Glory at Games — and scandal

SYDNEY, Australia — This isn't a sinister case of an athlete pumping herself full of steroids or human growth hormone. Andreea Raducan isn't Ben Johnson. At 4 feet 10 inches and 82 pounds, her slight body is hardly bulging with muscles.

She had a fever and a cold. She wanted to feel better. So the Romanian team doctor gave her Nurofen, an over-the-counter medication for colds and flu that anyone can walk into a pharmacy and buy.

She swallowed two little pills, and now she has one gold medal instead of two.

The 16-year-old was stripped of her gold from the women's all-around Tuesday after she tested positive for pseudoephedrine, a banned stimulant. She is the first gymnast ever to be stripped of a medal because of a drug violation, and Romanian Olympic Committee president Ion Tiriac said he would appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

Across town, C.J. Hunter fought tears Tuesday as he denied that he would ever take anabolic steroids, saying his career means nothing compared to wife Marion Jones' quest for five Olympic gold medals.

At a packed news conference in a downtown Sydney hotel, the normally gruff 330-pound shot putter nearly broke down several times as he said he didn't know why he had tested positive at the Bislett Games in Oslo, Norway, on July 28.

Later in the session, Hunter joined his nutritionist in blaming an iron supplement that may have been contaminated. His wife had not taken the supplement, Hunter said.

"I'm going to defend myself vigorously," Hunter said as attorney Johnnie Cochran watched from the wings. "We've put together a great team, and I'm quite positive that when everything is said and done, I'll be exonerated."

Meanwhile, Olympics watchers are stunned by widespread drug use.

Numbers make the difference in any Olympics, but these statistics are just plain nauseating: Four medals surrendered. Five nations sullied. Six athletes punished.

This isn't the way it was supposed to be.

This is what they have come to so far this month. Bulgaria: three weightlifters thrown out and one gold medal lost (weight-loss diuretic). Latvia: one rower caught (steroids). Belarus: one hammer thrower banished (steroids again). The United States: Hunter, shot putter and husband of Olympic superstar Jones, under siege for a positive test in July (steroids once more, 1,000 times the allowed limit).

When things go bad at the Olympics, they go bad in a big way — in front of a rapt world that demands good things from its "amateur" athletes and its signature sporting events.

"We still love watching them. We still believe in the great qualities that sport can produce in people," says Richard Light of the University of Melbourne, who studies how sport shapes young people.