Drugs Inside Sport: The Rehabilitation of Samantha Riley

Drugs Inside Sport: The Rehabilitation of Samantha Riley Tara Magdalinski Despite not making the 2000 Olympic team, Samantha Riley was a successful Australian swimmer throughout the 1990s and held world records in her events, the 100m and 200m breaststroke. After her emergence on the world scene, she quickly became one of Australia’s most high-profile athletes, enjoying recognition, the support of a number of sponsors and favourable press coverage. In 1996, however, Riley tested positive to a banned narcotic analgesic, dextropropoxyphene, contained in a headache tablet she had taken at the 1995 World Short Course Championships in Rio de Janiero. She escaped the mandatory two-year ban usually imposed by FINA, swimming’s governing body, whilst her coach, Scott Volkers, who had administered the drug was dealt a two-year ban on coaching that was later ‘clarified’ so that he could continue coaching in Australia. Although, 1996 was described as the ‘worst year of her life’, Riley emerged from the scandal a ‘bigger star’ than before with ‘probably more support from the country than she’d had previously’, according to manager Geoffrey Schucraft.1 For most of the 1990s, the Australian sporting fraternity, and in particular Australian swimming, has positioned itself, with the aid of a willing media and compliant government, as a leader in the international fight against drugs. Government strategies designed to prevent drug use among young athletes regularly refer to Australia’s ‘leading’ position in the campaign against drugs in sport.2 In late 1999, Federal Minister for Sport Jackie Kelly staged an international conference, appropriately titled ‘Pure Performance’, to discuss these issues and to Confirm Australia’s status as the leading advocate for ‘clean sport’. Yet it is not only the government that has presented a vigilant and coherent campaign against this ‘scourge of sport’. Television news, current affairs reports and the print media have been consistent in their efforts to present the nation as united in its abhorrence of chemical performance enhancers, and each plays an ‘educative’ role in teaching the public to recognise and scrutinise bodies suspected of relying on illicit substances. The Chinese swim team have been regular targets for criticism and more recently Irish swimmer, Michelle (Smith) de Bruin and Dutch swimmer Inge de Bruijn have been attacked for their ‘suspicious’ results.3 18 Sporting Traditions • vol. 17 no. 2 • May 2001 In this climate, the news of a positive test by one of Australia’s ‘darlings’ of the pool in the lead up to the 1996 Olympics was, at best, a shock, and at worst, a confirmation that Australian athletes (and by association, Australia itself) had been infiltrated by banned substances.4 This posed a public relations problem for Australian sport and Swimming Australia as well as for the media that had adopted the position that Australian athletes were unequivocally clean. At risk was not just the reputation of an individual swimmer, but the credibility of the nation, so that not only did sports administrators need to reiterate the national tough stance against performance-enhancing drugs, but at the same time Australia’s standing as a clean nation required reconfirmation. The recovery of Riley’s reputation, whilst maintaining a strict stance against performanceenhancers, meant that the media had to strike a balance between condemning all drug use and appearing to ‘forgive’ Australian athletes’ misdemeanours. To illuminate the redemption of Riley through the popular media, this article focuses on the 1995 and 1996 issues of Inside Sport and examines the role of this publication in a process that simultaneously contributed to the restoration of a national sporting icon without relinquishing the national position against performance enhancers in sport and public ongoing critique of ‘suspicious’ nations. The approaches used in the magazine ranged from presenting visual and textual images of drug-enhanced bodies to openly questioning the integrity of foreign athletes. But of greatest interest in this article is the way that a range of ideologies such as those dealing with health, the body and gender were employed in order to visually recognise physical markers of drug taking in a postmodern phrenologic examination of the external contours of the athletic body. Doping in Inside Sport The discourses surrounding performance enhancing drugs are now firmly part of the public sporting narrative. Suspected drug cheats are paraded on the evening news and in sports magazines, whilst within Australia, the media have confirmed the inappropriateness of this type of technological enhancement. The popular press regularly discuss the ‘crisis situation’ in global (Olympic) sport and reprimand federations, such as FINA and the IOC, that seem to do little to ‘clean sport up’.5 At the same time, Australia is presented as a ‘world-leader’ in the fight against doping, both in terms of its vocal stance and its efforts to produce improved testing procedures, confirmed by government reports, submissions and media releases.6 Of all the popular media products, Inside Sport, Australia’s foremost monthly sports magazine, provides a useful case study to examine the discourses and ideologies that comprise the hegemonic view of performance enhancement in sport. Although the doping issue has been a public concern since the inception of the magazine in 1992, Inside Sport began to focus extensively