KEY POINTS:
In the glow of Sarah Ulmer's exalting victory at Athens, a British journalist at the post-race press conference asked the ugly question.
Four years on, the exact question escapes me, but the gist of it was: Have you taken performance-enhancing drugs?
None of the New Zealand journalists there would have asked _ we didn't have to. Aside from her strong anti-doping stand, Ulmer's performance over her cycling career marked her out as someone doing it clean. She took 10 years to get to the top of the Olympic dais, improving slowly but steadily. Graft, not drugs, were her secret weapon.
Ulmer dealt with the question efficiently and politely, leaving no room for ambiguity. Ever the professional.
But it has always struck me as incredibly sad that anyone felt they needed to ask. And that's the insidious, evil nature of doping.
The reality is, we can't watch sport these days without wondering what input the chemist may have had. Thanks to cheats, this is the prism through which we now, regrettably, view elite competition.
I'm not naive enough to think New Zealanders never have or ever will take the easy option. We have our hall of shame and international competition carries with it immense pressure to succeed any way you can.
Just this week, Liliana Popescu, a favourite for the women's 1500m gold, was dropped from the Romanian team after failing a drugs test.
The International Olympic Committee is mounting an offensive, promising to carry out 4500 in and out-of-competition tests, 25 per cent more than Athens. But the more determined the testers become, the more cunning the rogue laboratories get.
I spoke with Valerie Vili about the issue. Her event was blighted by drugs at the last Olympics when the initial winner was disqualified after failing a dope test. Because of a cheat, Vili was robbed the chance to compete in the final, a cruel blow for the-then 18-year-old.
Since she bounded on to the international stage as a teenager, Vili has improved steadily, the increments never dramatic. It's what she puts into training, not her veins, that earned Vili the shot put world championship.
Will all her opponents be so honest? In typically straight-up language she explained her attitude. "At the end of the day, if they want to take drugs it's up to them, do what they like. Whip-dee-doo. I know I'm walking into it all natural and I'll give it 110 per cent and if it's not big enough, well then you can't help it. You can't control what they do. If you can't control it, don't worry about it."
That's the attitude she has to have. We can afford to be more questioning. We have to. If someone comes from nowhere to wrest the gold off Vili in five weeks , will we applaud the achievement or jump to the un-ignorable conclusion?
