Olympic Swimmer Nick D’Arcy’s Ban – Was it fair play or Scandal?

One would be forgiven for assuming that a country would send it’s very best to compete at the Olympics and not fall prey to squabbles, politics and petty tricks of local shysters. I’m referring to Australia and its Olympic Swim Team that was sent to the recent Olympics at Beijing. This may look like yesterday’s news but what is interesting is the way the Australian Olympic Committee and Australia, a so called developed country handled the whole issue.

Let’s take a peek into what happened; it had been alleged that D’Arcy had assaulted a former swimmer. Even though there was absolutely no evidence presented to back the allegation, based on the complaint filed against Australian swimmer Nick D’Arcy, a dramatic life sentence was imposed on him and he was removed from the Australian Olympic Swimming team. Naturally Nick D’Arcy appealed against the Australian Olympic Committee’s ruling in fact, he appealed twice and was rejected both times.

What surprised sports lovers (including yours truly), was the fact that it normally takes real provocation and heaps of evidence to impose such a stiff sentence, that too, at a time when Australia needed Nick D’Arcy’s talent the most. I tried to dig around the story and see if there really was a cause to impose a life time ban and guess what?  I came up with zilch! The local sports reports too were equally bewildered. So what really happened?

Doesn’t any country wish to have its best talent sent for the Olympics any more or has the Olympic torch so diminished in intensity that it has now become fair game to extend local politics to the international arena?

Australian swimmer D’Arcy is perhaps the best swimmer in the world! The incident had not only outraged all fans of D’Arcy but also outraged all Australians in general. Calls were made to boycott the Olympics or at the very least, boycott watching the Australian Olympic swim team. It seems the Australian Olympic Committee too, now has its fair share of controversies – and what a shame that is.

One normally hears of a Life sentence being awarded to some murderers – some mind you, not even all. Murderers kill innocent victims. Sports stars violating rules of the game are handed temporary suspensions or warning. They are not banned for life.

Let us assume for a moment that Nick D’Arcy threatened or even punched the former swimmer in the face – I say impose a fine or sentence him to community service or even a light jail sentence if you must, but when a career destroying life time ban was imposed, I can’t help but feel that that there was something else at play here and it certainly wasn’t sports. You heard it at Celebscope, the best celebrity gossip site.

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