Black Female Athletes and the Olympics

As preparations continue for what are still called the 2020 Olympics (opening ceremonies are Friday) ramp up, it’s not surprising that there are a handful of Olympics-related stories out there.  Curmie wants to discuss four of them, all of which, coincidentally (or perhaps not) involve black women and rulings by (mostly) old white guys.  Three of the four deal in one way or another with the notion of performance enhancement.

Let’s take them in roughly increasing sympathy for the athletes involved.

Oh, how original: an anthem protest.  Gwen Berry placed third in the US Olympic trials for the hammer throw, then, in an all-too-predictable fit of… whatever… at the awards ceremony she turned away from the flag and ultimately covered her face with a black t-shirt reading “activist athlete,” thereby disrespecting not merely the anthem and the flag, but also, of course, the event winner, DeAnna Price.  Curmie need hardly tell you that there was all manner of posturing going on, mostly by Berry, but also by those who wanted to get their names in print as objectors.

Berry has subsequently claimed playing the anthem was a “set-up” (WHAAAAT?), that she “never said [she hates] America,” and that the third verse of the anthem is racist.  Well, that part is true, which might account for why only one verse is ever played or sung at a sporting event or, indeed, virtually ever.  But the rest of it?  Nonsense.  And the faux surprise that her actions engendered a negative reaction?  Incredible.  Perhaps Curmie’s favorite line: “Y’all are obsessed with me,” Berry’s response to Representative Dan Crenshaw (R-TX), who suggested she should be removed from the team.  To be sure, Crenshaw is using the Berry protest to try to make a name for himself, but the only person obsessed with Gwen Berry is Gwen Berry.

She claims she will continue her protest in Tokyo, although the IOC has rules against this sort of behavior.  We can be pretty certain that just as the Star-Spangled Banner wasn’t played for Berry at the trials in Eugene, OR, it won’t be in Tokyo, either.  Price beat Berry by over 24 feet (!), or over 9%.  (The difference between first and third in many events is well under 1%.)  Still, there’s a chance Berry will get on the podium in Tokyo; her best throw this year ranks her fourth in the world, behind #3 by only about 3 feet, 9 inches.  So she may get a chance to lose even more endorsements there.

But the stunt has had its desired effect: far more people have heard of Gwen Berry than of DeAnna Price.

Sha’Carri Richardson in happier times.

Even Stupid Rules are Rules.  Next up: Sha’Carri Richardson was the overwhelming favorite in both senses of the word in the women’s 100 meters coming into the Olympic trials.  She had run easily the best times of any American sprinter, and fans loved her petite size (she’s only 5’1”), her brashness, determination, and eccentricities: the bright orange hair, the false eyelashes, the absurdly long fingernails.  She didn’t disappoint, spotting the competition a meter or more before zooming past them all to win comfortably.

Then, of course, she tested positive for marijuana, which appears on the World Anti-Doping Agency Prohibited List.  This led to a one-month ban from competition imposed by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA).  This took her out of the 100 meter competition in the upcoming Tokyo Games, because her win in Eugene was nullified, and US Track and Field rules state that the top three [legal] finishers at the trials constitute the contingent. 

Let’s be clear on a couple of things.  First, her use of the drug was legal in the sense that she could not be arrested for it.

Second, marijuana is far from a performance-enhancing drug; continuing it on the prohibited list is problematic and reactionary, but understandable to the extent that it is illegal in a lot of places, including the majority of US states.  Still, the USADA seems to be better at discovering dope than doping. 

Third, it’s still a violation of the rules of the sport, which are defined internationally.  To her credit, Richardson accepted responsibility for her actions and did not challenge the suspension: “I just want to take responsibility for my actions, I know what I did, I know what I’m supposed to do, I’m allowed not to do and I still made that decision. I’m not making an excuse or looking for any empathy in my case.” 