Magdalinski • Drugs Inside Sport 19 on performance enhancing drugs in 1996, and the Australian public have been increasingly ‘educated’ about the nature of chemical enhancement, particularly within swimming. Before discussing the specifics of the Riley case within Inside Sport, it is important to look at the position of the magazine within the Australian sports media context. Sports media in Australia has enjoyed a long history, with significant sections of both the Melbourne Age and the Sydney Morning Herald devoted to the coverage of popular sporting activities from the mid-nineteenth century. By the late-nineteenth century, as a result of a growing national prosperity, the formalisation of many sporting codes, the development of organised spectator sport and improved communications technology, sports journalism was thriving. Specialist newspapers dedicated themselves to sport, such as the Referee, a Sydney based sports paper that began in 1886. Others included the Melbourne Sportsman, the Sydney Sportsman and the Queensland Sportsman, as well as a host of publications dedicated to specific sports.7 Despite this tradition, since the Second World War, sports magazines have struggled. Primarily owing to the increased presence of radio and television sports reporting, the treatment of sport in the press changed. Whereas once dedicated sports newspapers considered sport a serious cultural phenomenon, in this era the focus shifted to providing readers with entertainment and a greater emphasis on personalities or heroes.8 By the 1990s, sports magazines were modelled more on an infotainment format, than on careful analysis. Indeed, Inside Sport describes itself as ‘irreverent, hard-hitting, insightful and humorous’,9 incorporating comic strips, centrefolds and texts liberally scattered with double entendres alongside serious journalistic accounts of Australian sport. In essence, Inside Sport is less a sports publication and more a vehicle for men’s entertainment. Whilst there have been numerous attempts to start both weekly and monthly sports publications, this has been without much success, despite the remodelling of one publication to more closely match the Inside Sport format. lnside Sport has, despite the odds, managed to succeed commercially and retain a healthy circulation, whilst its competitors in the mid-1990s, Sports Weekly (later Sports Monthly) and Total Sports, have fallen by the wayside. Whilst the style of sports reporting may have changed, the significance of the sporting media in promulgating cultural values and ideologies has not. Richard Cashman notes that in the late-nineteenth century the ‘print media were central to the expansion of sporting culture’, playing a significant role in both disseminating and interpreting information, investing the stories with ‘meaning and moral worth’.10 In the issues of Inside Sport under investigation, it is clear that ‘sports texts mediate understandings of social issues within sport and between sport and the society in which it is embedded’.11 The assumed ‘moral worth’ of sport is clearly visible in this case study. As with a number of other 20 Sporting Traditions • vol. 17 no. 2 • May 2001 other studies that select a single media text for analysis,12 it is appropriate to focus exclusively on Inside Sport to highlight how one media outlet produces ideological and nationalistic assumptions about performance enhancing drugs. An interrogation of articles, quotes and viewpoints within Inside Sport throughout 1995 and 1996 reveals that performance enhancing drugs are a key concern in contemporary Australian sport, however, of greater significance are the ideological discourses that frame this topic and position Australians as inherently opposed to performance enhancing substances in elite sport. What is most pertinent for this analysis is that the ideologies of health, fitness and fair play interplay with gendered physical ‘norms’ and nationalistic narratives to remind consumers that sport and athletic bodies characterise some kind of essential sense of Australianness shared by all citizens and embodied in its athletic representatives. Before Riley’s positive test was publicly revealed, Inside Sport had published a number of articles, commentaries and letters to the editor that strenuously defended ‘clean’ sport and had demanded the rejection of what they deemed to be ‘drug-taking nations’ from the 1996 Olympics. In late 1995, Inside Sport included a feature written by well-known Australian swimming coach and ardent anti-drugs in sport campaigner Forbes Carlile, who argued that strict and consistent bans should be implemented for anyone caught taking 13 performance enhancing drugs. Carlile’s article, ‘Why the Chinese must not swim at Atlanta ‘96’, included a fictitious scenario where elite swimmers would refuse to compete against the ‘drug cheats’ of China at the 1995 World Short Course Championships in Rio de Janiero. Ironically, it was at this meet that Riley tested positive to dextropropoxyphene after breaking the world short course record for the 100m breaststroke. Yet despite its overt position, Inside Sport has occasionally allowed alternative readings of chemical performance enhancement that question hardline approaches and prohibition, such as a December 1995 column, ‘Injecting realism’, by academics Douglas Booth and Colin Tatz, though the magazine clearly stated that it did ‘not necessarily endorse this view’.14 Unconventional opinions, however, were clearly negated by Inside Sport’s editorial