Bad Decisions Are Really Not Helping Athletics At All

In 2001 Marion Jones won the gold medal in the 100m sprint final. After she admitted to THG abuse, the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) voided all her performances in September 2000.

Now, usually in this situation, the medal is taken from the banned athlete and given to the next finisher in the race. However, in this situation the silver medalist was none other then controversial Greek athlete, Katerina Thanou. Thanou was suspended on the eve of the 2004 Olympics for missing three drugs tests in dubious circumstances.

The IAAF had a decision to make; Make the problem worse by taking the medal from one disgraced athlete and giving it to another or take the sensible move and give it to the third place athlete. This being athletics of course, they made the wrong decision.

"There was no evidence of Thanou committing any doping offence during the period in question, which leaves us with no alternative but to award the medal to her."Actually there was an alternative guys, you could have just held on to the damn thing and forgotten all about it. But no... all publicity is good publicity to the IAAF I guess.

Drugs are damaging enough to a sport without the incompetent behavior of their governing bodies. This is a very disappointing decision indeed.

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