‘what’s your
definition of normal’, Chen made it clear drug cheating was abnormal.
‘I suspect Phelps, but without
evidence,’ he said. This sounded like the distillation of a conversation at a tea,
rather than dinner, party. ‘I have to recognise that we should be grounded in
facts,’
Dr Chen said.
That is how you engage in war of drug cheating without
either side making an outright accusation against the other.
‘The Americans are very bad; they do a lot of evil,’ Dr Chen
said
Swimming pools are central to geopolitics: with the medico’s
unsophisticated diagnosis, all became clear.
Congratulations Azerbaijan
Valentin Hristov,
18, won Olympic bronze for Azerbaijan in the clean and jerk 56-kg
weight class) event.
In another upset, North
Korea's Om Yun Chol won the gold ahead of Chinese world champion Jingbiao Wu (or Wu Jingbiao, take your pick).
Azerbaijani president, Ilham Aliyev, watched the success of
Bulgarian-born Hristov.
The Republic of Azerbaijan is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north,
Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to
the west, and Iran to the south.
Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch have criticised the nation’s record on human rights: especially
its treatment of homosexuals and the media.
All may not be forgiven but this journalist
is glad to see a nation which is not a household name in the West take home a
medal. We applaud you in the traditional manner.
Bernie Dowling July 31, 2012
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