E-Paper
Athens leaves golden couples far behind
Athens was supposed to go down in history as the Game of Marion Jones and Tim Montgomery but the fantasy was punctured by a syringe.
The Athens Olympics were supposed to go down in history as the Games of the Golden Couple. The script writers had cast their characters and penned the perfect storyline long ago.
Marion Jones -- leading lady -- would win a bagful of bullion while her leading man, real-life partner and 100 metres world record holder Tim Montgomery, would be crowned the fastest human being on the planet.
The two would embrace, parade their young son before the world and the United States would go wild.
When that fantasy was punctured by a syringe, anonymously sent to the US drugs police and containing a previously undetectable designer steroid, a quick re-jig was required, along similar lines but with a Greek theme.
Now Sydney victor Costas Kenteris would magically defend his 200 metres title -- not quite the Olympics' blue-riband event but as near as damn it -- and his training partner and compatriot Katerina Thanou would replace Jones as 100 metres queen. The pair would embrace and Greece would explode with joy.
But a missed drugs test, a mysterious motorbike shunt and a stream of unanswered doping questions also killed off that idea, culminating on Saturday with Kenteris and Thanou's suspension from the Greek team. Athens now desperately needs a second re-write.
The golden couple line appears defunct. The men's and women's sprints, too, seem fatally compromised as the stage for the big exploit of the Games. Sydney 100 metres champion and one-time world record holder Maurice Greene,
proclaiming himself the 'GOAT' (Greatest of All Time) at every opportunity, has both stature and a story to tell.
But how heroic would a repeat victory be, with the lanes next to him denuded of quality by scandal? Montgomery faces a doping ban while Europe's best, Briton Dwain Chambers, has already been sidelined for two years. The women's sprints, meanwhile, have been eviscerated, with Jones, herself being investigated by the US Anti-Doping Agency, off the pace and reduced to the long jump. Kelli White has been banned for doping after being stripped of a 2003 World Championship double.
