Once Again, Drugs Move the Spotlight Off Sports

Dopes and doping dominated the news last week, and it seems ever the twain shall meet.

Days after the U.S. Olympic Committee announced that hockey and basketball players will no longer be exempt from no-advance-notice drug testing on a random basis up to a year before the Games, a major drug scandal in Finland mushroomed into a national disgrace.

The news that six cross-country skiers tested positive for banned substances at last month’s world Nordic championships in Lahti, Finland, shocked a country that adores the sport. Among those testing positive was six-time Olympian Harri Kirvesniemi, a national hero.

In a news conference televised throughout Finland, Coach Kari-Pekka Kyro admitted that the skiers were given hydroxyethyl starch (HES), a plasma expander banned by the International Olympic Committee last year. HES can mask the use of other drugs in an athlete’s system. He apologized for his “gross stupidity,” but the damage was done.

He and two other coaches were suspended, as were two team physicians. Sponsors withdrew financial backing, and the Finnish government is investigating whether to continue its aid.

“After this, if anything’s going to be known about Finnish skiing, it will be the doping,” Foreign Minister Erkki Tuomioja said.

The USOC weathered its own storm at the Sydney Games, when it was revealed that 1999 world shotput champion C.J. Hunter had tested positive four times for the banned steroid nandrolone. The decree that NHL and NBA players who want to compete for the United States must submit their names a year before the Games and agree to random selection for drug tests was designed in part to tell the world the U.S. wants clean athletes, no matter the allegations that U.S. track officials withheld positive drug tests on a dozen athletes the last two years.

“We’re sending a message that we’re serious about testing our athletes,” said Scott Blackmun, the USOC’s interim chief executive officer.

“We want everybody to have some fear that they will be tested.”

That’s fine. But the 2002 Salt Lake City Games are less than a year away and the six hockey powers--the U.S., Canada, Sweden, Finland, Czech Republic and Russia--are operating under an agreement in which players aren’t subject to testing until they are named to the Olympic team. Those six teams must nominate eight players by March 25 but need not name the rest until Dec. 22.

Representatives of the NHL Players Assn., the NHL, Canadian Hockey Assn., International Ice Hockey Federation and World Anti-Doping Agency will meet in Salt Lake City on Tuesday to discuss the USOC’s policy change.

“It’s a pretty important meeting, because we’ve all got to get on the same page,” NHLPA spokesman Jonathan Weatherdon said. “We have to find something that will make it work within the time frame we’re in now.”

Dan Wasserman, director of communications for the National Basketball Players Assn., said his organization has not been contacted by the USOC.

“It’s very difficult to respond to a proposal from a group that hasn’t given you any proposal,” he said.

GRAND PRIX WASN’T GRAND

Frank Carroll, who coaches U.S. figure skating champions Timothy Goebel and Michelle Kwan at HealthSouth training center in El Segundo, was blunt in assessing their performances at last week’s Grand Prix Final in Tokyo.

“They were horrible,” Carroll said. “I was not a happy camper with either kid. I don’t know what their problem was. Sometimes things go great, and sometimes they don’t go.

“I’m a very lucky person, but it seems like everything was just wrong there.”

Of course, “horrible” is relative for Kwan and Goebel.

Under the unique format-- competitors do a short program and a long program to determine their placements, then No. 1 faces No. 2 in a head-to-head free skate, No. 3 faces 4 and No. 5 faces No. 6-- Kwan finished second to Russia’s Irina Slutskaya. Kwan, who will defend her world championship this month in Vancouver, Canada, skated her “East of Eden” short program well but doubled two planned triple jumps in her first free skate. In her second free skate, she two-footed the landing of the second part of her triple toe loop-triple toe loop combination, reduced a triple jump to a double and a double axel to a single.

“Michelle was off. Slutskaya wasn’t good, either,” Carroll said. “I don’t think either one skated well. I think they were both disappointed in their performances. . . .

“I think Michelle needs to have, and will dig out of herself, more fire for worlds. I think she will push the buttons there because she needs to, and I think she will. She’s a very good competitor.”