team, which included explicit disclaimers that, in the case of Booth and Tatz, unashamedly pointed to the fact that Inside Sport has ‘long taken a strong stand against illegal drug use by athletes’.15 Other such readings have been rebuked as ‘un-Australian’, ‘illconsidered’ and ‘offensive’ by the editor,16 or more recently, as ‘tripe...from the academic world’.17 As Helen Lenskyj points out, the ‘apparent “balance” in the magazine’s treatment of the drug issue is no doubt intended to convey openness to debate’.18 Magdalinski • Drugs Inside Sport 21 Riley revealed By February 1996, it had been publicly revealed that Riley had returned a positive test to a banned narcotic analgesic. Riley’s coach, Scott Volkers, had given her a headache tablet, Di-gesic, several days before her event. Despite this, Riley received overwhelming public support from not just the Australian public and other swimmers, but from the same media outlets that had castigated the Chinese for their 1994 and 1995 drug positives. Riley’s pharmaceutical misdemeanour was represented as an ‘inadvertent accident'19 or a ‘clumsy mistake’,20 whilst Riley herself was reaffirmed as ‘Australia’s favourite sportswoman’,21 ‘Australian swimming’s golden girl’22 and ‘the sweet-smiling princess of Australian swimming’.23 Reports and editorials reported that the substance was not a ‘performance enhancer’24 and in fact was about to be removed from the banned list.25 Editorials and sports commentators alike argued that Riley was deserving of a simple warning, for anything else ‘would be a punishment out of proportion to the seriousness of the charge’.26 Yet even though Riley was positioned as a case of ‘innocent doping’,27 Australia’s reputation as a leading campaigner against drugs was reiterated effectively throughout these articles. Some analysts feared that Riley would receive a severe penalty from FINA ‘in retaliation for claims from Australia in the past that FINA was soft on drugs’.28 Yet, not all were supportive of Riley. There were some voices of dissent, most notably triplegold medalist Dawn Fraser, who was concerned that any leniency shown to Riley would discredit Australia’s claims to consistently rebuke all illegal substance abuse and make Australia the ‘laughing stock of the world’.29 Despite coverage in the national newspaper, Fraser’s comments were not included in Inside Sport’s analysis. Riley’s positive test led the following issue of Inside Sport in March 1996 and was initially positioned in terms of a range of recent controversies where Australian athletes had been ‘unjustly’ accused of misdemeanours. Greg Hunter, Inside Sport’s editor, asked his readership ‘Ever had the feeling that you’ve been wronged...grossly misunderstood, or seriously compromised through no fault of your own?’ Hunter lamented the ‘unfairness’ of Riley’s case, which was situated within the context of the impugnation of Australian’s sporting reputation as a number of ‘innocent or well-intentioned people have found themselves vilified’. With respect to Riley, Hunter was concerned that the Chinese may accuse ‘us’ of ‘massive hypocrisy in campaigning to protect one of our own from a ban resulting from positive drug use’, yet he questioned explicitly how anyone could equate taking a ‘headache pill’ with ‘systematic hormonal drug abuse’.30 These comments framed the magazine’s subsequent handling of the Riley incident. Despite their cautious treatment of Riley, Inside Sport was not prepared to renounce its position on illegal substances, but nor, it appeared, were the editors 22 Sporting Traditions • vol. 17 no. 2 • May 2001 willing, in an Olympic year, to ‘punish’ ‘one of our own’. Instead, the magazine was poised between rejecting all drug use in sport (and thus condemning Riley) and appearing to forgive only Australian athletes their chemical indiscretions. This contradiction had already surfaced in Inside Sport, and the editor was swift in his dismissal of any suggestion of a double standard. In January 1996, a letter was published in response to Carlile’s 1995 article suggesting that Inside Sport’s criticism of foreign athletes, particularly the Chinese, had been too harsh whilst simultaneously ignoring that, given the parameters suggested in the article, Australian athletes may also fall under suspicion of illegal substance abuse. 31 The editor responded at length to this letter, and, whilst welcoming feedback on this matter, condemned alternative viewpoints as ‘ill-considered’ and insisted that Australian athletes had a clear track record. The Australian Sports Drug Agency, the editor continued, had led the world in the administration of frequent and random drug tests, with Australian athletes being the most tested in the world.32 The editor’s points were validated by others in the magazine, including quotes from fellow Australian swimmer Susie O’Neill, who described female Chinese swimmers as ‘those girls with sideburns’,33 and an article on sports law, which described several cases of drug taking in sport, though none from Australia.34 Finally, the ‘Only in America’ column condemned the hypocrisy of US swimming officials for insisting on stringent controls on Chinese swimmers whilst placing fifteen year old distance swimmer Jessica Foschi on a two year probation after she tested positive to steroids.35 It is ironic that in the same month it was revealed Riley had tested positive, Inside Sport was outraged at the ‘hypocrisy of US swimming officials’ and the US swimming federation for their inconsistencies when