So far, really, there’s not much of a story, except for the rather unusual fact that a star athlete took responsibility for her own missteps.  Yes, there was some buzz (get it?  buzz?) about whether athletes ought to be suspended over marijuana, and there were, predictably, some loud but isolated and unconvincing accusations of racism from the likes of AOC. 

But what attracts Curmie’s attention is what comes next.  Whereas Richardson’s suspension prevents her from running in the 100 meters in Tokyo, it will expire before the 4x100 relay.  Initially, there was speculation that she might be named to that team, which is chosen by US Track and Field, and need not be linked to performance at the trials.  A couple days after the suspension was announced, we learned that Richardson wasn’t going to be on the relay team, either.  WHAT???  

Here, according to the New York Times, is the rationale: 

… the coaches had already selected the members of the relay squad and had informed those runners of their placements before Richardson’s positive test became public.

After Richardson’s disqualification, the coaches chose the next six finishers in the 100-meter race and decided it would be unfair to take a slot away from one of those runners and give it to Richardson simply because that would be the only way to get her on the team.

USA Track and Field also published a remarkably disingenuous statement of sympathy on their website: “All USATF athletes are equally aware of and must adhere to the current anti-doping code, and our credibility as the National Governing Body would be lost if rules were only enforced under certain circumstances.

“So while our heartfelt understanding lies with Sha’Carri, we must also maintain fairness for all of the athletes who attempted to realize their dreams by securing a place on the U.S. Olympic Track & Field Team.”

But it’s not a question of changing or not enforcing the rules, you stupid fucktards.  It’s about allowing your best athlete, who will have served the full term of her suspension, the opportunity to compete… and to give your team the best, legal, chance of winning.  Basically, either the officials didn’t bother to find out that Richardson would be eligible and lurched ahead, or they knew of her availability and chose intentionally to leave her off the team because, well, who knows?

Was the decision racist?  Highly unlikely: the new #4 (Gabby Thomas), the last “starting” spot, and #6 (Aleia Hobbs), the last team member, are both black.  If you replace one black athlete with another, it may be all manner of stupid, but it’s unlikely to be racist.  Was the decision ill-considered, arrogant, virtue-signaling, and petulant?  Yeah, pretty much.  The good news is that Gwen Berry is less likely to have to hear the Star Spangled Banner after the event. 

Brianna McNeal at the
2019 World Championships

What a Difference a Day Makes.  Item #3: Defending 100 meter hurdle Olympics gold medalist Brianna McNeal lost her appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport of a five-year suspension imposed by the Athletics Integrity Unit (AIU) for violating anti-doping rules.  What’s curious about this case is that she has never failed a drug test.  What she has done, at least six times over her career, is to miss a drug test.

The first such occasion resulted in a one-year ban for a series of three Whereabouts violations five years ago.  What that means: athletes at her level are required to provide officials with information about their whereabouts so they can be tested, unannounced, for performance enhancing drugs (PEDs).  She took, and passed, some eight tests that year, but being unavailable three times triggered the suspension.

The USADA posted a rationale for the testing and the sanction:

Accurate Whereabouts information is crucial for effective out-of-competition testing, which helps deter and detect doping by enabling no-notice sample collection. This is especially important because some prohibited substances have limited detection windows. In an effort to help athletes understand and fulfill their Whereabouts requirements, USADA conducts in-person and online educational sessions with athletes, sends email reminders about filing dates and obligations, maintains online and app-based filing and updating platforms, and gives athletes the option to receive daily and weekly reminders of their provided Whereabouts information.

So… on to January of 2020.  McNeal was looking forward to the 2020 Olympics, which of course at that time were still on schedule.  This was a factor, at least, in her decision to have an abortion on January 10.  She then failed to answer the door or her phone on the 12^th when the drug testers showed up.  This was the second time in a one-year period she had not made herself available for a test; as noted above, it (generally?) takes three to lead to a sanction.  This much is not up for debate.

