Athletes, drugs, crime and condoms. Should be an interesting Olympics – Trevor Laffan

So the Summer Olympic Games of 2016 is almost upon us and will take place in Rio in Brazil from 5^th August to 21^st August. Over ten thousand athletes will take part in twenty eight Olympic sports, all hoping to capture the ultimate prize of an Olympic medal.

As a youngster I used to get excited in the run up to the games but drugs cheats and doping scandals have dimmed my enthusiasm. Over the years, I have become extremely cynical.

Nowadays when I see some sports person standing on a podium to receive an accolade I automatically find myself questioning how genuine the victory was and whether or not the performance was enhanced by drugs.

It’s a natural reaction given the wholesale abuse of drugs in sport in recent years. And just when you think that we are getting a handle on it up pops a new scandal that puts us back in our cynical box again.

In the seventies we used to question Eastern European weightlifters who were lifting shopping centres while other mere mortals were struggling with normal dead lifts. And that was only the women. When the Chinese won medals we just threw our eyes up to the heavens and accepted it.

So, given what we now know about performance enhancing drugs and their widespread use and abuse, can we look forward to a level playing field and fairer games this time round? I suspect not.

Drugs cheats from the London Olympics are close to being exposed after 31 athletes tested positive following a re-examination of samples from the Beijing 2008 Games. All are facing possible bans from Rio 2016 thanks to retests carried out using the latest techniques in the fight against doping.

The International Olympic Committee announced that at least 6.8% of 454 defrosted samples analysed from Beijing 2008 contained banned substances, with the results for 250 London 2012 samples expected to be revealed shortly.

What this means in ordinary language is that these athletes got away with using performance enhancing drugs in 2008 and possibly cheated their way to the podium while denying genuine athletes their rightful recognition. The only reason that they got caught is because now there are more sophisticated techniques available for finding the stuff than there were in 2008.

The IOC also confirmed plans to reanalyse samples from the 2014 Winter Olympics following the latest allegations that Russia ran another state-sponsored doping programme in Sochi, one involving the swapping of dirty samples for clean ones.

There is some talk that there could be a total ban on the Russians competing at the Rio Games but then, that would be unfair on those athletes who have independently proven test records. Winning a medal without competing against Russian athletes would surely diminish the achievement of the other athletes as well.

A wider re-testing programme of medallists from Beijing and London will eventually take place, including anyone reallocated a medal as a result.

Testing, re-testing and re-testing those who were subsequently upgraded following re-tests is now very complicated and should possibly be considered for inclusion as an Olympic event itself.

So then, what can we look forward to in Rio? Well, we are promised that there will be stringent testing and cheats will be dealt with. But only if they can find exactly what it is that is making them go faster, jump higher or throw further. The organisers will freeze samples for another ten years and by then there will be more sophisticated machinery available for finding drugs that are still currently undetectable.

We will probably have winners on podiums receiving medals that will be taken off them in a few years and given to other athletes who went home early because they couldn’t keep up.

But it’s not only the athletes we have to worry about. Drugs are also an issue outside the Olympic Stadium in Rio. In a recent shoot- out between the police and a drugs gang, a police helicopter was shot down and an officer was killed.

Police in Brazil shoot more, kill more and die on duty more than anywhere else in the world apparently, according to police officer Marcus Azevedo. He claims that he has to use his 50,000 volt Taser almost every day in pursuit of robbers and pickpockets.

One police officer is killed almost every three days in Rio. Of his 2011 graduation class of 60 officers, one is already dead and another has been blinded in shootings. His older colleague Sergeant Santana says, “My old headquarters looked like a Swiss cheese because it had so many bullet holes.”

Most of the low level crimes are carried out by teenagers on bicycles who snatch necklaces, phones or handbags. Some criminals use knives and there are also occasional swarms of young thieves who rampage across the beaches, stealing everything from the tourists.

I’m sure this is all very comforting for those planning on travelling there for the games.

There is another point of interest. The Olympics have not yet begun, but the first record has already been set with the number of free condoms being handed out to the athletes.

Officials will be distributing 450,000 condoms to the athletes on the day the Olympic Village opens, that’s an average of 42 condoms per athlete and a three-fold increase over the number of condoms distributed at the London Olympics.

Brazil considers itself to be a leader in the world when it comes to AIDS prevention and wants to encourage safe sex and also wants the athletes set an example to the general population.

With all the sport, drugs and condoms floating around, this Olympics may well be worth watching after all.