it came to ‘one of their own’.36 As such, this was prophetic, for two months later, Inside Sport was deflecting similar criticisms of hypocrisy. Resurrecting the fallen star An examination of the articles, regular features, cartoons and editorial commentary that comprise Inside Sport reveals that most information about performance enhancing drugs was presented within regular components of the magazine that are more likely to represent editorial opinion rather than ‘facts’. Feature articles typically began around page twenty of the magazine, so that most of the direct editorial comments appeared in the first twenty pages. It is also important to note that letters to the editor are published on average two months after the issue about which the comments are made. Whilst many would argue that an increasingly media literate audience is capable of distinguishing editorial comment, the recent ‘Cash for Comment’ inquiry in Australia reveals that in fact the boundary between the two is largely blurred such that the distinction is almost irrelevant. 37 ‘Facts’ are selected and Magdalinski • Drugs Inside Sport 23 shaped to support editorial opinion thus any differentiation is essentially artificial. The Riley case provides a useful illustration. Building on several months of unqualified support for drug-free sport, the editorial staff carefully constructed the ‘truism’ that Australian athletes are naturally clean within the first six pages of the January 1996 issue by referring to Chinese swimmers, whom the readership already understood to be drug-fuelled, and confirming it with comments from O’Neill, who reiterated the physical anomalies of Chinese swimmers. The editor, several issues later, explicitly states, for the record, that there can be no comparison between a simple headache tablet and systematic hormonal manipulation and implicitly dares the reader to challenge his position. The subsequent comments, quotes, articles, comics and features that dealt with chemical performance enhancement throughout the first six months of 1996 strengthened this initial stance. Alternative viewpoints were not presented, despite initial indications that all sides of the debate were welcome, and readers were thus provided with a carefully constructed argument that, after five months, absolved Riley and condemned Others. After the magazine initially commented on the Riley case, for four consecutive months, five features dealt at least in part with drug taking in sport, each educating the audience about the ‘real’ issues behind performance enhancement and cheating. Visually and textually, examples were provided that ‘show’ the guilt of Chinese athletes and thus, by contrast, Riley’s innocence. Purchasers of Inside Sport were taught to scrutinise and to ‘read’ bodies in order to identify and later condemn those who ‘appear’ to be chemically boosted. This process involved carefully distinguishing Riley from a range of other drug takers. For example, Riley was not mentioned in any of the features that discussed drugs, for to do so would have reminded readers of her indiscretion and placed her within the category of ‘substance abuser’. At the same time, by relying on case studies from beyond Australia’s shores, ‘real’ drug takers were revealed to be foreign ‘Others’, not wholesome Australian athletes. Further, the repeated use of images and articles that present ‘clear’ evidence of chemical enhancement demonstrated to readers that Riley simply did not resemble these grotesque bodies. By July 1996, readers had faithfully learned what serious hormonal manipulation is and how it may be detected in athletes, such that Inside Sport could feature Riley without readers confusing an innocent tablet with systematic abuse. In a five page article, Inside Sport profiled Riley’s family life, her swimming technique, and her preparations for the Atlanta Olympics. The drug test was only mentioned in passing when focussing more generally on Riley’s charm and personality.38 Several mechanisms were employed to position Riley within a binary equation that distinguished her categorically from those who really abuse drugs. The first was placed in the editorial of March 1996. In his column, the 24 Sporting Traditions • vol. 17 no. 2 • May 2001 editor distinguished Australian drug use from Chinese drug abuse. Referring to systematic hormonal drug abuse and comparing it with a simple headache pill clearly draws the line between medication that restores health, and the chemical manipulation of the body. Elsewhere I have argued that the distinction between health restoring substances and drugs without any evident therapeutic advantage is regularly employed in the defence of Australian athletes caught taking banned substances.39 This theme continued through the first half of 1996, as Inside Sport, through its selection of letters to the editor, quotes, judgements and features, repeatedly contrasted the individual act of taking a headache tablet with systematic (state organised) chemical manipulation. In this way, Australian athletic bodies remained unproblematically natural in a binary couplet that juxtaposes ‘natural’ and ‘healthy’ with ‘unnatural’ and ‘unhealthy’. This contrast is confirmed by a feature article in March 1996 that outlined the steroid abuse and ultimate death of English bodybuilder Zoe Warwick. The images and text of the article focused on the damage to health, the physical irregularities and the masculinising of women as a result of massive steroid abuse, again prompting readers that a