Maurice Greene has a lot of explaining to do
By Michael Johnson
SOURCE
Maurice Greene has some serious explaining to do. This isn’t just someone alleging that they gave him steroids. This is someone claiming he has evidence and someone who apparently has actually presented this evidence to the New York Times, who initially broke the story.
Maurice and I had our words back and forth during our careers and I didn’t have the respect for him as a person that I had for him as an athlete.
But I measure athletic greatness based heavily on consistency and longevity, which Maurice achieved in one of the most difficult events to achieve consistency and longevity in. And I always had respect for him for that.
It would obviously be another huge blow for the sport if another prominent athlete, even a retired one, also went down for drugs after the Marion Jones and Justin Gatlin situations over the last couple of years.
But as a fan of the sport and one who is disappointed every time I see a story like this continuing to damage it, I want to see that justice is served.
On a different matter, I saw the Olympic torch relay debacle unfold here a couple of weeks ago and it was sad to see something that has always been such an incredible and celebratory event ruined as it was in San Francisco and continues to be all over the world.
I had the opportunity to take part in the torch relay in 1996, when the torch made its way to Atlanta just before the Olympics there, and it was a great experience.
Now there is talk of boycotts, like the US team boycotting the Games in 1980. That was a bad idea then and it would be a bad idea now. I don’t believe a boycott by any country of the Olympic Games will happen but if it did it wouldn’t do any good and it wouldn’t solve anything.
The time to protest in full force was before the Olympics were awarded to China. I can understand the disappointment and frustration over China’s treatment of Tibet and treatment of its own citizens, its human rights record overall, and its position on the Darfur crisis.
I can understand people wanting to bring awareness to these injustices, but not by attempting to spoil the Games.
The protesters should have come out in full force against the International Olympic Committee before they handed the Games to Beijing. A problem like this is solved by punishing China for its human rights record by preventing them from having the luxury of hosting the Games through pressuring the IOC before they made their decision.
What is happening now, with these protests, is not castigating China at all. It’s punishing the Games.
The Olympic Games is a great sports spectacle which brings people together from all cultures, backgrounds, religions and races. It doesn’t matter where the Games are held, it is a wonderful and rewarding experience. That should not be taken away from anyone.
I am reminded of a quote from Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Games: “May joy and good fellowship reign, and in this manner, may the Olympic Torch pursue its way through ages, increasing friendly understanding among nations, for the good of a humanity always more enthusiastic, more courageous and more pure.“
There is a time and a place for everything and there are right ways and wrong ways to address any problem.
Boycotting the Games and protesting about the torch relay are the wrong way to bring about change in China.
Boycotts and protests do nothing to increase friendly understanding.