A couple of weeks later, the AIU asked for an explanation.  McNeal was under no obligation to reply, but she did, referencing a “a surprise medical procedure.”  She claimed to have been heavily sedated and to have spent much of her time over the ensuing several days sleeping.  Ultimately, the AIU didn’t believe her because she was active on social media.  Wait, what?  In the universe Curmie inhabits, it’s possible to post stuff on Facebook in between naps; apparently not in AIU’s world.

But the other incontrovertible fact is that McNeal changed the dates on the medical records associated with the abortion, making it appear that the drug test would have been one day instead of two after the procedure.  Did she really misremember and believe the doctor’s office had erred?  Curmie is skeptical.  Was she experiencing remorse or even guilt in the aftermath of the termination?  This is more plausible.  Of course, ironically, she could have had the child and still participated in the delayed Olympics.  (Even distracted by the suspension and the appeal, she qualified for the US team, pending the decision by the Court of Arbitration.)

And it’s the “tampering” with unnecessary documentation that’s the problem.  McNeal’s lawyer argued, apparently accurately, that:

The AIU has not accused Brianna McNeal of ever using any banned substances, has not accused Brianna McNeal of evading doping control; and has not accused Brianna McNeal of tampering with any urine sample or blood sample.  Had she ignored the AIU’s request that she explain the circumstances of that missed test, there would have been no consequences.

Of course, faking evidence is not a good thing, and the argument that the appropriate thing to do if you thought the doctor’s office erred would be to call them up and resolve the issue, not to just alter the document.  On the other hand, a five-year suspension for a 29 year old athlete, effectively ending her career, because she said a procedure that happened on one day actually happened a day earlier: that seems a bit extreme.

Would the decision have been different, as McNeal has suggested, if she were white or European?  Curmie thinks it’s more likely that the agencies involved are sexist rather than racist, but McNeal’s allegations aren’t completely outrageous.  What’s certain is that the attempts to simultaneously maintain the integrity of the sport and keep innocent athletes eligible will never result in perfect justice.

Alice Dearing models the offending object.

The Saga of Soul Caps.  Finally, there’s this item that actually stems from the UK, but obviously affects black female swimmers of all nationalities.  The UK-based company Soul Cap, according to their website, specializes in “haircare for the volume-blessed.”  They make swim caps primarily to satisfy the needs of the BAME community (that’s the UK equivalent of BIPOC: Black, Asian, Minority Ethnic).  Last year, they partnered with British swimmer Alice Dearing, who recently was named the first black woman to represent the UK in swimming events at the Olympics, to promote their product.

They seek to accommodate the thicker, curlier hair of black swimmers, and to provide a better fit, thereby protecting the hair from chlorine.  But FINA (the Fédération Internationale de Natation), the sport’s governing body, outlawed the cap because it doesn’t “fit the natural form of the head” and to their “best knowledge the athletes competing at the international events never used, neither require … caps of such size and configuration.”

Seriously?  As to point #1: who cares, given the fact that the increased size of the cap actually increases drag, thereby putting the athlete at a comparative disadvantage.  If an athlete chooses to wear the “soul cap,” why not?  If she gains a competitive advantage, sure.  But this, if anything, is the opposite.  As to point #2: black athletes have historically tended to gravitate towards other sports, so the fact that there was not a lot of call for such a minor accommodation can hardly be grounds for maintaining the status quo merely for its own sake.  And, of course, there have been several black women who not only competed but won medals at the Olympics: Enith Brigitha of the Netherlands, and Americans Lia Neal and Simone Manuel.  Manuel will be in Tokyo, defending her 2016 gold medals in the 100m freestyle and the 4x100 medley.

Dearing points to “decades of cultural and institutional racism which has sadly seeped into the swimming community and swimming in general for quite some time.” Usually Curmie raises a skeptical eyebrow at such claims.  In this instance, however, he sighs and nods.  International swimming can must do better.

