If I am reading this right, Swiminfo.com is reporting that Craig Stevens is indeed going to back out of the 400 and leave it up to Australia Swimming to "pick another member of the Olympic Team" to swim that race in Athens. If I am ANY other country, swimmer, the 3rd place finisher at the Trials or an organization interested in ethics, then I am raising a stink on this one!!!! Thorpe DQ'd and the Aussies are going to skirt the rule and get him in anyway. They would be relegated to the status of Ben Johnson, Rosie Ruiz, and the 60+% of MLB who are on steriods! This is FREAKIN' UNBELIEVABLE. I have no respect for any of the aforementioned and if this happens, none for Ian Thorpe and the Australian swim federation (or whatever official name they hide behind) are in that seeming, stinking pile.
Parents
Former Member
It has always seemed to me that the "muscular christianity" concept that came from the British 19th and early 20th century athletics and suffuses our view of sport, while nice, is at serious odds with reality. Yes, we should all play nice, do the right thing, love our fellow competitors, be fair, etc, but in the words of Ernest Hemmingway: "What a pretty thing to believe."
There is nothing about sport that makes it intrinsically ennobling, as much as we might wish to ascribe it such magic powers. It is games played by frail and flawed people - the same people that cheat in business, steal, lie, step out on spouses, etc. Haloes are not handed out at the door to the pool.
In this day and age sport is about money - pure and simple - and that genie is never going back into its bottle. Thorpe's possible participation is a money issue. All the way from the IOC right down to Thorpe and Craig Stevens, there is a money trail, either overt or implied.
So if they do the "right thing", more power to them, but I don't think I'd be surprised if everyone involved is only... human.
-LBJ
It has always seemed to me that the "muscular christianity" concept that came from the British 19th and early 20th century athletics and suffuses our view of sport, while nice, is at serious odds with reality. Yes, we should all play nice, do the right thing, love our fellow competitors, be fair, etc, but in the words of Ernest Hemmingway: "What a pretty thing to believe."
There is nothing about sport that makes it intrinsically ennobling, as much as we might wish to ascribe it such magic powers. It is games played by frail and flawed people - the same people that cheat in business, steal, lie, step out on spouses, etc. Haloes are not handed out at the door to the pool.
In this day and age sport is about money - pure and simple - and that genie is never going back into its bottle. Thorpe's possible participation is a money issue. All the way from the IOC right down to Thorpe and Craig Stevens, there is a money trail, either overt or implied.
So if they do the "right thing", more power to them, but I don't think I'd be surprised if everyone involved is only... human.
-LBJ
