[derllak]

I saw on some show (maybe a news segment) that Chinese athletes are pushed to win at all costs. No other medal but the gold matters to them. That’s a lot of pressure for these young kids. Of course they’re out there to get the gold, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if steroids or other drugs aren’t in the picture for those Chinese athletes....much more so than other countries. Really sad.

[Darlin']

Drugs (Doping) of every kind has long been a practice of random, individual Olympians but some countries actually feed them to their athletes, often without their knowledge. We'll hear a lot about drug use and the measures being taken to combat their use in these games.

We've had problems with some of our own, finest Olympians. Marion Jones comes to mind. She kicked everyone's behind, came home with a fist full of gold medals around her neck and lots more in her bank account. She was a media darling until questionable tests results started stacking up. When questioned under oath, she lied to the court, to the press, to everyone. She is now broke and in prison, has had to forfeit all her medals and still must pay off huge monetary fines when she is releasd from prison. Its good that she was found out and that she is paying for it. But it was a little too late for the clean athletes she competed against who were cheated out of a legitimate win and the opportunity to turn a gold medal into endorsements and numerous other benefits. They were not only denied the material rewards but they were denied the fame, their moment in history.

The same just happened to our men's 4 X 400 relay team who won gold at the games in Sydney in 2000. Antonio Pettigrew, one of the four on that team recently admitted to cheating. He was stripped of his medal AND so were his three fellow relay teammates who competed clean. Michael Johnson, one of those clean runners, voluntarily returned his medal when he heard about Pettigrew's admission. That was an unprecendented step but one he felt had to be done becauseas he said: it was won unfairly. Johnson describes the medal as "tainted" and said: "I know that the medal was not fairly won and that it is dirty and so I have moved it from the location where I have always kept my medals because it doesn't belong there.

"And it doesn't belong to me, so I will be returning it to the IOC because I don't want it. It was not won fairly. I am deeply disappointed and saddened."