SPORTS

McCurdy: Phelps, Bolt and Rio clean?

After two weeks, Rob McCurdy is left to wonder about the cleanliness of two stars and one city.

Rob McCurdy
Reporter

I watched Michael Phelps turn back the clock, but I didn't catch Phelps fever.

Aug 13, 2016; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Michael Phelps (USA) during the men's 4x100 medley relay final in the Rio 2016 Summer Olympic Games at Olympic Aquatics Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

I saw Usain Bolt run like a 20-something sprinter, not the 30-something his birth certificate says.

The rest of the world might have gotten hooked, but I didn't.

In the moment, I was excited to see Phelps swim his way to becoming the Olympic equivalent of Fort Knox. I loved watching Bolt as the fastest man alive clown the competition in his three disciplines for the third time in track.

But my next thought after watching those two do things men of their age probably shouldn't do was to wonder what they were taking to help those performances. Was it more than cupping and aspirin?

It's sad. It's really sad that in 2016 I'm so cynical when watching historic performances from a pair of all-timers, but that's where the Olympic Games have led me.

There is absolutely no proof that either Phelps or Bolt did anything wrong. They very well could be freakishly supreme athletic specimens who swam and ran on the up-and-up.

Then I remember Ben Johnson ... and Marion Jones ... and Justin Gatlin ... and Tyson Gay ... and Major League Baseball ... and the UFC doper of the month ... and the random NFL player ... and parts of the WWE roster ... and the entire Russian track team. I'm left to wonder if my eyes are to be believed.

Of course, the guy who ruined it for everyone is Lance Armstrong, the patron saint of all lying hypocrites.

He was allegedly on the up-and-up, too, coming back from near-fatal cancer to dominate the dirty sport of cycling. Years went by, and it was proven he was as dirty as the rest and more vindictive than all of them combined.

It's unfair to Phelps and Bolt to wonder how true their otherworldly performances were. But that's the way it is, at least for me, in 2016.

And that leads me to another point regarding the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Was Rio lucky, or were the dire predictions of doom and gloom by the media overhyped?

In reading the previews and watching the news accounts over the last year heading into the Games, it seemed as if media members were waiting for Caligula's Rome to meet Armageddon in Rio.

I was expecting more floating bodies to be at the rowing venue than live ones. I was waiting for stick-up men to rob the marathoners as they ran. I feared the rains from the Amazon would disintegrate the Olympic housing that was allegedly made of papier-mache and duct tape. I didn't hear of any outbreaks of the plague over the last two weeks, which is a good thing.

The problems of pollution, crime, substandard housing and disease are real in Rio. Hosting something as grand as the Olympics while in the midst of these issues surely wasn't ideal. But Rio seemed to overcome it and a rogue band of American swimmers led by white/green-haired villain Ryan Lochte.

While we won't know the true effect on the athletes who competed there for months, it appears as if the International Olympic Committee dodged one there. The Games went off without much of a hitch and with no international incidents of note — except for Lochte and his henchmen.

So congrats Rio. You were better than Atlanta and not as awful at Munich.

Good luck Tokyo.

Rob McCurdy is the sports writer at The Marion Star and can be reached at rmccurdy@gannett.com, (work) 740-375-5158, (cell) 419-610-0998 or Twitter @McMotorsport.