ABSTRACT
Coming to Australia In 1993 the IOC announced that Australia was to host the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. As the years passed and the Games edged ever closer, the Australian media became increasingly obsessed with the possibility that local athletes might lose out to foreign athletes who were doping (Magdalinksi, 2001). The media clearly positioned ‘clean’ Australian athletes against ‘drug-taking’ others. The release of Werner Reiterer’s (2000) book Positive: An Australian Olympian Reveals the Inside Story of Drugs and Sport, offered an altogether different perspective. In Positive Reiterer admitted to 5 years’ abuse of performance enhancing drugs. Reiterer said that he had written the book as a ‘last-ditch response to a sports world so awash with drugs that natural athletes – who are in the minority, just a few percent . . . in some events – either succumb or compete without real hope of success’ (Williams, 2001: para 2). Reiterer described sport as an ugly, hypocritical world where the notion of ‘cheating’ is largely meaningless and drug testing was ineffectual (Williams, 2001). Australian reactions to the release of the book ranged from silence, through to condemnation. Swimmer Kieren Perkins called the book ‘disgusting’ and called on the Australian swimming team to bring a class action against Reiterer. Olympic swimming coach Brian Sutton said anyone who bought the book would be ‘unAustralian’. Much of the condemnation of Reiterer centred on his failure, in the book and in subsequent media interviews, to name the athletes, coaches and officials he believed to be corrupt. An interview with Reiterer on The World Today (Wilde, 2000) was typical of the line of questioning he faced.
