Down at Bondi the right positives shine

By CHRIS RATTUE

Bring on the beach volleyball. Talk up the triathlons.

Those two new, or in beach volleyball's case relatively new, Olympic sports have been the Sydney success stories.

A certain cynicism about the ever expanding Olympic programme, organised by the megalomaniac, backhand-accepting bosses of the IOC, has started to evaporate.

The IOC motives may be dodgy. Money and power seems to be their creed. But beach volleyball rocks.

If the IOC wants to trim the number of sports, it could start with those so-called traditional disciplines that have become infested by drugs.

It is hard to put the drugs issue out of your mind in Sydney.

When kiddie gymnasts and the husband of one of the world's greatest athletes test positive, you feel like throwing your hands up in the air and trundling out of town.

When the said husband is caught with enough nandrolone in his system to supply the Romanian weightlifting squad then starts blubbing on TV, you feel like reaching for the passport and tickets.

And when the said husband appears to have superstar lawyer Johnnie Cochran in tow, its time to start humming that "I'm leaving, on a jet plane" ditty.

Never mind that Mr Cochran helped the Nandrolone Man's wife get off a four-year suspension for failing to supply a urine test. If you can get OJ Simpson off that double-murder charge, then beating the drug testers should be a piece of piss, so to speak.

"I am quite positive that when everything is said and done I will be totally exonerated," said a weeping Nandrolone Man.

The truest part of that statement is probably the first four words.

Which is where beach volleyball and triathlons come in.

They're so clean and green.

Fresh air, sunshine and wildly enthusiastic supporters. A game with all the right sort of positives.

Touch wood, our faith in these new high level pursuits will not be tainted.

Hopefully there is not some prat in a Pennsylvania laboratory brewing up a potion which will make volleyballers' feet heatproof, or turn triathletes into amphibious missiles.

And out of the two, beach volleyball has to be the real Olympic sensation.

It has just about everything going for it.

For starters, the competitors are all there for the eye to see.

We lose visual contact with some sports stars, and triathlons have got a bit of a problem there.

As with cycling and marathons, you can spend hours waiting for a blur of triathlon bodies to come flashing by.

And in some sports, protective clothing is also hiding competitors away.

Even in rugby and league it's getting harder to distinguish between players because of the new padded headgear.

And there was a worrying sight back in the city. Cathy Freeman looked more like something that might glow in the dark and eat Kryptonite for breakfast than dear old Cathy when she trotted around for her 400m gold medal. The body suit is really not a good look.

And that's where beach volleyball is supreme. You really can see just about all of the competitors. There's some personality out there.

Not only that, it's DIY. All you need is a net and ball, a beach and a bit of fine weather and Joe Average and friends can be entertained for hours.

There even seemed to be some real people playing at Bondi Beach, rather than the sports programmed robots huffing and puffing around other venues.

And best of all, it is apparently drug free.

More than 160,000 people can't be wrong. That's the number which flocked to the 10,000-seat beach stadium during these Games.

Hopefully the drug pushers can keep their grubby hands away and the athletes have got the sense not to dabble.

For my money, beach volleyball gets the gold medal as the sport of the games, with triathlons clutching the silver.