headache tablet is nothing like hormonal manipulation. The list of physical symptoms in the article, included cessation of menstruation, increase in size of Adam’s apple (larynx), deepening voice (‘as deep as a man’s’), masculinising gentials such that ‘her clitoris grew to resemble the head of a penis’, ‘roid rage, liver/pancreas failure, loss of hair, bloated limbs, fluid around the heart, failing eyesight, skin rashes, amnesia, loss of coordination, mood swings, fits, confirming the ‘unnatural’ status of testosterone supplements.40 Yet in the midst of these symptoms, the article reported that Warwick required seventeen ‘different medications to simply live with any degree of normality’. The irony was obviously lost on the journalist, but what this does reveal is that the curative nature of some chemicals (read medication) renders them legitimate. The restoration of health and the use of medication to return the body to some neutral, ‘natural’, healthy state provides the main distinction between a simple headache tablet and ‘systematic drug abuse’, as argued by the editor and confirmed by Warwick.41 Bodies, particularly female bodies that ingest drugs risk abnormal or grotesque development. O’Neill’s description of Chinese swimmers as ‘girls with sideburns’ highlights the endemic fear of ‘manly’ women, supported by an editorial team that has a clear ‘preoccupation with alleged gender transgressions resulting from steroid use’.42 The article ‘Killing Zoe’ provided visual evidence of the abnormal female body forever altered and threatened by the willing consumption of foreign substances. Essentially, then, the argument hinges on the concept of the body that has some innate equilibrium that cannot be unnaturally altered. Indeed, this ‘balance’ exists because natural bodies are believed to be biologically determined rather than culturally ascribed. In particular, the sex categories of ‘male’ and ‘female’ Magdalinski • Drugs Inside Sport 25 are thought to be fixed. Of course, the use of androgenic substances threatened these categories, though Michael Burke argues that the ‘most interesting cases of mythmaking to support dichotomous sex categories occur when females enter sports that have traditionally been gendered male’.43 Whilst I agree with these sentiments, I would add that attempts to secure distinctive sex categories occur at any time women seek to step outside the traditional feminine form. It is not so much a case of simply playing masculine sports as it is daring to physically replicate the male (athletic) body. The ‘problem’ with drugs is that they are thought to disrupt these borders and provide the potential for not only the masculinising female but also the feminising male. This gender confusion is feared, particularly if the physical characteristics of men and women are manipulated as a result. The blurring of biological, particularly visual borders, is seen as a greater threat, than the blurring of cultural borders that are understood to be, if not on a continuum then at least more fluid categories. Male/female, on the other hand, are considered immutable, scientific categories; they are perceived as real, not socially defined. This is not to say that the two are not linked, but it is possible to accept a femininity that does not conform to the hegemonic ideal, particularly if the body conforms to strict ‘natural’ sex categories. This is an important consideration in this case study. Even though the drug that Riley took was not a steroid, the use of these images reinforce an inaccurate assumption that all drug use will have an androgenising effect. Not only are many synthetic steroids created without such side effects, but endurance oriented performance enhancers such as EPO do not fundamentally alter the physical appearance of the athlete. Thus, the chemicals that are most critiqued are those that threaten the external contours of the (particularly female) athlete. To confirm Riley’s innocence, therefore, the reader needed to participate in the phrenological examination of her body, assessing the physical dimension for any evidence of ‘unnatural androgeny’ and contrasting it with those of ‘confirmed’ drug cheats. A number of images appeared throughout the first half of 1996 that assisted readers in this quest. Visuals Some of the pictorial representations of Chinese swimmers and Riley reveal the deliberate distortion of bodies to visually display suspected drug cheats and innocent victims. Three main pictures used in this analysis can be found in Figures 1, 2 and 3. Figure 1 accompanied the first page of Carlile’s November 1995 article, the next is the Löbecke cartoon ‘Hall of Fame’ (May 1996) and the final is a cartoon that formed part of the first page of John Leonard’s article ‘The Last Race’ (May 1996). 