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reutersU.S. gymnast McKayla Maroney scowls.
In 1976, the East German swim team swept the Olympic medals table through a massive, state-sponsored doping program. This year? Yu Yang didn't try her hardest at badminton, a South African swimmer admitted taking an illegal number of underwater kicks and Ryan Lochte peed in the pool.
So far at the London Olympics, the controversies that have drawn the most attention don't involve geopolitical dramas or spectacular doping conspiracies. They're basically moments of poor judgment, small acts of impropriety and some debatable, or at least relatable, instances of cheating. In other words, modern Olympians have turned back the clock—to seventh grade.
The hottest controversy in London so far unfolded on the badminton court, where eight players from three countries were disqualified last week for throwing matches in order to secure better draws. Black cards were doled out, fingers were wagged and apologies issued. One ousted athlete, China's Yu, declared her retirement on a microblogging site. "Bye, my beloved badminton," she wrote.
The scandal didn't exactly inspired street protests. In fact, it's not clear it's actually a scandal: An informal Wall Street Journal online poll found 59.8% of roughly 9,000 readers thought the strategy the players used was fair while only 34% thought they should have played their hardest no matter what.
Most of the troubles in London so far seem to stem from the fact that every time one of the athletes makes a poor decision or harebrained comment, there's a microphone or camera standing by to record it. In the third quarter of Monday's men's basketball game between the U.S. and Argentina, for instance, Carmelo Anthony tumbled to the court in pain after hitting a three-point shot. A replay revealed that he'd been punched in the groin by Argentina's Facundo Campazzo.
After the game, Campazzo said he was merely retaliating because another U.S. player, Chris Paul, had hit him earlier in the game. Asked if he had, in fact, hit Campazzo, Paul said: "Which time? We got tangled up a thousand times." Kobe Bryant of the U.S. said he told Campazzo that what he'd done was inappropriate. "And he said, 'Yeah, I know,'" Bryant recalled. Campazzo said he apologized to Bryant, but not to Anthony.
American swimmer Ryan Lochte had his own moment of ignominy last week when he let it slip during a radio interview that he'd urinated in London's Olympic pool while warming up for races. "I think there's just something about getting into chlorine water that you just automatically have to go," he said.
Cycling seemed to have a scandal in the works last week when a British cyclist, Philip Hindes, appeared to admit to the BBC that he'd purposely crashed his bike after the start of a race to trigger a restart and boost his team's chances. "I just did it just to get the restart because my first start wasn't the greatest," he told the interviewer.
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Zuma PressCameron van der Burgh smiles after a gold medal performance.
Hindes later denied deliberately falling and the whole thing melted away after no other team lodged an official protest.
Swimming's micro-scandal came last week after South African swimmer Cameron van der Burgh was asked by reporters about an underwater video that showed him using three underwater "dolphin" kicks at the start of a breaststroke race. The problem: swimming's rules ban more than one such kick.
According to Australian media, van der Burgh admitted he'd broken the rule but only because "99%" of swimmers do. "I think every single swimmer does that," Australian papers quoted him as saying. After learning that Australia's coach had complained about his kicks, van der Burgh told reporters he thought the situation was "pretty funny" and noted that the video also shows an Australian doing the very same thing.
In the end, it all came to nothing: The results can't be protested or changed because FINA, the sport's governing body, doesn't use underwater cameras. Van der Burgh's manager said: "Cameron has never been warned or disqualified at this meet or any other for these alleged kicks and thus we have no other comments."
With a week of competition to go, it's too early to conclude that doping is on the wane—or that this Games will be free of a major drug scandal. But early figures suggest this kind of cheating could be less prevalent. The International Olympic Committee says there have been five doping cases so far. In Beijing in 2008 there were 14 positives during competition and six afterward. "Are we doing everything to catch and deter cheats? Absolutely," said Mark Adams, an IOC spokesman.
So far, the only American to fail a drug test is judo fighter Nicholas Delpopolo, who was expelled from the Olympics Monday. In a statement to the U.S. Olympic Committee that was released to reporters, he said the result was "caused by his inadvertent consumption of food (before his leaving for the London Olympic Games) that he did not realize had been baked with marijuana."
The statement did not specify whether the food in question was pot brownies, pot muffins or perhaps a pot casserole.
If these Olympics have taken on a distinctly teenage vibe, it shouldn't be a big surprise. Back in May, the coach for the British heptathlete and gold-medal favorite Jessica Ennis told reporters that a U.K. sports official had suggested that Ennis was "fat" and carrying "too much weight" on her frame. Ennis, who laughed off the episode, went on to win the heptathlon gold medal Saturday.
Another recurring theme during the Games: pouting. Early on, North Korea's women's soccer team refused to take the field for 40 minutes due to what officials called "an issue." It turned out they objected to the accidental placement of South Korea's flag on the stadium scoreboard. This Sunday, 16-year-old McKayla Maroney (an actual teenager) took it to another level after struggling in the individual vault competition and ending up with a silver medal rather than gold.
Photos form the medal ceremony show Maroney looking considerably less than pleased. "I didn't really deserve to win a gold if I fall on my butt," she said. "So I'm still happy with a silver, but it's just sad."
Edited By Cen Fox Post Team