After great international hoopla, FINA announced it would “review”its decision.  That was a fortnight ago.  Still no final decision that Curmie can uncover, and the opening ceremonies are less than a week away.

Olympian Incompetence: Even by NBC's Standards

I’ve been contemplating writing about the Olympics per se, as opposed to Mitt Romney’s inability to play nice with respect to them, since well before the games actually started. This post might or not qualify.

I’ve been thinking about why I care so much less about the Olympics now than I used to. Is it just because I’m older (I don’t follow baseball anywhere near as much as I did even a decade ago, for example)? Is it the proliferation of pseudo-sports with “judges” instead of referees/umpires/officials? Is it because “security” has trumped all else, turning host cities into police states? Is it because Games organizers are really more concerned with protecting their sponsors’ exclusivity than anything else?

Well, prior to last night, I’d have said “yes” to all four of those hypotheses, with a particular emphasis on the last item. Certainly the heavy-handed and frankly Stalinistic enforcement of sponsorship agreements with respect to the London Olympics makes the phrase “commercial whores” seem inadequate. Pick your story (sources, some of which are quoted or paraphrased below, are here, here, here, here and here):

--no Olympic food venue (and there are 800) except McDonald’s may serve chips (a.k.a. fries) unless accompanied by fish.

--all ATMs at Olympics venues will be Visa-only, meaning anyone else’s card won’t work.

--using two of the following words: “games,” “two thousand and twelve,” “2012,” or “twenty twelve” together, or combining one of those with “gold,” “silver,” “bronze,” “London,” “medals,” “sponsor,” or “summer” is prohibited in advertising (by non-sponsors) or on products/merchandise when used in a context that could suggest an association with the 2012 Olympic Games. I’m sure glad I don’t own a store called London Jewelry, trying to hold my 25th annual Summer Silver Sale.

--publicans were warned that blackboards advertising live TV coverage must not refer to beer brands or brewers without an Olympics deal.

--according to the contract the IOC blackmailed London officials into signing, spectators (spectators!) may not “wear clothes or accessories with commercial messages other than the manufacturers’ brand name”… unless, of course, the commercial message involved is a sponsor. Luckily, London officials have said they’re not going to be utterly stupid about this: I could probably get away with wearing my t-shirt from that Italian restaurant in New Hampshire. I could probably even wear a Pepsi shirt and get away with it… but if I got a few friends together to all wear Pepsi shirts, that would be conspiracy or some damned thing. And don’t think that level of stupidity doesn’t exist. Here are some examples:

--a Weymouth butcher faced a $30,000 fine if he didn’t remove an Olympics rings display comprised of sausages; a café in South London had to remove a similar display made of bagels; a florist shop in Stoke-on-Trent likewise offended with a tissue-paper construction. Apparently the locals are supposed to get excited about the Olympics, but God forbid if they have a little fun in doing so. It’s a pity the list of official sponsors doesn’t include a laxative company: their product is desperately needed by the IOC and London organizers alike.

--there are 286 enforcement officers—yes, people who have no other job responsibility than to protect the interests of their corporate overlords official Olympic sponsors.

--moreover, there are special traffic lanes in London—one of the world’s busiest cities—for use only by athletes, officials, the press, and sponsors. Londoners understand the need for athletes and officials to be at a particular place at a particular time. They’ll probably even grant a little leeway to the huge press corps. But they shouldn’t be expected to sit in traffic more snarled than ever, watching some junior executive assistant to the associate vice president for navel-gazing at Coca-Cola breeze by.

As the incomparable Ken at Popehat puts it, “there is a gulf between the field of Olympic effort and the Olympic brand—the pomp, the interlocking rings, the familiar music, the wall-to-wall coverage, the merchandise, the hype. The Olympic brand is about athleticism only in the sense that iTunes is about music: it is a vehicle for monetizing it.” I confess, I’m not a big fan of the IOC.

