Posted: December 10, 2004

Athletics: Olympic Medalists Frustrated With Central Conte Allegation

From David Monti

(c) 2004 Race Results Weekly, all rights reserved RaceResultsWeekly.com

HONOLULU, HI (09-Dec) -- In an unusual gathering of track and field athletes at a major marathon expo, three Olympic medalists and one U.S. champion vented their frustration over Victor Conte's central allegation made on the ABC News program 20/20 last Friday 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 Olympic decathlon silver medalist, Bryan Clay, U.S. high jump champion and fourth place Olympic finisher, Jamie Nieto, and Olympic long jump gold medalist, Dwight Philips, challenged the media to be more balanced in their reporting on the unfolding drugs scandal in athletics.

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

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

The panel's frustration demonstrates the flip side of all the attention which the media has placed on reporting on drugs cheats and scandals. While the additional attention will no doubt help keep the heat on cheaters and should untimately help in the difficult clean up the sport so desperately needs, it also marginalizes 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?"

Nelson was the most vocal in taking to task U.S. professional sports for not cleaning up their own houses, and indicted mainstream sports marketers for making heroes out of athletes who have used performance enhancing drugs. He spoke of when baseball slugger Mark McGuire admitted to taking Androstenedione (an anabolic precurser) there was a spike in use of steroids by high school athletes. McGuire's status as a hero was barely tarnished, and the public outcry against McGuire was muted at best. Just a handful of journalists called for baseball to adopt an Olympic-style drug testing program, with strict liability and random testing, and a few even defended the sport's lack of such a program.

"Open up your eyes folks," said Nelson, his amplified voice penetrating the cavernous space of the Hawaii Convention Center. "Don't let this happen."

The high jumper Nieto said that the problem should be approached more like a criminal matter, and said that jail time would be a more effective deterent than the sanctions of sports federations. He mentioned that taking steroids without a prescription was illegal (as was selling them), and that trying to win money and fame using performance enhancing substances was a fraud, like any other. "I feel like those athletes are stealing from me," said Nieto who is sometimes mistaken for the actor, Will Smith.

As for Philips, he was frustrated that Conte himself had been inflated into more of a celebrity than a legitimate Olympic champion.

"I'm an Olympic gold medalist and Victor Conte is more well-known than I am," said Phillips. "We don't get the attention that we deserve."