Commentary: Cyclists observed wearing USOC-issued masks upon arrival
Castigate USOC for making them out to be scapegoats
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
By Shelly Anderson, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Martin Bernetti/Getty Images
Mike Friedman, left, and Bobby Lea were 16th in the men's Madison yesterday.

BEIJING -- Frustration, anger and enormous disappointment poured from Mike
Friedman when the topic turned to the United States Olympic Committee.

"They threw us under the bus," the cyclist from Peters said. "They
completely hung us out to dry."

That's exactly what the USOC did. It failed to stand behind its athletes in
a "mask scandal" that, in fact, the USOC helped to create in reaction to
Beijing's air-quality issue.

Friedman and his partner in the Velodrome event called the Madison, Bobby
Lea, a Penn State graduate from Toptown, Pa., finally got to vent yesterday.
They waited until after they competed (they did not earn a medal) to say
what needed to be said about the ugly situation in the days just before the
opening ceremony of the 2008 Games.

"They should have taken more responsibility -- maybe publicly supported us
and behind the scenes slapped our wrist," Lea said of top U.S. Olympic
officials. "It's hard to say what kind of a toll that could have taken, but,
for sure, our first five days at the Olympics were terrible."

It has been worse for Friedman, an outgoing sort who is accessible because
he has a blog. He estimates he has received more than 15,000 hate e-mails
from around the world.
"It definitely took away from my Olympic experience," Friedman said. "I lost
a lot of sleep. I read every one of those hate e-mails."

The USOC should be sharing at least some of the heat for what happened.

Upon landing in Beijing, Friedman, Lea and teammates Sarah Hammer and Jennie
Reed put on the high-tech, pollution-fighting masks. They were designed
under the USOC's direction and contain replaceable carbon filters. When
pictures of the four walking through the airport hit the Internet and
airwaves, some saw it as an insult aimed at China and the Beijing Olympic
organizers.

"It was never a protest," Friedman said. "[Instructions with the masks] told
us to wear them getting off the plane, at the airport, whenever we could.
And we did. We had no idea we would be the first athletes coming off wearing
them. We went past 12 USOC representatives who never said to take it off."

In a subsequent USOC news conference, chairman Peter Ueberroth spoke of the
athletes embarrassing China. He noted that the U.S. owes thanks to China
because it helped save the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics -- which Ueberroth
oversaw -- by not honoring the Soviet boycott. And he emphasized that the
USOC did not give the masks to the athletes, but to the individual sports
governing bodies, which distributed them to about half the Americans
competing in China.

It's true the cyclists got the masks from USA Cycling, but Ueberroth
distanced the USOC at the expense of the middle man and sacrificed the
underling athletes. USOC CEO Jim Scherr followed the company line.

"It wasn't the best judgment at the time, and the athletes understand that
now," he said. "We believe that this will be, hopefully, the last incident
of this kind."

The cyclists understood. They issued an apology. The sentiment -- they said
they were sorry for any offense and simply were trying to take precautions,
not make any political statement -- was genuine, but the way things were
handled upset them.

"It showed me that the USOC separates themselves" from the athletes,
Friedman said. "They made it more of a story when they said, 'We're going to
make you guys apologize.' They forced us to. We weren't trying to offend
the Chinese, but we weren't sorry that we wore the masks. The way they just
strong-armed us, the way they showed us no support after they told us to do
something is just really hard for me to get a handle on."

Lea can't understand why the USOC didn't own up to its part in issuing the
masks and suggesting their use.

"I was really upset with the way that we were treated by the USOC," Lea said
. "The USOC spent a couple years and a lot of money making those masks."

USOC officials could not be reached last night.

Friedman told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette last month that he intended to
wear the mask, and he and Lea had every reason to believe they needed them.
When they were in Beijing in December for a competition, they struggled with
the city's air pollution. Friedman had burning eyes; Lea had worse problems.

"I got sick within 36 hours of being on the ground," Lea said. "I had a sore
throat right away. I had a lung infection pretty soon after. I was paranoid
of having the same thing happen again [at the Olympics] and was quite
relieved when we got our track manual from the USOC that detailed that we
were getting these masks in processing and it said the best thing to do was
to wear them on the plane and in the airport."

As it turns out, most days since the opening ceremony have been fairly clear
, a relief to Friedman and Lea.

The USOC wasn't wrong to make sure its athletes had the best protection
possible in case the city's air pollution became a problem. It was most
definitely wrong to let its athletes down, make them stand alone, while
taking the high road.