26 Sporting Traditions • vol. 17 no. 2 • May 2001 Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 (Sources: Inside Sport, November 1995 and May 1996. Figure 1, Sport: The Library; Figure 2, Eric Löbbecke; Figure 3, Viv Kubbos: The Drawing /Book) Figure 1 presents a distorted image of a Chinese swimmer, which has been deliberately widened to overemphasise the size of the athlete and her musculature. Her shoulders are enormous and she appears to almost burst from the confines of her swimsuit. The identity of the swimmer is not revealed; her identity is immaterial for she simply is representative of a faceless, centralised, undifferentiated system where individual needs are subsumed to the collective, an image typical of Western representations of the communist world. The cartoon in Figure 2 depicts Riley receiving a gold medal on the victory dais, flanked on either side by large, robotic-looking, and again unidentified Chinese swimmers. Riley’s face is drawn in detail so that we recognise her, the Chinese swimmers by contrast have basic stereotyped features to identify their nationality, but nothing further. Again, their identity is inconsequential. These swimmers are almost double Riley’s size, suggesting that their bodies must have been chemically altered to reach such massive proportions. Riley is clutching her gold medal and a bunch of wattle flowers, perhaps indicating a desired scene at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. One Chinese swimmer gingerly grips a similar bunch of flowers between her enlarged thumb and forefinger in one hand and peers at a bronze medal held in the other. The image of an unidentified, enlarged Chinese body is reinforced in ‘The Last Race’, written by John Leonard, the Executive Director of the American Swimming Coaches Association, which appears in the same issue (see Figure 3). Chinese athletes are represented here in a cartoon, dominated by a large image of the Chinese national flag. A single unidentifiable female swimmer in a swimsuit, her shoulders wider than her hips, stands on Magdalinski • Drugs Inside Sport 27 the dais flanked by a coach in a tracksuit and a man in a lab coat, both of whom are smaller than the swimmer. All around the platform hundreds of uniformly attired men and women look on. None smile, men are almost indistinguishable from women. The only orator in this picture is the scientist. The undifferentiated mass of people (‘they all look the same’), and the unidentified swimmer points towards the anonymity of systematic drug abuse and of the communist sports system as a whole. If one is caught, then another will simply come forward to take their place. Of course, given Australia’s cultural history and more recent anti-Asian hysteria, coupled with a thirty-year history of associating communist athletes with chemical performance enhancement, it is not surprising that such representations have come to dominate the popular imagery of the drug-tainted athlete. Indeed, the Chinese swimmers have come to be a potent symbol of technological and chemical advancement. Following the success of the Chinese swim team in the early 1990s, the Australian media, athletes and coaches demanded an explanation for their rapid and unexpected improvement. Chinese bodies were examined and demonised as ‘unnatural’, providing the initial proof of drug abuse.44 These physiques were disconcerting for their external appearance generated an obvious gender confusion. Whilst these bodies were signified as female they resembled masculine forms, blurring the boundaries between essentialist gender categories, neither wholly male, nor wholly female. These bodies also represented further threats to what had once been clear boundaries between east and west bodies. The Chinese swimmers obliterated the traditional stereotype of the small, petite, fragile oriental body, contrasted against the size and strength of occidental bodies. These swimmers were the yellow peril manifest. Rehabilitation The July Inside Sport completed the rehabilitation of Samantha Riley as a national sporting icon with an extensive feature article outlining her training methods, her personality and her relationship with her coach and family, whilst mentioning the positive drug test only briefly.45 The magazine began with a reader congratulating the magazine on the article from May ‘The Last Race’, who suggested that the ‘[r]eaders of Inside Sport are among the best informed about the treachery of Chinese sport’.46 One of the feature articles was an extract from The New Lords of the Rings, which focussed on drugs in sport and the massive cover-up campaigns. Andrew Jennings, in this extract, claims that ‘Beijing’s world-class athletes train on a diet of steroid-fuelled noodles’,47 again reminding readers that world opinion, not just Australian officials, condemn China and that Inside Sport was merely replicating a popular argument (just reporting the facts), not constructing one from scratch. 28 Sporting Traditions • vol. 17 no. 2 • May 2001 The feature article focused largely on Riley’s training regime, methods, stroke development and coaching style, demonstrating her hard work and discipline and revealing that her success is due to factors other than chemicals. Hers is depicted as a finely tuned body that relies on coach Scott Volkers’ input. Her stroke is ‘relentlessly honed to match the prototype model in Volkers’ mind that he has taught her to hear when she’s in rhythm’.48 Her body is thus deemed fragile, in need of delicate handling, that can only be provided by the masculine Other. Volkers is claimed as crucial for her success, while Riley remains dependent on his support. Figure 4 Figure 5 (Source: Peter Barnes / Inside Sport, July 1996) Finally, Riley is presented as a woman, as a potential mother type and as feminine. Her PR agent gushed ‘I just think she’s a princess’; Her coach argued ‘She’s your ideal woman, the sort of girl you’d want for your daughter, your son’s wife, your friend. She’s just a real lady’. Her subjectivity is defined by the (absent) men in her life, particularly in the father/coach role assumed by Volkers. Riley is depicted as dependent on his advice, nurturing and guidance for success reinforced by the camera angles that present Riley as