Opinion
21 Dec 04

The Games People Play: The Whole Hog's 2004

Once every four years we wave them off to do us proud. And this year it was to the home of the Olympics, to the birthplace of the modern athletic movement and the playhouse of the gods, to Athens.

Oh such highs, oh such lows. We were on the back foot from the off as Cathal Lombard tested positive for a banned substance and returned in advance from the Olympics in disgrace. But our discomfiture was as nought compared to that of the hosts, at the weird shenanigans involving sprinters Kostas Kederis and Ekaterina Thanou and their trainer Christos Tzekos…
You remember? They came from nowhere in the last Olympics incurring great suspicion. Now their hour of glory dawned. In Athens. They failed to show for a drugs test. Claimed to have been involved in a motor bike accident. Withdrew injured. Ended up being accused of faking the accident...
It was a farce. Months later we got another. When Cian O’Connor’s horse Waterford Crystal, on which he had won a gold medal and rescued our pride, was found to have traces of a banned substance.
It got very bizarre indeed when the B sample was stolen. Then, incredibly, there was a break-in at the HQ of the Equestrian Federation of Ireland. As Charlie Bird put it, it’s like the plot of a Dick Francis novel. There were even allegations of a plot against O’Connor. In the end, that the horse had been doped was confirmed. And yet O’Connor may retain his gold medal.
There was some good stuff in Athens as well. Faith in the Olympics was restored by the Greeks. They did a great games. And there were some great stories also, like Ian Thorpe winning the 200-metre freestyle, edging wonder-boy Michael Phelps into third.
And then there was Sonia O’Sullivan, battling stomach cramps to finish her final, well beaten but still glorious and unbowed and noble in the way the old Olympians would have acknowledged as of the gods themselves.