Humor: The heat is on for randy super-Olympians

The heat is on for randy super-Olympians

September 28, 2000

The dark cloud of performance-enhancing drugs is hanging over the Athletes Village at the Sydney Olympics, but the question foremost in my mind is: is anyone testing for Viagra?

If not, why not?

It is quite clear to me that an extraordinary number of PBs are being set in the Games Village - levels of performances that the very first modern Olympians, in 1896, could only have dreamed of attaining.

Like the Olympic motto says, stronger, longer, faster.

Ansell, the official supplier of condoms for the Sydney Games, was reported by Australian Associated Press on Wednesday to be rushing in an emergency supply of an extra 20,000 condoms to the village.

Almost 80,000 condoms have already been distributed to the PolyClinic in the athletes village, and only 20,000 were said to be left for the final days of the Games, which end on Sunday.

Ansell said it was mindful that demand for condoms goes up dramatically as more competitors complete their events and turn to pursuing their athleticism off the field.

It did not mention, however, the growing number of athletes who are being sidelined after being found to be using performance-enhancing drugs. They also obviously have more time on their hands.

The Sydney Olympics might go down in history as the Junkie Games.

To date, thirty-six athletes have been prevented from competing in the Sydney Games or stripped of medals because of drugs found in out-of-competition testing.

Drug testers have found nandrolone and other steroids, diuretics, psudoephrine, furosemide.

But no one has even mentioned Viagra!

Nobody seems to have drawn a correlation either with statistics released yesterday by Berkeley Challenge Housekeeping Services, which is the official provider of housekeeping at the Olympic Village?

It claims its people are making 21,300 beds a day.

Yeah? Well, I thought only 15,000 people were staying in the village.

If so, my deductions would indicate that beds are being used for more than just sleeping.

Frankly, I am appalled that the athletes can't make their own beds.

I am quite surprised that the Mayor of the Village, Graham Richardson, isn't doing inspection tours of the rooms each morning, and making sure everyone has done their chores before being allowed out to play - especially members of the Bulgarian synchronised bed-making team who really should know better.

As I said, things were different back in 1896.

Nearly 300 athletes from 13 countries contested the first modern Olympics in Athens. The sports were cycling, fencing, gymnastics, lawn tennis, shooting, swimming, track and field, weightlifting, and wrestling.

They didn't have nandrolone, diuretics, sudoephrine, furosemide then, and certainly not Viagra.

Nor did they have easy access to condoms.

Not the kind we have today, anyway.

I think they were made of pig skin then and came only in a range of one colour; there were no sensitive ribs, not even pork spare ribs.

Things did change a bit between 1912 and 1948 when town planning was part of the Olympic curriculum.

Athletes, who had been mainly white, puny and 5 foot 3 in 1896, became bigger and better.

The super athletes were born.

They became stronger than a locomotive, faster than a speeding bullet and capable of designing whole blocks of buildings with a single bound.

Town planning, alas, is no longer an Olympic sport.

But now we have have pole vaulters who seem to come with their own poles, divers who don't need diving boards, swimmers who are much admired for their breaststroke, cyclists eager to get into in the saddle and gymnasts who bend over backwards and every-which-way.

Not to mention those large male sprinters who can deliver great pleasure in 10 seconds or less, greatly enhanced by the use of slow-motion replay.

Until we get to the crotch, er, crux, of this, how can we ever claim that the Olympic Games are truly clean?

NB: I called this site Dunno because I kept drawing a blank when I had to put a name to it