Dara Torres-Amazing

Let us hear the whole story and guess what, no matter what anyone thinks. We we will not be the deciders. Is it possible she is really not the culprit but someone in the backround is. A lot are judging without all of the facts. All I ask is wait and see.

I am sure they will investigate the whole thing then decide what is going to happen. Who knows until it is completed. They may fulfill all of your desires they may let her off with a scolding and they may ban her for 1 year or two years or lifetime whatever they wish. None of us will determine anything no matter what anyone here thinks. It seems most of you want a lifetime ban no matter what really happened.

Lynch mentality. She stole the horse hang her high. Good old western justice. When you are caught with the stolen horse, you get strung up. Where is the injustice in that? Wait a minute, maybe the horse followed her. Good point.

If she were an Aussie, I think we would be defending her to the hilt and defying anyone who accused her. I hope she does really well at these olympics. She is an inspiration. Then I'm with the Aussies. She is inspiring and I don't think she has done anything wrong! I hope she wins a gold medal (or two)! I think she's a great story and definitely not a disgrace to American Swimming! Go Dara!

Lynch mentality. She stole the horse hang her high. Good old western justice. Hang em first ask the questions later. I would hate to have you as my Defence Lawyer. Huh? I don't understand the notion of "support" at all. She cheated two people out of their opportunity to compete in the Olympics. She tested positive. Legal standards, such as beyond a reasonable doubt, are irrelevant. As usual these days, I agree with Geek. It's very simple. No sideshow required.

Are you suggesting that Jessica's situation could be viewed in a similar vein as Rick DeMont's case..... i.e. with less "moral" judgement? No I'm not, absent her coming up with some plausible explanation of how she ingested it without knowing. I'll await the outcome of her appeal before rushing to judgment just because there is nothing to lose by doing so. My point was purely that in the general case, in a just system it does matter how the substance got in the blood when making moral judgments.

I am curious about how people feel about the Rick DeMont case, which seems to be an example of an athlete with a banned substance in his system that I would not want to condemn in the terms some here have expressed. Personally it seems to me that the system failed him despite any onus on him to control what went into his body. In 2001, the USOC said that Rick was an innocent victim and cleared his name. sportsillustrated.cnn.com/.../ About 7 years ago, I had heard that 1964 Olympian Steve Clark, who is an attorney was looking into appealing the case for Rick and trying to petition to get awarded the gold medal for the 400 Free in the 1972 Olympics. I heard that it was on the IOC docket along with other petitions, like Tim McKee's petition to get awarded the gold medal in the 400 IM in that same Olympics because today he would have tied for it and awarded one like Gary Hall Jr/Anthony Erving in 2000 and Nancy Hogshead/Carrie Steinseifer in 1984. After the 1972 Olympics it was decided that awarding races by one thousand of a second was not accurate and wrong to do so in the first place and in the future there would be ties if the time was identical to the one hundredth of a second. Simple request and the IOC has turned down the appeal for Tim Mckee. The IOC is not known to overturn decisions even if they don't make sense in the first place. Rick's might be a little harder because it was on the banned list even though it was proven he got no competitive advantage and the person that was awarded the gold medal (Brad Cooper) agreed that he should be restored the gold medal. It might take years for a positive decision to be made in Rick DeMont favor. The 1972 Olympics was the first Olympics that drug testing was used so there were no precedents or decisons of the past that the IOC could follow. Because the US Olympic team doctors failed to cross reference the components of a medication (ephedrine) that was on the IOC list of banned substances, Rick failed the drug test and was stripped of the gold medal he won in the 400 Free and DQ'ed in the 1500 Free after qualifing for the final. I am not sure if this was the first case at an Olympics that an appeal was made and if this was the first case that it was beyond the athlete's control in drug testing. Possibly, the IOC set a precedent at that time in that everything is black or white and there is no in between. Now supporters of this will say that this landmark decison would preclude all sorts of appeals in the future with similar circumstances and there should be no excuses regardless of how innocent the victim is. Here is an interesting link I found about his story. www.sfgate.com/.../article.cgi

Yes, this was exactly the aspect that I was thinking about, that it is possible for someone other than the athlete to screw up, and while medals or spots on the team may have to be forfeited the athlete isn't necessarily worthy of extreme moral condemnation or, as some have suggested, jail time. In one of these threads George brought up the case of a Canadian rower who took a cold medication that the team doctor said was ok, but turned out not to be. She and her teammates lost their medals, which I support, but she was not banned from competition, which I also support. Some posters are unwilling to draw any distinction based on the circumstances when making moral judgements, that runs counter to my personal sense of justice. Are you suggesting that Jessica's situation could be viewed in a similar vein as Rick DeMont's case..... i.e. with less "moral" judgement? I see some very fundamental differences not the least of which is she was caught for taking a veterinary drug, illegal for humans in the US, unknown to anyone around her on the team, at dosages in her system that were significantly above normal. Rick took a common and lawfully dispensed medication, known to everyone around him at level safely prescribed by his physician. John Smith

Jazzy - you are a bit out there today. Thank you. There IS a higher concentration of SPECIFIC chemicals when one takes a supplement than there would be in grocery store food. I'm not writing a research paper, but I'll be sure in the future to write my posts as if I'm pursuing a Ph.D. Get a life. Specific chemicals? Well, milk is very high in water, which is a specific chemical. Being well-hydrated is essential for athletic performance. If your normal diet is low in water, you may want to supplement with milk. Milk is also high in branched chain amino acids. That means that if you supplement with milk, you are likely to have improved muscle recovery as a result. So is milk is a naturally healthy food or a chemical supplement? It is high in the specific chemicals water, leucine, isoleucine, and valine. It could artificially enhance recovery ability, allowing people to train dangerously hard if they had not previously been drinking milk as part of their normal diet.

You remind me of the great Creston. Your predictions could come true. If you do not know who Creston is he is a famous Canadian mind reader. I am so proud to know you masterminds knowing the results before it comes to an end. I am not going to be disappointed no matter what happens I will wait until the full outcome. Um, George, the results were known weeks ago. The only outcome now is the length of the suspension. You can't even get your own story straight. Do you understand how this works?