The essential Complete Book of the Olympics, published every four years, documents all positive drug tests in the history of the Summer Games. This year's 1,181-page version (available now) features all 68 in-competition doping violations, but two of the 11 listed for the 2004 Athens Games stand out. Two of the athletes aren't human.
When the equestrian competition concluded four years ago, it seemed like any of the others held throughout Olympic history -- very staid and elegant, overly demanding for spectators in the stands who didn't really, really, really love horses. But six weeks after the Athens closing ceremony, the International Equestrian Federation dropped a bombshell. On October 8, the FEI announced that four of the 40 horses tested for illegal substances had returned positive tests.
A common defense for athletes who are caught for taking banned drugs is that somebody -- a coach or a competitor -- slipped them the offending substance. But in this case, there was no doubt the athletes had been drugged (despite the premise of this book, horses can't willingly ingest them). The Irish winner of the gold medal for individual show jumping, Cian O'Connor's Waterford Crystal, was named. So was Goldfever (pictured, above), rider Ludger Beerbaum's mount during Germany's gold medal campaign in the Prix des Nations or team show jumping event. The delay was due to the FEI's policy of keeping test results secret until internal reviews of both urine and blood samples have been completed.
Goldfever had tested positive for betamethasone, an anti-inflammatory steroid that was present in an ointment Beerbaum claimed that he used to treat a skin irritation on the horse. After months of further reviews and appeals, Germany ran out of options and was stripped of its show jumping gold medal in January 2005. The gold fell to the second-place Americans. Sweden was moved from third place to silver, and the Germans maintained a medal because Goldfever's results had been erased. The rest of the field was so far behind, that Germany was able to win with three horses instead of four.
But that was a tidy conclusion, compared to the cloak-and-dagger controversy that surrounded Waterford Crystal. O'Connor, who streaked to gold with a stunning series of second-round jumps, quickly made a statement that he had nothing to hide. Two weeks after the announcement, the appeals process was under way -- the horse's backup pee sample was sent to an English lab for testing, at O'Connor's request.
The sample never arrived, and in early November, there was a break-in at the offices of the Equestrian Federation of Ireland, and cabinets were rifled through. It was found that documents for another of O'Connor's horses, ABC Landliebe (who had also failed a doping test in ), had been stolen.
Finally, Waterford Crystal's samples were accompanied by armed guard to New York, where they were found to contain Acuphase and Prolixin, sedatives used to treat schizophrenia and bipolar disorder in humans. The FEI had banned the drugs for their known calming effects on horses. In March, O'Connor was stripped of his gold medal, the only one that Ireland won at the Athens Games.
As a result of the drug fiasco, the horses that compete in the Beijing Games will be under an unprecedented level of watchfulness. "Athens was really a bad moment for the sport," said FEI spokeswoman Malina Gueorguiev in April. "It was a big problem and it was very spectacular. Should anything like that happen again it could be very detrimental for the sport."
According to the FEI, a new doping code will ensure that the three leading horses will be tested after every phase of competition, in addition to random tests that will push the total number of tests from 40 in Athens to 60 in Beijing. In addition, the governing body's first doping guide was published, which guides riders with appropriate medication techniques in three languages.
The increased controls and drug tests will hopefully restore Olympic equestrian events to the way they should be: pleasingly pretty, and beautifully boring.
(Photo © Icon Sports Media)
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