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News12 Dec 2004


Clean Athletes Fight Back

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As reported by Race Results Weekly last week, three Olympic medallists and one U.S. champion recently vented their frustration over Victor Conte's central allegation made on the ABC News programme 20/20 that the Olympic Games are "a fraud."

"The 20/20 segment was a complete disgrace," said a visibly agitated Adam Nelson, the Olympic silver medalist in the Shot Put.  He then added, "the Olympics are not a fraud."

Nelson, flanked by Bryan Clay the Olympic Decathlon silver medallist, Jamie Nieto the U.S. High Jump champion and fourth place Olympic finisher, and Olympic Long Jump gold medallist, Dwight Phillips, challenged the media to be more balanced in their reporting on the issue of drugs in athletics.

Of Conte's fraud comment, Nelson said that it "totally discounts what (clean Olympic athletes) do on a daily basis." 

"We pride ourselves on what we do," chimed in Clay, the only Olympic medallist to be born in the state of Hawaii.  "We've worked so hard to get where we are. We did it cleanly.”

The group's frustration demonstrates the flip side of all the attention which the media has placed on reporting on drugs cheats and scandals, as it marginalises the overwhelming percentage of athletes who are clean, which Nelson estimated at 90% to 95%.  In essence, they are robbed twice by the drug cheats.

When Nelson tells people he has just met that he is an Olympic shot putter, the impact of the negative publicity of the Balco scandal immediately hits home.  "Do you know what the first question is?" an exasperated Nelson said.  "Are you on steroids?"

The high jumper Nieto said that the problem should be approached more like a criminal matter. "I feel like those athletes are stealing from me," said Nieto who is sometimes mistaken for the actor, Will Smith.

As for Phillips, he was frustrated that Conte himself had been inflated into more of a celebrity than a legitimate Olympic champion. "I'm an Olympic gold medallist and Victor Conte is more well-known than I am," said Phillips.  "We don't get the attention that we deserve.”

Reproduced with kind permission of Race Results Weekly

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