Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together

Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together

– By Ed Kociela –

They’ve closed the books on yet another Olympic competition, a competition, sadly laced with intrigue and scandal.

A little girl of a mere 15 years of age was at the center of the maelstrom of scandal when it was revealed that last December she had tested positive for trimetazidine, a drug normally prescribed to treat heart conditions that can also help enhance an athlete’s performance.

Kamila Valieva is the Russian skater and she tested positive after a run at the Russian national championships.

Valieva was initially banned from Olympic competition by the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, which reversed the ban after Valieva appealed. Subsequently, the International Testing Agency and World Anti-Doping Agency went to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to reverse the appeal that opened the door’s to her Olympic appearance.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport took Valieva’s back, allowing her to hit the ice, claiming she is a “protected person,” which, by the agency’s definition, is somebody younger than 16 and that the rules did not apply to her because preventing her from competition “would cause her irreparable harm.”

However, by that time, it was too late and the irreparable harm had already come down.

In other words, this little girl’s life had been ruined.

She will forever be the skater who cheated even though her coaches and physicians are responsible. As guardians, they ultimately are responsible for the injections that went into this young lady’s body. Even if in her immature mind she asked for the drugs it was the responsibility of her coaches and trainers to deny their use. There were no responsible adults in the room when those decisions were made.

Still, the International Olympic Committee allowed her to skate because it figured she could still be sanctioned after she left the ice. It’s first action was to cancel the team medal ceremony and individual medal ceremony if she won, which seemed a shoo-in at the time.

Fate stepped in and removed all doubt, however, when she failed to earn enough points to be awarded a medal.

So, while the International Olympic Committee may have dodged a bullet, Valieva did not. Her career in flames, I doubt we will ever see her on the ice again.

It all becomes important because everything about this scandal goes against the moral and ethical code of the Olympics, whose motto is “Citius, Altius, Fortius – Communiter,” Latin for “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together,” an ideal put forward by Baron Pierre de Coubertin who founded the International Olympic Committee in 1894.

The venues for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, are stony silent now, the gathered athletes now heading to their homes after sharing their amazing talents with the world. Win, lose, or draw, they will be feted in their communities, revered as heroes to the children who dream of chasing Olympic gold. They will be celebrities enjoying their 15 minutes of fame.

And, the little girl, who was poised to become Queen of the Ice as the 2022 Winter Olympics began, will find herself on the bench alongside the many athletes, judges, and Olympic committee officials who have disgraced the Games over the years, from Tonya Harding to the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics Committee to judges who colluded in Salt Lake City to ensure Russian skaters went home with gold medals.

The boycotts, doping, bribery, and, yes, even terrorism that have marked the Olympics through the years is antithetical to the purpose and spirit of the Games, which have been overtaken by jingoists and dangerous nationalists who refuse to acknowledge the good that comes from beyond their own borders, who don’t know the difference between a “540” and a “Triple Axel,” who pay more attention to the medal standings than the often fascinating individual stories of the competitors. The most accurate example of such jingoism is the German Chancellor who presided over the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Adolf Hitler, and we know how that turned out.

It’s great to root for your home team during the Olympics or any other sporting event, but it is all really meaningless.

The fact that Norway won more medals than anybody else in Beijing does not mean it can claim superiority any more than Los Angeles can just because the Rams won the Super Bowl.

Of course, that is lost on many people on a cultural, political, and ethnic level, which again, is antithetical to the “Faster, Higher, Stronger – Together” significance of the Olympics.

You know, the original Games were contested by athletes competing in the nude in an attempt to keep the competition honest.

There were no flags, no team colors, no anthems, just naked guys competing for an olive wreath. Some dabbled in what were considered extra-curricular activities to enhance their performance — from magic potions to eating a certain kind of lizard meat, but nothing quite up to today’s standards of doping.

It could be argued that today’s competitors are pretty close to nude as it is when you consider their competitive gear is like Speedos on steroids, or, to make the image sharper, sort of like the Blue Man Group on ice. It would probably work out fine for the Summer Games, but I doubt many slalom skiers would doff their duds to speed downhill although it would make for some must-see TV.

We really don’t need to go to such extremes as going back to the origin of the Games, but we should, without question, go back to the intent of the Games and that is to test ourselves, to push ourselves, to compete open and honestly, to compete for the simple glory and pleasure of sport and not get involved in the political mumbo-jumbo and dangerous nationalism that naturally separates us.

I worked for a sports editor one time who somehow always found a way to put thngs into perspective.

“Always remember that in the department store of life, sports is the toy department,” he would say.

That’s why I am hoping that this scandal that has attached itself to this very young woman somehow disengages and lands firmly in the laps of those who were supposed to have her interests at heart.

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