All that said, what I really hate about the Olympics can be summarized in three different letters: NBC.

There’s the unrelenting jingoism, the blithe assumption that American viewers couldn’t possibly be interested in a sport in which “we” are unlikely to win a medal. There are the interminable commercials—some of them well-produced, mind you—strategically placed to lure the viewer back to find out what happened when the race actually concluded. There are the announcers, who are apparently chosen with only two criteria in mind: liking the sound of their own voices, and having less of substance to offer than the scripted stupidity of Thanksgiving parade coverage.

There are the slick and soulless “personal interest stories,” which give every indication that they’re actually pre-fab slop generated by the athletes’ press agents. They’re always told in somber but ever-so-sympathetic tones against a background of soft-focus imagery and maudlin Muzak, and they yammer on about how [insert name here] overcame the trauma of breaking a fingernail at the age of seven and (and!) the death of the family dog only two years later to become the star athlete s/he is today.

There’s the unspeakable arrogance of not showing events live, and then pretending the actual competition (or ceremony, or whatever) didn’t happen hours ago. Accompanying this is the felt need to show the medal ceremonies of every American winner, and maybe two or three others over the course of the entire Olympics. If they fit.

There’s the fact that Ryan Seacrest has a job.

But last night was the topper. NBC saw fit to show us the silly Queen-jumping-out-of-the-helicopter schtik in its entirety. They dutifully cut to the stupid footage of Mr. Bean driving alongside the famous beachside run from “Chariots of Fire.” (Cute bit for about a third as long as it lasted.) They showed us the entrance of every nation’s delegation, burbling something vaguely irrelevant about each. They talked over everything, even—to be fair—providing useful context or commentary on two or three occasions: an eventuality I ascribe to the give-enough-monkeys-enough-typewriters phenomenon. (Side note: do the monkeys in question use PCs, now?)

In short, they did what they do best: 1). show ‘splosions, 2). babble, 3). think it’s about them. All this is standard fare from NBC. Their thoroughgoing incompetence at Olympic coverage has manifested itself for years. We’ve become accustomed to having the airtime dedicated to actual competition, let alone live competition, dwindle every time out to the point at which it is merely a sidebar to the real coverage, which is listening to the talking heads and PR flacks do their thing.

And yet, last night NBC managed to top themselves for arrogance, for incompetence, and for dishonesty. I’ll let them slide on the whole pretending-that-was-actually-the-Queen-paragliding-into-the-stadium thing, although NPR’s Linda Holmes gets points for her commentary: “Come now. There is playing along, and then there is clapping for Tinkerbell in the middle of a news event.” NBC even get a partial pass on their unaccountable inability to admit that they were showing events we’d already seen (or could have, if we’d chosen to): the whole “while we were away” and “this will be all over the internet within minutes” nonsense. Anyone stupid enough to think this was happening live probably deserves to be fooled. (It’s still unprofessional, of course, but listing all the ways NBC fits that description would take more time than I have—I’ve gotta catch a plane in four days, after all.)

No, this time they decided not to show us the transitional moment in mid-show, the tribute to those who died on 7/7 (England’s 9/11) and a somber recognition of all those causes—war, terrorism—which separate us rather than bring us together. Instead, we got an insipid interview by the terminally vapid Seacrest with the most over-hyped (and boring) athlete in Olympic history, Michael Phelps. And they didn’t even bother to tell us what they were up to. This is, in a word, dishonest. When They Make Me Tsar ©, whoever made that decision would be fired on the spot, and NBC would not be allowed to as much as bid on a future Olympics until Bob Costas has been dead for a decade.

