Whoa, man!

AN awestruck Devin
Rajala (right) and friend
Bobby Lavigne react to
an aerial stunt by BMX
rider Doug Piikey
(above) during a show at
Capilano Mali on
Sunday.

NEWS photos Juile Iverson

ishing the depe on
| the Summer Games

LET'S start out with
some Olympics-related
items today. With luck
they just may add up to
a column.

Utterly fascinating it was,
less than a week after Toronto

named front-runners in the
race to land the 2008 Sunimer
Olympics, to see China and
Canada unloading dope-faited
athletes. Unloading then even
before they gor to the airport
for the flight to Sydney and
the Games that start the day
after tomorrow.

Do you detect a message
here? | mean, if youre serious
about hosting the most
overblown sports spectacle in
creation, it helps to be
squeaky ‘clean in the eves of
the International Glympic
Committee. And getting a
good head start may earn
extra brownie points.

In Canada’s ase you can
safely put it doen to coinci-
dence. Only wo athletes were
banned. But China? Put it
down to an c7ganized cheat-
ing effort that went our the
window when the [OC
announced 1 few days ago it
now has th.: technology to
test for the newest and most
fashionabl: of performance-
enhancing drugs. It’s known
as EPO, because hardly any-
one can pronounce “erthy-
ropoletin”,

Suddenly 27 athletes and

3 officials found themselves
Mer of work and no longer
bound for Oz. EPO is a sub-
stance that increases the oxy-
gen-carrying red blood cells,
and thus has particular appeal

Jim
camey

Spectator

for athfezes in middle distance
and other endurance events.

IOC members must be
covertly sinding abour some-
thing seo obvious, while won-
dering if Canada leads the
league in all-dumsb athletes.

A positive cocaine test got
Eric Lamaze unhorsed from
the equestrian team — for the
second time. Same drug, same
result prior to the 1996
Games.

This guy and Ben Johnson
should get together and torm
an ail-damb ream. Remember
Ben? Wor the 100 in 1988 at
Seoul on a steroids diet and
was disqualified. Tried to
make a comeback and was
caught again.

Just as a non-sequitur, has
it occurred to you that the
horses are the athletes — not
the passengers astride them.
Do Olympic officials test the
winning horses? And for what?

There may be some of you
out there who wish to make a
wager on Toronto or Beijing
as host city in 2008. My
advice is to put your money
on the Chinese city. It missed
by the margin of just one
tainted vote when Sydney
won the Games we're about
to see live on CBC. That is, if
we don’t mind sitting in front
of the box trom midnight

until 5 aim,

At the start of the new
century, the Olympics are less
than ever about the athletes;
more than ever about interna-
tional polities, money and
television, Nominally commu-
nist, China is rapidly changing
inte a consumer society of 1.3
billion consumers.

The [OC wanted she
Games there this year. Now
that China is trying: again,
only the biggest drug scandal
in Olympic history could
change their minds

Besides, since Sydney and
the upcoming Winter
Olvmipies in Salt Lake City,
the old bribery routine is pret-
ty well closed down.

Besides, what would
Toronto do with a 100,000-
seat open stadium after the
Games are over? Go out and
get an NFL franchise? Don’t
be silly. Last week Houston
got back into the NFL for
2001 at an entry fee cost of
$700 million. U.S. eagles, not
67-cent loonies. It ain't going
to happen.

What 1S going to happen,
when the IOC names Beijing
the winner next summer, is
that Toronto — runner-up to
Adanta for the 1996 Games
— will be encouraged to try
tor a third time.

It likely will have an attack
of common sense and decline.
But the [OC will take care of
Canada in the summer of
2093 with a second prize of
sorts. It'll award the smaller
2010 Winter Olympics to
Vancouver-Whistler.

Have | ever been wrong?.
Sadly, often. But noi this

“time.

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Photo submitted wt

THE Zone 5 girls basketball squad that captured the bronze medal at the B.C.
Summer Games. Seven players hail from the North Shore.

Basketball team medals

SEVEN North Shore cagers will 48 by Fraser River/ Delta but the team man:
nd the fall polishin heir aged to capture third-place bragging rights
re Sune Pens ee “ with a 68-48 score over Fraser Valley in “the

bronze medal matchup.
The Zone 5 basketball squad, which was

All sizes and
' “products.

The North Shore seven were: Sutherland” s

selected trom eligible girls on che North Shore — Kate Pakulak, 15; Argyle’s Kelsey Blair, 16;

65% Polyester/ 35% Cottton, 115¢em., REG. $2. 99m. and Vancouver, had the bulk of it: 1G-member) Carson Graham’s Ashley Palmer, 16;
— ITT team culled from North Vancouver. Handsworth’s Laura Todd and Paige David,

t NORTH VANCOUVER, 730 West 14th.St. 980-0551 i The Zone 5 team won their pool by defeat both 16, and 15-year-old Erica McGuinress.--

* Downtown Vancouver, 5th. Floor, the Bay, 689-2115 ° .
+ Burnaby, 2280 Holdom Avo., 430-8371 ¥ ing Vancouver Island 52-41; edging Fraser Handsworth’s McGuinness led the team in

: Surrey, 8666-120th Boot Sob. Bone ones ee CCR Valley 53-50; and crushing the Northwest B.C. scoring at the summer event, averaging a total
7 Kangley, 19950 Willowbrock Dr. 593-4805 e3: reps by a tally of 62-20. of 11 points per game.
Their run was ended in the semi-tinals 68- ~~ Jan-Christian Sorensen