Though there were a number of disturbing aspects to the Beijing Olympic Games — controversial finishes, doping violations, bad behavior by certain athletes — perhaps none is worse than the return of a practice we have not seen since the Cold War: state-sponsored cheating.
The scandal concerning the ages of nearly every member of the Chinese women’s gymnastics team, and the International Olympic Committee’s refusal up to this point to take any meaningful action, shows why the IOC’s leadership of the Games fails on a moral level that goes beyond the questionable awarding of the Games to a human-rights-abusing nation like China.
Without diminishing the important issues surrounding China’s treatment of its citizens, and its failure to intervene in the crisis in Darfur, the lack of swift action to assess the evidence of the gymnasts’ ineligibility and rectify the matter by stripping the medals won by these obviously underage competitors points to a dangerous erosion of the IOC’s moral authority. The IOC — protector and purveyor of the Games — is within its purview to argue that it is not in the business of making value judgments of a host country’s human rights record (a debatable position, to be sure). But clearly, there must be absolute certitude that the committee is consistently and transparently concerned with leading credible athletic competitions. Allowing state-sponsored cheating — even entertaining the idea of allowing it — exposes the IOC as simply not up to its mission.
The last time the IOC confronted a major issue of state-sponsored cheating was in the Cold War ’70s and ’80s, when accusations were leveled about East Germany’s notorious doping program. Once records were made available after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and evidence indicated that the East Germans had systematically administered illegal performance-enhancing substances to its athletes, the IOC did nothing to take away the medals won by those athletes. No recalculation of the results of tainted competitions was made; the IOC’s explanations amounted to leaving the past in the past. Numerous athletes who claimed silver, bronze or nothing because the East German sports machine had engineered its way to victory could not, however, forget.
This time, the state-orchestrated cheating is not in the past. With the power of the Internet, the records of the gymnasts in question are out for the world to see. Countries that cheat cannot hide behind their society’s locked doors. The information is out now, not 20 years from now — and the good news is that justice need not be delayed or denied this time.
Yet, the IOC continues to wring its hands, ordering quiet inquiries by the International Gymnastics Federation and issuing tortuous statements that the state-provided passports of these children should suffice. That position strains credulity in the face of mountains of evidence that China’s “women’s” gymnastics team was packed with ineligible girls.
The IOC’s position on this issue is further tarnished when its inaction is compared with its recent behavior concerning doping. The IOC and the World Anti-Doping Agency have taken a hard line against athletes accused of doping, stripping medals, invalidating results and doing everything supposedly possible to protect the integrity of competition and ensure a level playing field. The IOC has even gone so far as to threaten to ban any country (including the United States, which almost had its Chicago Olympic bid held up over the issue) that did not sign on to WADA protocols from future hosting of an Olympic Games. It’s an unforgiving stance, but it needed to be taken.
Still, with the unresolved question over the Chinese gymnasts’ ages, actions like this seem about as credible as the lip-synching Chinese girl at the Games’ opening ceremonies. It sounds good, but it’s nothing more than a fraud.
Dionne L. Koller is an assistant professor in the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she specializes in civil procedure, torts and sports law. Her e-mail is [email protected].
