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USOC Apologizes to 'Masked' Athletes

By Rick Karcher, Michael McCann, Geoffrey Rapp, Greg Skidmore, and Howard Wasserman

Admitting the impropriety of its demands to four U.S. Olympic athletes to apologize to Beijing Olympic officials for wearing anti-pollution masks, the U.S. Olympic Committee is now apologizing to those athletes. As noted in my earlier blog, the four cyclists -- Sarah Hammer, Jennie Reed, Bobby Leafter and Mike Friedman -- were castigated by the USOC for wearing the masks upon arrival at the Beijing airport. According to the Chicago Tribune, the letter admits that it was an error not to have athlete representatives present when the demand was made and not have a USOC staff member at the airport to meet the athletes and attempt to resolve the situation at that time.

The four were effectively stifled from getting their story across. They argued that a USOC sports psychologist recommended the wear the masks from the "minute they set foot in Beijing." If that is the case, any "fault" (if you can call such a recommendation a fault) derived USOC personnel, not the athletes. The four claimed that the incident adversely affected their performance at the games.

The apology comes too late and the damage has been done.

Full post as published by Sports Law Blog on September 11, 2008 (boomark / email).