There are several repercussions to this disastrous decision. In artistic terms, it defamed Danny Boyle, the director of the opening ceremonies, by making it appear that he didn’t know enough to alter the mood of the festivities. Variations in rhythm, in tempo, and in intensity are the stuff of directing—that’s why they get discussed in every Beginning Directing text on the planet. What we saw was all about loud, all about technological gimmickry, all about splash and trash. Furthermore, the edited-out sequence provided a link from the past to the future in historical terms, as well. My wife and I were talking last night about how strange it seemed that World War II and the Blitz were absent from Boyle’s historical odyssey. Ah, but they weren’t. The “war dead” motif included them, although still not as much as I would have hoped and expected. That NBC took it upon themselves to radically undermine Boyle’s overall vision without as much as acknowledging that they were showing us their version of a greatest hits show is unconscionable.

Moreover, whereas the purpose of this blog piece is not to comment on the artistic merits of individual moments, I must say I really enjoyed the missing number (screengrab above), which featured choreography by Akram Khan and a downtempo version of “Abide with Me” by Scottish singer Emeli Sandé. Here’s the link, Gentle Reader: decide for yourself. Whether the moment was “the best part of the whole ceremony,” or you believe Khan is “the most accomplished and fascinating choreographer working today,” as an English theatre friend said on my Facebook page when I posted the link, is a matter of personal opinion. It is undeniable, however, that this is a significant work by two significant artists (Sandé is no slouch, either, although less to my taste). There had better be a reason to cut something like this from the coverage of the opening ceremony. There wasn’t.

Finally, there is the undeniable insult to our English hosts. This is the country whose monarch ordered the Star-Spangled Banner played at Buckingham Palace in the wake of 9/11, the country that has been our ally in every major skirmish since the War of 1812 ended, the country that had just taken offense (rightly or wrongly) at comments by the guy who could become our next President… and when they want to mark a moment in their recent history at their Olympics, some asswipe at NBC says “no, we’re not going to show that in the US”? “Appalling” and “contemptible” are insufficient words.

Seriously: why? There is nothing controversial about the politics of the piece: commemorating the deaths of the innocent is practically de rigeur at such events. NBC cheerfully showed the part of the ceremony in which the National Health Service was recognized as one of the most significant advances in British history (complete with the shocked exclamation that “they are actually proud of it,” or words to that effect). Bob Costas went on a riff about the IOC’s refusal to include a moment of silence to remember the Israeli athletes and coaches killed at the Munich Games 40 years ago. So it’s not political… or if it is, Curmie is just too dim-witted to comprehend.

The only explanation I can find is that someone at NBC likes ‘splosions, likes loud, and thinks that we really need to see another interview involving two people for whom I’d long since lost tolerance. That was just insulting, NBC.

Finally, and most importantly, there’s the whole idea of presenting the part as if it’s the whole. NBC has come under fire before for actively disguising the tape-delayed nature of much of its Olympics coverage. And we’re long since inured to the idea that the only people we’ll see in most of the coverage of, say, diving, will meet one of three criteria: they’re American, they medaled (or nearly did), or they got hurt.

But this, somehow, is worse. Maybe it’s just that I’m a lot better artist than athlete, but I do think that it’s less problematic to show only the highlights of an athletic competition—the SportsCenter version, as it were—than to edit out pieces of an artistic work. More importantly, however, no one believes they saw the whole game in the 45-second recap. We did, I did, think the entirety of the opening ceremonies, other than the hurried-past entrance of the national delegations of countries NBC figured we don’t care about, had been presented to us. With all that stuff that obviously wasn’t live being shown to us, it never occurred to me that we weren’t seeing what was happening live. (Note: “live” in this construction means relative to the people in the stadium; none of it, of course, was live to us.)

I should know better: know better than to think a multi-billion-dollar corporation is capable of upholding professional standards, know better than to think NBC isn’t going to micro-manage their coverage to show us only what the suits want us to see, know better than to believe that any network (it isn’t just NBC, although they’re as bad as any, and they’re handy right now) has the slightest comprehension of when to act like an entertainment company and when to act like journalists.

Now I know. More than anything, I know enough to wonder what significant information NBC is choosing to withhold from us next time. And the time after that, and the time after that, and…