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Ra-Hooligan

Remember in middle school, when officer Holmberg of the D.A.R.E. program told you drugs aren't cool?

Apparently Olympic athletes never met officer Holmberg.

In the latest string of drug-related incidents at the Games in Sydney, authorities revealed that American shot putter C.J. Hunter, the husband of star sprinter Marion Jones, tested positive four times this summer for nandrolone, an anabolic steroid. Even more disturbing, it seems as though U.S. and international track and field officials never told this to the International Olympic Committee, the Games' governing body.

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While Hunter pulled out of the Olympics a few weeks before they started, citing injury (or perhaps he knew he'd be caught?), his story only emphasizes the notion that the Olympics are populated with athletes who are all on varying degrees of performance-enhancing medications.

So far, in these Games, the casualties include several eastern European weightlifters and a young Romanian gymnast who was stripped of her gold medal.

In retrospect, you had to see it coming. The Australians had boasted for years that the 2000 Olympics would be "the cleanest Games ever" and that they were going to test athletes on an even more stringent standard than the ones the IOC usually uses.

Of course, that meant more people would get caught, considering how the use of certain drugs is almost ingrained in the culture of some Olympic sports, including track and field.

Even though the Aussies' hearts are in the right place, the idea of having "clean Games" is laughable. The IOC almost makes sure of it.

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