We'd be dopes not to know it happens - Herald Sun

North Queensland Cowboys skipper Johnathan Thurston describes the finding of the ACC report as a sad day for sport, and backs any action from the NRL to clean up the game.

Source: The Daily Telegraph

Brisbane Broncos coach Anthony Griffin says his club have nothing to hide in relation to suspected doping and links to organised crime.

North Queensland chief executive Peter Jordain backs the integrity of his side in the wake of the ACC's findings into drugs and sport.

WATCHING the Crime Commission release its report into the integrity of Australian sport with maximum pomp yesterday, I was reminded of a scene from the TV show Seinfeld.

Jerry asks George to name his favourite explorer.

"De Soto," he says. "He discovered the Mississippi River."

Jerry is unimpressed.

"Yeah," he says. "Like they wouldn't have found that anyway."

Without wanting to denigrate the work that the ACC put into uncovering the trail that led from smelly dressing rooms to performance-enhancing drugs, match-fixing and organised crime, did anyone really doubt that some Australian athletes, trainers, sports scientists and administrators were less than perfect?

Then again, maybe they did.

It has always been a source of amusement to me that among many Australian sports followers, when a Chinese girl breaks a world record she is labelled a drug cheat. When an Aussie does it she's a bloody marvel.

Admittedly the Chinese (and Russians and East Germans, etc) have got a rap sheet as long as the throw that won the javelin gold for the Soviet Union's Dainis Kula at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, but we're not squeaky clean ourselves.

The eye-catching title on the cover of the ACC report is "Organised Crime and Drugs in Sport". An alternative could have been, "Duh".

The report quotes an Australian Sports Commission study that found "Australians are proud of their sporting ability and reputation as a nation of good sports, and our society expects high standards of behaviour from all people involved in sport".

Fair enough too, but anyone who believes those expectations are being met 100 per cent of the time are either naive or living in a bubble.

Or maybe, more realistically, burying their heads in the sand. It's not so much that people want their athletes and sporting contests to be beyond reproach. It's that they don't want to know about it if they're not.

The ACC report mentioned only one name: Lance Armstrong.

The disgraced cyclist is now the go-to guy for anti-drug campaigners, but let's not forget how long it took to catch him, and even after that, how long it took for people to believe the bleeding obvious.

Even today there are plenty of Armstrong supporters who stick by him under the banner of, "Well, everyone else was doing it."

Another revelation in the report is that "illicit drug use by professional athletes is more prevalent than is reflected in official sports drug testing program statistics, and there is evidence that some professional athletes are exploiting loopholes in illicit drug testing programs".

I'm not sure how much time and money they put into uncovering that show stopper, but it would have been a lot easier and cheaper if they'd just bought Andrew Johns's biography.

Johns sidestepped the drugs testers for most of his career, with his drug use an open secret in Newcastle.

Last year he received the game's highest honour when named an Immortal. Maybe just another case of "Well, everyone else was doing it".

Much of what was revealed in yesterday's report was merely a rehash of past "explosive allegations" from years, and headlines, gone by.

Use of supplements? I remember a front-page The Courier-Mail story in 1998 outlining investigations into the use of a suspect supplement called HMB by the Queensland Reds rugby side.

Match-fixing and links to organised crime? Do the names Hansie Cronje, Shane Warne and Mark Waugh ring a bell?

That was also 1998, and was going to lead to the greatest shake-up in the history of sport.

We're still waiting. Why? Because there is too much at stake.

Too much money, too much greed and too much enjoyment from fans who just want to watch the game.

Just like the Mississippi, the seedy side of sport was discovered years ago. And like Ol' Man River, it just keeps rolling along.