small and vulnerable, her frail body in need of protection. By restoring her femininity through visual depictions of her ‘normal’ body and her dependence on men for her identity, she is cast firmly as female and thus this is visual evidence of her innocence. These descriptors each distinguish Riley from the Chinese swimmers, whose bodies are altered, manipulated and ultimately ‘masculinised’ by the hormonal drugs they ingest. Overall, Riley’s feature indicates that her performances whilst good, even great, are not out of the ordinary and therefore are quite beyond reproach. Magdalinski • Drugs Inside Sport 29 Conclusion The media play a crucial role in forming and shaping public opinion. The case of Samantha Riley demonstrates clearly the processes by which one media outlet maintained a firm position on the issue of chemical performance enhancement, whilst ensuring that an Australian favourite was absolved of wrongdoing when caught for illegal performance enhancement. A range of visual and textual techniques were used to contrast the steroid bulked bodies of Chinese and other swimmers with the petite and vulnerable physique of Riley such that the magazine’s consumers became acutely familiar with the processes by which the body signifies legal or illegal performance enhancement. In an interesting and not altogether surprising twist, it was more recently revealed that the media’s response to Riley was part of a deliberate campaign to save her reputation, funded by Riley herself and orchestrated by her management team and media publicist.49 The success of Riley’s restoration to national sporting icon was confirmed with her appointment to the Channel 7 Sydney 2000 Olympic coverage. The processes of teaching sports consumers to ‘recognise’ drug-enhanced bodies by focussing on a number of physical cues remains a popular technique in the mainstream press. At the Sydney 2000 Olympics, Romanian gymnast, Andreea Raducan was stripped of her gold medal after returning a positive test to pseudoephidrine, contained in a cold tablet she had been given by her male coach prior to competition. 50 The Games’ ‘tiniest champion’, ‘elfin gymnast’ Raducan, was treated as an ‘innocent victim’ by the Australian press, as was Riley in 1996.51 Although she featured in’ The Australian’s Olympic ‘Hall of Shame’, Raducan was overwhelmingly absolved of guilt by Australian journalists who determined that her situation represented ‘rough justice’.52 The press framed Raducan’s case ‘in stark contrast’ to that of US shotputter C.J. Hunter. The US strength athlete, who had tested positive to nandrolone prior to the Olympics, was demonised as representative of the bulked-up, steroid-abusing drug cheat. Whilst IOC Vice-President Jacques Rogge admitted Raducan’s case was a ‘very painful’ decision, Hunter’s rationale for his positive test was dismissed by the same IOC members, who argued that his explanation was ‘impossible’.53 In this example, as in 1996, the sex and size of the athlete played a determining role in ascertaining guilt. Large, powerful, masculine bodies signify illicit drug taking, whilst small, petite, and fragile feminine bodies are innocent victims, in need of care and medication. In the case of Raducan, ingesting pseudoephidrine was deemed acceptable as it restored her physical state ensuring that she could perform at a comparable level to other ‘healthy’ athletes. Indeed, it was constructed as ‘unfair’ to deny curative medication to this young body. The similarities between the Raducan and Riley cases are apparent, and confirm that physical size and even attractiveness are learned markers that allow spectators to decide the athlete’s guilt for themselves. 30 Sporting Traditions • vol. 17 no. 2 • May 2001 Notes D. Cameron, ‘Riley wins gold for damage control’, The Sydney Morning Herald, 26 April 2000. 2 Department of industry, Science and Resources, Sport and Tourism Division, Tough on Drugs in Sport. Australia’s Anti-Drugs in Sport Strategy 1999-2000 and beyond, Canberra, 1999. 3 J. Lingard, ‘Susie flies into ‘suss” de Bruijn’, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 June 2000. 4 This reaction was replicated in 2000 when German swim team captain Chris Bremer accused Ian Thorpe of taking the banned Human Growth Hormone. A. Vaughan, Thorpe says drug slur a ‘compliment” to his training’, Sydney Morning Herald, 20 July 2000. 5 See for example Inside Sport, 85 (January) 1999; Inside Sport, 82 (October) 1998; Inside Sport, 81 (September) 1998. 6 Department of Industry, Science and Resources, Tough on Drugs in Sport. Australia’s Anti-Drugs in Sport Strategy 1999-2000 and beyond; S. Conway, ‘Drug test a favour to sport, and the athletes’, Sydney Morning Herald, 3 August 2000. Chief Executive of the Australian Sports Commission, Jim Ferguson indicated, for example, that the new EPO test adopted by the IOC in early August 2000 ‘provided another example to confirm Australia’s prowess as a World leader in medical research’, Australian Sports Commission Press Release, 4 August 2000. 7 R. Cashman, Paradise of Sport. The Rise of Organised Sport in Australia, Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1995, p. 170. 8 B. Stoddart, Saturday Afternoon Fever. Sport in the Australian Culture, Angus & Robertson, Sydney, 1986, p. 95. 9 About Inside Sport, Inside Sport website. Retrieved 31 January 2001 from the World Wide Web: http://www.sportcentral.com.au/sport/owa/ news_util.run_html?p_html_file=aboutis 10 Cashman, Paradise of Sport, p. 170. 