Wrong, wrong, wrong

The Court of Arbitration for Sport has handed back medals to the other members of relay teams tainted by Marion Jones' illegal drug use at the Sydney Olympics, reports the New York Times.

This is so very wrong. When three runners run fairly and the other cheats, you really didn't finish the race. You can't stop running after 3 legs of a 4x100m relay and say "well, we are leading, give us the gold." Despite the technical nature of the way the rules were written at the time, which is the basis of the decision, the court should have shown the flexibility to simply do what is right. And the runners should show the moral fortitude to stop claiming medals they did not properly win. Gloating about the result now isn't making them look good, either.

A brand new sport

Through the history of competitive sports, there has been a trend for combining events into multi pronged contests: the biathlon, triathlon, pentathlon, and decathlon being fine Olympic examples. I want to take it to the next level: let's combine the combinations. The icosathlon would consist of the following events:

• Cross country skiing
• Rifle shooting
• Ocean swimming
• Road cycling
• Road run
• Epée fencing
• 200m freestyle swimming
• Show jumping
• Pistol shooting
• Cross country run
• 100m run
• Long jump
• Shot put
• High jump
• 400m run
• 110m hurdles
• Discus
• Pole vault
• Javelin
• 1500m run

The 1500m would be set up so that the first starter would be the points leader, with a staggered start so that the first finisher wins the event. Or dies. One of those. Given the mix of winter and summer and coastal events, the best location for this would be somewhere with mountains very near the water, such as California.

Anyone up for the challenge?

Latest on Semenya

Caster Semenya is physically in that awful grey area without a clear sexual identity, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.

I have no helpful opinion here. Just sympathy for all involved.

Neither here nor there

A great summary of the surprisingly complex issue of sex testing in sports can be found here. This has, of course, been prompted by the sudden dominance of Caster Semenya in the final of the women's 800m race at the World Athletics Championships. I hope she's legit, but I have to say she reminds me uncomfortably of Jarmila Kratochvílová.

And while I'm on this topic

Miguel Tejada has been charged with lying to Congress about his steroid use. Add him to Roger Clemens, Dana Stubblefield, Marion Jones, and, oh yeah, Barry Bonds, who have all been charged with lying either to Congress or a grand jury.

Will the Bonds apologists stop claiming that he has been singled out? It's getting old.

Some good news for a change

Arien O’Connell, robbed of a win in the SF Women's Marathon last weekend, has today been declared co-winner of the race. For those not following the drama, she did not start with the elite group, which had a 20 minute head start over the rest of the field to avoid congestion. But she took twelve minutes off her best time to run 2:55:11, eleven minutes faster than the official first place getter, Madeline Kramer.

The official explanation was that since the elite runners were not aware of this blazing dark horse, they could not adjust their strategy. Fair enough, I guess, but I seriously doubt anyone could magically shave eleven minutes from a marathon time at will.

We must take it at face value that elite runners who are aware of what time they might run will start with the elite group. In any case, Nike (the sponsor of this and many other women's marathons) intends to do away with the head start. And that's good news too.

And two more good reasons to support this decision: Arien O’Connell is from Brooklyn, and is a graduate of Columbia University.

Once again...

Apparently the fastest time does not necessarily win a race for you now. Words fail me.

Awful. Wrong. Stupid. Idiotic.

Somebody fix this. Now.

26 miles too far

According to an article in the NY Times, a study shows Marathons aren’t likely to kill you.

Well, I don't know about you, but they won't kill me, because I won't be running one. Of course, I could always be the unlucky victim of a stampede on the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge.

Blast from the past

After seeing Washington fullback Michael Sellers hurdle a Giant defender, Al Michaels commented that it was an Edwin Moses move. Which it was. Which made me think back and realise just how long ago the 1976 and 1984 Olympics were. And how much we missed the great man in Moscow in 1980.

So here's to two time (and all time) 400m hurdle champion Ed Moses- probably the fittest chain smoker who ever lived.

I wonder if he'll mention Lasse Viren or Waldemar Cierpinski...

This should be really simple

The IOC has formally stripped Marion Jones, the Steroid Sprinting Star of Sydney, of all five of her medals from the 2000 Games. This is moot, of course, since she returned them anyway. But now there is to be a hearing to determine the status of her 4x400m and 4x100m relay team-mates.

It's not hard. She cheated. You can't run four legs of a relay with three runners. The rest of the team, sad though it is for them, must lose their medals too. I don't understand why this is even up for question.

In other possibly drug tainted news, Miguel Tejada is now an Astro. Interesting that he was traded just in advance of the Mitchell Report. Do the Orioles know more than we do? Or has he just been the unlucky vitamin B12 supplier of choice for other players all along?

Five medals, zero ethics, many friends

In September 2000, before the Sydney Olympics, Graham began providing me with a substance he told me was flaxseed oil. I continued to use this substance until July 2001. By November 2003, I realised that what Graham had given to me was a performance-enhancing drug.

- Marion Jones, in a statement to the court in White Plains, NY

Uh, yeah. Flaxseed oil. Have we heard this before? Pardon my scepticism, but if she thought that, then Maradona thought he was snorting corn flour. At least she admitted it. Sort of. Not that our image of the Olympics was exactly squeaky clean beforehand.

Incidentally, her letter to family claimed the drug use went on for a longer period, but let's not be picky about details. Marion Jones cheated. C.J. Hunter cheated. Tim Montgomery cheated. Barry Bonds cheated. Jason Giambi cheated. Gary Sheffield cheated. And these are just the clients of one company.

Point shaving, match fixing, knife assaults on teammates, rampant drug cheating, strangling your players, strangling referees, exchanging IOC votes for prostitutes and guns... Some days, it's only schadenfreude that keeps me watching this circus we call major sport. Mind you, I remember playing against kids who cheated in under 13 table tennis. It's human nature.

Pick a sporting idol of yours. (S)he probably cheated at some point. Or committed a major crime. Or at least told a kid to fuck off when asked for an autograph. I'm beginning to think they all did.

But I'll keep watching. What else is there to do?

Disclaimer: I purchased a signed Pete Rose baseball at Caesar's Palace. I'm complicit.