Chris Rattue: Lewis and Caucaunibuca: It's what they didn't say that told the story

Sometimes those sports quotes just don't add up. On other occasions they only make sense years later.

I thought about that when great American athlete Carl Lewis had a bad week to end all bad weeks, and a few days later when Blues wing sensation Rupeni Caucaunibuca announced he would play rugby for Fiji.

I once chased Lewis around Auckland for more than an hour, and he never got more than a metre ahead.

Lewis was in the front seat of a car being driven around the city, and I was in the back - interviewing away, but never really catching anything.

Lewis - who was paid $70,000 to finish down the track in one race in Auckland - was quite open, but also strangely distant. Lots of bright lights on, but no cosy fire glowing at home.

There was hardly a quote worth using. Chatty, friendly - yet aloof. He was on a whirlwind tour, and maybe his mind was elsewhere.

I started gazing out of the car window.

The great sprinter could certainly move, but he had trouble moving other people.

Most strangely, he was on this occasion a cold fish on a subject supposedly dear to his heart - drug cheats in sport.

Maybe Lewis had said all he had to say by the time he strolled into Auckland six years ago and claimed: "It doesn't matter where I finish here because no one is going to remember that. I would rather just make my appearance and wave to the crowd."

The subject of Robin Tait had to come up. The meeting in which Lewis was running the next day was named after the six-time Commonwealth Games athlete, who won the discus gold in Christchurch in 1974.

Tait, who died nearly 20 years ago after a life of booze and drugs, was famous for a diet that included steroids and just about everything else which might enhance or destroy a career.

Tim Bickerstaff recounted in his excellent book Heroes and Villains how Tait was once asked by team members to keep the noise down after he hit the grog on a plane trip.

Tait responded by delving into his "medicine bag" and giving them some sleep assistance.

He knew his stuff - the two team members were still in a deep slumber 12 hours later.

Lewis brushed off my questions about Tait, and seemed remarkably ambivalent for a man who portrayed himself as Mr Clean in a dirty sport.

You had to look for the good in every man, he mumbled, which is fair enough. Lewis had often wished Ben Johnson - who had almost cheated him out of Olympic gold in 1988 before a drug test disqualification - the best after Johnson completed his drug ban.

Last week, Lewis could claim gold, silver and bronze in reputation-wrecking. He had one of the most famous bad weeks in the history of sport. It started with him uncovered as a drug cheat before claiming gold in Seoul, and finished with him allegedly tanked when he crashed his car and ended up in the tank.

He must have carried those secret drug test results around like a millstone. Maybe when he wished Johnson the best and searched for the good in Tait, Lewis was really searching for the good in himself and banking on a bit of redemption should the tests ever be exposed.

As for Caucaunibuca, you don't need time to work out what he has been on about while his international rugby future was sorted.

His statement on Monday night appeared like something from the beginner's guide to media releases.

Caucaunibuca, who is not renowned for his eloquence, didn't suddenly turn into Damon Runyon, but he managed to rattle on at great length, for him, about his debt to Northland and the Blues, told us who he was contracted to, and that he was eligible and available for Fiji.

But there was no sign of passion about playing for his country of birth. Maybe, like Lewis, what Caucaunibuca didn't say told the story.

The 22-year-old stuffed up, given what became of his intention of playing for the All Blacks, by turning out for a Fijian sevens side.

Remember, he has never played a test for Fiji - undoubtedly because he didn't want to when a better offer was in the wind.

The rules forced Caucaunibuca into a corner, and he must live with that. Timing is everything in sport, and the man who makes defenders grasp at thin air missed his target.

And despite protests to the contrary by the Blues, they did have an interest in Caucaunibuca playing for the All Blacks.

Serious New Zealand Rugby Union money would have made it much easier to keep him in this country long-term.