11 D. Rowe, Sport, Culture and the Media, Open University Press, Buckingham, 1999, p. 37. 12 See for example L. Davis, The Swimsuit Issue and Sport. Hegemonic Masculinity in Sports Illustrated. SUNY Press, Albany; H. Lenskyj, ‘“Inside Sport” or “On the Margins”? Australian Women and the Sport Media’. lnternational Review for the Sociology of Sport, 33 (1), 1998, pp. 19-32. 13 F. Carlile, ‘Why the Chinese must not swim at Atlanta ‘96, Inside Sport, 47 (November) 1995, pp. 18-29. 14 D. Booth and C. Tatz, ‘Injecting realism’, Inside Sport, 48 (December) 1995, p. 14. 15 Booth and Tatz, ‘Injecting realism’, p. 14. 16 Inside Sport, 49 (January) 1996, p. 6. 17 ‘State of Play’, Inside Sport, 94 (October) 1999, p. 12. It is likely that these comments were in response to a series of articles on the nature of drugs, sport, Australian identity and female bodies that appeared in the Bulletin of Sport and Culture throughout 1998 and 1999. See T. Magdalinski, ‘Recapturing Australia’s glorious sporting past: Drugs and Australian identity’, Bulletin of Sport and Culture, 14 (March) 1998, pp. 1, 6-8; M. Burke, ‘Drugs and postmodern female “identities” – A response to Tara Magdalinski’, Bulletin of Sport and Culture, 15 (July) 1998, pp. 25-29; D. Adair, T. Bruce, M. Sayers and S. Leichtweis, ‘Drugs, sex, and athletes’ bodies: Continuing the debate’, Bulletin of Sport and Culture, 1 Magdalinski • Drugs Inside Sport 31 16 (November) 1998, pp. 15-18; M. Burke and C. Symons, ‘Re-asserting drugs as a feminist issue’, Bulletin of Sport and Culture, 17 (March) 1999, pp. 11-16. 18 Lenskyj, ‘“Inside Sport” or “On the Margins”‘, p. 29. 19 N. Jeffrey, ‘Riley’s career on the line’, The Australian, 13 February, 1996, p. 1. 20 ‘Riley deserves a warning, not a ban’, Editorial. The Australian, 15 February, 1996, p. 12. 21 Jeffrey, Riley’s career on the line, 1. 22 C. Overington, ‘Minor headache sinks Riley’, The Age, 13 February, 1996, p. 1. 23 A. McGregor, ‘Riley puts a brave face on adversity’, The Australian, 14 February, 1996, p. 1. 24 See for example Overington, ‘Minor headache sinks Riley’, p. 1; ‘Riley deserves a warning, not a ban’, p. 12. 25 ‘Riley deserves a warning, not a ban’, p. 12; N. Jeffrey, ‘No reprieve for Riley, urges Fraser’, The Australian, 21 Feb. 1996, p. 20. 26 ‘Riley deserves a warning, not a ban’, p. 12. 27 R. Eccleston. ‘In deep water’, The Australian, 14 February. 1996, p. 11. 28 Jeffrey, ‘Riley’s career on the line’, p. 1. See also Eccleston, ‘In deep water’, p. 11; ‘Riley deserves a warning, not a ban’, p. 12; 29 Jeffrey, ‘No reprieve for Riley, urges Fraser’, p. 20. 30 G. Hunter, ‘Ever had the feeling’, Editorial. Inside Sport, 51 (March) 1996, p. 6. 31 K.K. Ho, Letter to the Editor, Inside Sport, 49 (January) 1996, p. 6. 32 G. Hunter, Response to Letter to the Editor, Inside Sport, 49 (January) 1996, p. 6. 33 ‘This is what they said’, Inside Sport, 49 (January) 1999, p. 13. 34 M. Robinson, ‘Advantage lawyers’, Inside Sport, 49 (January) 1996, pp. 18-27. 35 R. Weber, ‘Only in America’, Inside Sport, 49 (January) 1996, pp. 132. 36 What was not revealed in Inside Sport, however, was that Foschi’s probation was upgraded to a two year ban in February 1996 following an international outcry over the leniency of her initial penalty, however, ten days later, US Swimming reduced the penalty to probation again after FINA’s ruling on Riley. 37 The ‘Cash for Comment’ inquiry revealed that a number of prominent Australian talk-back hosts were paid large sums of money to deliver favourable comments on air about companies that had paid for such ‘adverlorials’. The most notorious was John Laws who accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from the banking industry, a sector of which he had been enormously critical. 38 R. Alexander, ‘The Deep End’, Inside Sport, 55 (July) 1996, pp. 98-105. 39 T. Magdalinski, (2001) ‘Drugs, Sport and National Identity in Australia’, in Doping in Elite Sport The Politics of Doping in the Olympic Movement, eds W. Wilson and E. Derse. Human Kinetics, Champaign, 2000, pp. 161-174. 40 S. Jones, ‘Killing Zoe’, Inside Sport, 51 (March) 1996, pp. 40-6. 41 T. Magdalinski and K. Brooks, ‘Bride of Frankenstein: Technology and the consumption of the female athlete’, Research in Philosophy and Technology (in press). 42 Lenskyj, ‘“Inside Sport” or “On the Margins”’, p. 29. 43 Burke, ‘Drugs and Postmodern Female ‘Identities”‘, p. 25. 44 Carlile, ‘Why the Chinese must not swim at Atlanta ‘96’, pp. 18-29. 45 Alexander, ‘The Deep End’, pp. 98-105. 46 S. Bariol, Letter to the Editor, Inside Sport, 55 (July) 1996, p. 6. 47 A. Jennings, ‘The new lords of the rings’, Inside Sport, 55 (July) 1996, p. 59. 48 Alexander, ‘The Deep End’, p. 102. 32 Sporting Traditions • vol. 17 no. 2 • May 2001 49 Cameron, ‘Riley wins gold for damage control’. The role of athletes and their management in the construction of their public image is an area that requires greater exploration within the field of sports studies. 50 For further details on Andreea Raducan and C.J. Hunter, see T. Magdalinski, ‘Performance Technologies: Drugs and Fastskin at the Sydney 2000 Olympics’, Media International Australia, 97, pp. 59-70. 51 T. Harris. ‘Drug Cheats Sour Games’, The Australian, 28 September 2000; T. Harris, ‘The Cold Tablet that Tripped the Darling of Romanian Gymnastics’, The Australian, 28 September 2000; C. Stewart, ‘The bitter pill’, The Australian, 28 September 2000. 52 Stewart, ‘The bitter pill’. 53 M. Forbes, ‘IOC rejects CJ’s “Impossible” Excuse’, Sydney Morning Herald, 26 September 2000.