Medal sweep

Norway will get good support in its bid to strip cheating Olympic athletes of medals.

After all the scandals and fraudulent activities connected with the recent Winter Olympics staged in Salt Lake City, many people in many nations doubtless are in concurrence with a recent Norwegian venture.

Norway is taking the International Olympic Committee to a world sports court to demand that all medals be withdrawn from athletes caught using illegal substances at the recent games. The claim is that the Olympic charter says any athlete caught cheating during the games should forfeit all medals, not just one or two. The charter should be upheld, most agree.

“We will demand that the medals be withdrawn for the two Russians (Larissa Lazutina and Olga Danilova) and Johann Muehlegg,” says a lawyer for the Norwegian Olympic Committee and Sports Federation.

The German-born Muehlegg, who skis for Spain, was stripped of his gold medal in the men’s 50-kilometer Nordic ski race when he tested positive for darbepoetin, which increases oxygen-carrying red blood cells. However, the International Olympic Committee has allowed him to keep two other gold medals from the Salt Lake games because the positive test came too long after he won those races.

Cross-country skier Lazutina was stripped of the gold medal in the 30-meter classical race after testing positive for the same substance. She was allowed to keep silver medals from two other races.

Danilova was disqualified from the 30-kilometer event but was allowed to keep a gold and a silver from earlier races.

How can officials be sure the three individuals did not get “help” in their other medal performances? Even if they were “clean,” they should pay the full penalty for cheating even once in a venue where fair play and honesty are supposed to be governing principles. Consider those who competed and excelled legally, and reward them properly.

Any athletes of any nationality should be stripped of all medals they win even if they are caught cheating in one event. What merit is there in allowing people to display their wares when they are deceitful and may have won medals illegally?

The international Olympic movement has never been under such a cloud as it has been in the past several years. The once-glowing image of the Games, winter and summer, has been badly tarnished, and the old luster may never return.

But the only way to head back in that direction is to enforce the rules to the fullest and make a statement to future competitors that cheating will not be tolerated and the penalties are harsh.

That should involve lifting every medal any cheating competitor wins.