Rogge on Bolt: Right sentiment at the wrong time
Posted: Thursday, August 21, 2008 2:09 AM
BEIJING – While I applaud Jacques Rogge’s interest in sportsmanship, I question why he picked Usain Bolt’s victories in the 100 and 200 meters to express it.
These I’m-number-one, self-celebratory orgies of narcissism have been going on for decades. I’m not positive that American sprinters invented them, but I know they had perfected the displays long before Bolt went into show-off mode even before he crossed the finish line with his world-record win in the 100 meters on Saturday.
Had Bolt invented the in-your-face finish, I’d be up on the soap box with Rogge saying what a perversion of the Olympic ideal it is. But this has been going on for years, and after ranting about the way such previous champions as Justin “Banned for Doping” Gatlin and Maurice Greene behaved after winning, I’m ranted out.
Don’t get me wrong here. I still can’t watch these guys after they cross the finish line without reaching for the barf bag. The chest-thumping, camera-hogging, flag-draped victory struts have long since left sportsmanship in the dust. Dignity is grace is out the window with these guys along with respect for their sport and their fellow competitors.
It’s not Rogge’s sentiments I disagree with, but his timing. If he had wanted to make an issue of revolting displays of poor sportsmanship, he should have done it before the Games began. When he was talking about how the IOC was going to rub out the cheaters, he should have said he also wasn’t going to tolerate in-your-face celebrations of victory.
He didn’t say a word for publication after Bolt high-stepped across the finish line in world-record time in the 100. Instead, he waited until after the 200, when Bolt at least ran the entire race before going into his hey-look-at-me routine.
It’s too late to stop it this year, and much too late for Rogge to be bringing up his objections. And it’s not good enough for him to say that he was only responding to a question during an interview with three international news agencies when he said, “I have no problem with him doing a show. I think he should show more respect for his competitors and shake hands, give a tap on the shoulder to the other ones immediately after the finish and not make gestures like the one he made in the 100 meters.”
It’s the right sentiment at the wrong time. What’s wrong about it is that it seems to single out Bolt, a Jamaican, over all the others who have behaved in similar fashions. Jamaicans are understandably outraged by this and are right to wonder why the Americans who perfected the act got away unscathed.
What Rogge should do is announce after these Olympics are over that in future Games, disgusting displays of poor sportsmanship won’t be tolerated. You do what Bolt or Greene or Gatlin did in the future, and we give the medal to someone else. Or, at a minimum, we give you your gold and banish you from the Games forevermore.
The IOC has already stripped a bronze medal from a Swedish wrestler, Ara Abrahamian, who stepped off the medal stand during the victory ceremony, threw his medal on the mat, and walked out of the arena.
I thought that was extreme. After all, the guy won the medal on his own efforts – or lack of same. If he wants to throw it away, that’s his business. He didn’t cheat and he didn’t test positive for drugs. What are the grounds for taking the medal?
In a way, Abrahamian was also singled out for discipline on a rule that had never been clearly enunciated. It was as if the IOC made up a poor sportsmanship rule on the spot. And if it was okay to strip Abrahamian, why not Bolt?
Clearly, Rogge has an idea, but he hasn’t thought it out all the way through. One poor sport is run out of town, another is chided in print, others continue to get it wrong. Wait until after the Games. Set down a policy. Make sure every athlete gets the message that this will not be tolerated anymore than are political or religious displays in the venues.
I’ll be the first to welcome such a rule. Just don’t invent it halfway through the Games. That’s not fair to anyone.
