Monday, March 28, 2005
Greek Tragedy or Irish Farce?
Oh, how we celebrated that night in Athens as Cian O'Connor and Waterford Crystal won gold for Ireland in last summer's Olympic games in Athens! Alas, the International Equestrian Federation has ruled that Mr O'Connor must hand back his Olympic gold medal.The IEF found that Waterford Crystal had two banned substances in its system during the games.
The judicial committee - based in Zurich - last night disqualified O'Connor from all competitions relating to the games and banned him for three months.
Mr O'Connor has again said he had done nothing wrong.He said he was delighted that the sports body had accepted that neither he nor his vet were involved in any deliberate attempt to affect the performance of his horse.
What a shambles! At the time, I sung Cian O'Connor's praises as I'm sure most of us did, but we are all left feeling very foolish now.If there was no deliberate attempt to cheat then he is losing his medal due to a typical Irish cock-up.Acting like gobshites and eejits on a global stage will lead to situations like this and in the eyes of world sport, our country is a laughing stock.It's a joke.
The judicial committee - based in Zurich - last night disqualified O'Connor from all competitions relating to the games and banned him for three months.
Mr O'Connor has again said he had done nothing wrong.He said he was delighted that the sports body had accepted that neither he nor his vet were involved in any deliberate attempt to affect the performance of his horse.
What a shambles! At the time, I sung Cian O'Connor's praises as I'm sure most of us did, but we are all left feeling very foolish now.If there was no deliberate attempt to cheat then he is losing his medal due to a typical Irish cock-up.Acting like gobshites and eejits on a global stage will lead to situations like this and in the eyes of world sport, our country is a laughing stock.It's a joke.
# posted by United Irelander @ 12:36 PM 
© 2008 United Irelander.
