{"id":243,"date":"2008-05-13T04:01:41","date_gmt":"2008-05-13T12:01:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/?p=243"},"modified":"2008-05-12T05:02:01","modified_gmt":"2008-05-12T13:02:01","slug":"olympic-medals-or-olympic-spirit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/olympic-medals-or-olympic-spirit\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic Medals or Olympic Spirit?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Do you think it is more important for the US to bring home lots of hardware (medals) from the 2008 Olympics or should we focus on having athletes with character who compete at their physical limits – legally<\/em>? Vote in the poll at the right or leave a thought in the comments section.<\/p>\n

We know that all athletes face the temptation to stretch the limits of the law to improve their performance. It has been in our face for most of the last year and even before. It seems almost every sport is taking some effort to curb the use of “performance enhancing substances.” It is a tough spot for athletes, they are expected to compete at a high level consistently. Sometimes those are almost super-human expectations. We have had some super-human stars who have broken barriers, while competing clean.<\/p>\n

Things may have hit a tipping point when Marion Jones was stripped of her Olympic medals and subsequently her entire relay team was stripped (she is currently in federal prison for lying to investigators). That is a pretty sad day for sports. The US Olympic Committee has taken this into consideration as they prepare for the 2008 Games. In prior Olympics the USOC has made public goals about the number of medals they hope to bring home – focusing on winning, instead of the spirit of friendly competition. This focus on winning can be taken to the extreme and athletes will do anything to win or at least medal.<\/p>\n

The Washington Post<\/a> reported on this change in focus:<\/p>\n

Besides abandoning the medal target, U.S. Olympic officials have instituted mandatory two-day seminars for U.S. athletes that address conduct, manners and ethics. They also have paid particular attention to the uniforms that more than 500 U.S. Olympians and team officials will wear at the Opening and Closing Ceremonies in Beijing to ensure they do not come across as too casually attired. U.S. anti-doping officials, meantime, recruited a dozen top athletes to sign on to a voluntary program in which they are subjected to extensive blood and urine testing to demonstrate that the U.S. Olympic team is committed to competing drug-free in Beijing.<\/p>\n

The changes flowed in part from recognition that any controversy, cultural misstep or jingoistic display will be magnified during the first Olympics in China, considered a landmark Games that will be viewed by an estimated 4 billion people, which would be a record global television audience.<\/p>\n

But they also reflect the USOC’s determination to distinguish the 2008 U.S. Olympic team from previous U.S. squads that came to be defined by cheating athletes, surly behavior and arrogance. Making such a distinction will be no small task, officials realize, given the continuing repercussions from the drug scandals of this decade.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I would say that cheaters never win and winners never cheat! That may be a little naive or cliche but I think it is more important to have integrity and character as you cross the finish line and to know that you gave 100%. If you give 100% of your natural ability and come up short, you go back look at what happened and try to fix it through training and hard work.<\/p>\n

What do you think??<\/p>\n

[tags] Olympics, Doping [\/tags]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do you think it is more important for the US to bring home lots of hardware (medals) from the 2008 Olympics or should we focus on having athletes with character who compete at their physical limits – legally? Vote in the poll at the right or leave a thought in the comments section. We know […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-olympics"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4iaAv-3V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":432,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/true-olympic-spirit\/","url_meta":{"origin":243,"position":0},"title":"True Olympic Spirit","author":"crossn81","date":"August 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"So far there has been a lot of great competition in the 29th Olympiad. For me this is the first Olympics where I have seen any controversy or even thought about boycotting the Olympics. Ultimately, after reading comments from both current and former Olympians about the decision I think the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Olympics"","block_context":{"text":"Olympics","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/olympics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Yao Ming & Lin Hao","src":"\/running\/images\/yaolinhao.jpg","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":494,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/athletes-for-darfur\/","url_meta":{"origin":243,"position":1},"title":"Athletes for Darfur","author":"crossn81","date":"August 27, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"The Olympics are officially over now, so this post may be a little outdated. However, the topic is still worth talking about, at least in my opinion.\u00a0 China had a long list of reasons why it maybe should not have been the host for the Olympics this year, most surrounding\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Charity"","block_context":{"text":"Charity","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/charity\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.savedarfur.org\/page\/-\/TorchRun\/mimages\/images\/SS_dream.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":267,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/breaking-news-pistorius-allowed-to-compete\/","url_meta":{"origin":243,"position":2},"title":"Breaking News: Pistorius allowed to Compete","author":"crossn81","date":"May 16, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Oscar Pistorius will be allowed to compete in this fall's Olympic Games if he qualifies for the South African team.\u00a0 The Star-Tribune (really the Associated Press) reports that: The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that the 21-year-old South African is eligible to race against able-bodied athletes, overturning a ban\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Olympics"","block_context":{"text":"Olympics","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/olympics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/stmedia.startribune.com\/images\/183%2A260\/1oscar.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":201,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/smogs-impact-on-running\/","url_meta":{"origin":243,"position":3},"title":"Smog’s Impact on Running","author":"crossn81","date":"March 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"We've heard lots about the impact of smog on the environment and that there really is no upside to having smog around. Here in the USA we've done a decently good job at beginning to reduce smog - especially in metro areas. We aren't smog-free by any means but some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Health"","block_context":{"text":"Health","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/health\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.olympic.org\/common\/images\/games\/beijing\/logo_beijing.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":319,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/olympic-trials-follow-up\/","url_meta":{"origin":243,"position":4},"title":"Olympic Trials Follow-up","author":"crossn81","date":"July 22, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"It seems like a lot of time has passed since the Olympic Track Trials ended a few weeks ago and we now find ourselves about halfway between their ending and the beginning of the actual Olympic games.\u00a0 For the athletes there is still a lot of training to accomplish for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Olympics"","block_context":{"text":"Olympics","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/olympics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.beijing2008.cn\/upload\/cms_owrp2\/column_en\/08new_beijing_logo.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":483,"url":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/2008\/can-you-be-an-olympian\/","url_meta":{"origin":243,"position":5},"title":"Can You Be An Olympian?","author":"crossn81","date":"August 28, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Two average guys, Dennis and Christian decided as part of the 5 in 5 Challenge that they would see how they fared against Olympic athletes in 5 different events. You can read more about it at the 5in5.com blog. The 5 events were: 100m freestyle, 100m dash, 110m hurdles, long\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Olympics"","block_context":{"text":"Olympics","link":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/category\/olympics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/5-in-5.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/olympic-pic.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.teamcrossworld.com\/running\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}