Goebel had a tougher time with his programs. “They didn’t go very well, and that’s all I’m going to say,” he said.

“It’s over with.”

In his short program, Goebel stumbled on the landing of a planned quadruple salchow-triple toe loop combination and didn’t complete it. His technical marks sank as low as 4.5. He did one quad in his first free skate but fell on both quads in his second, finishing fifth of six.

Carroll blamed some of Goebel’s woes on his decision to move a blade on his boot. Skaters rarely adjust equipment before a competition because it can alter their feel and balance.

“I’m not someone who can say, ‘No, you can’t move your blade,’ ” Carroll said.

“I don’t want him to think psychologically that I’m against him and I don’t understand. And if he thinks it’s going to be better, and he did think so right away after he moved it, there’s a benefit to that.”

Goebel, who had a sore knee at the U.S. competition but wasn’t hampered in the Grand Prix final, said he has enough time to regain his winning form at Vancouver. “I want to be beyond nationals,” he said.

“I was in a lot better shape earlier in the season and I want to be at the level where I was [in winning] at Skate America and in Germany [a runner-up finish at Nations Cup in November].”

MAKING SPEEDY PROGRESS

When short-track speedskater Rusty Smith of Sunset Beach began working with a sports psychologist, he wondered if it would be a waste of time.

To his surprise, Smith did more talking than listening--and he believes his sessions with Doug Jowdy, who works with the short-track team, have made him stronger.

“I was very skeptical. It was so hard for me to go,” he said.

“But now I feel really comfortable. It helps to talk about what you want to do and what you’re thinking.

“The mental part of this sport is the hardest. I write down things I need to work on, and I’m 95% of where I want to be. I know there are things I want to fix.

“It’s a little bit mental and a little bit physical.”

Smith, a graduate of the speedskating program nurtured by the Amateur Athletic Foundation of Los Angeles and a 1998 Olympian, is having an outstanding season. After winning bronze medals in three World Cup events, he finished second at the U.S. championships Saturday in the nine-lap time trial, the four-lap time trial and the 1,500, and tied for second in the 500.

“My goal for the season was to be really consistent,” said Smith, who considers the 500 meters his best event. “I’ve been consistent and now I’m hoping for more.”

Smith lives and trains in Colorado Springs, Colo. To support himself, he works at Home Depot, which employs many aspiring Olympians and gives them flexible schedules so they can train and compete.

“If I did not have this job, I would not be skating,” said Smith, who has set up a Web site, https://www.rusty-smith.com, that he hopes will help athletes find endorsements and jobs.

“I’ve been paying for everything since I was 17. My parents don’t have much money. I ran them poor. And I think a child should take responsibility for his own expenses at some point.”

Smith predicts that U.S. short-track speedskaters will win at least three medals next year at the Salt Lake City Games.

“We’ll have a real strong team and a very young team,” he said. “We’re working really well together and coming together well as a team. I feel I have a good chance because I’m skating well and getting better.

“I’m slowly progressing to where I want to be.”

HERE AND THERE

Brendan Allan of Alpine Meadows and Bryan Richmond of Truckee, both 17, were experienced skiers and among the top racers in their age group. Members of the Squaw Valley Ski team, the Californians were among the top 50 young ski racers in the country and were potential U.S. Olympians. But their lives were lost Feb. 22, when they were killed in an avalanche on the back side of the KT-22 lift at Squaw Valley. They were skiing out of bounds when they were buried under a pile of heavy, wet snow between the Squaw Valley and Alpine Meadows ski resorts.

Both competed in last year’s Junior Olympics Junior 2 category and had top-10 finishes. “I characterize it as two very skilled people taking a calculated risk,” Dan Ingalls of the Placer County Sheriff’s Dept. said. “The worst of conditions caught up with them.”

Marion Jones, who announced last week that she will participate in the Goodwill Games this summer in Brisbane, Australia, will discuss her 2001 plans today during the ESPN2 telecast of the U.S. Indoor Track and Field Championships from Atlanta. The U.S. indoor championships serve as the selection process for the IAAF World Indoor meet in Lisbon next weekend.

Only 341 days until the Salt Lake City Winter Games.