By SUZANNE McFADDEN
A sobbing and bewildered 16-year-old girl stripped of Olympic gold for swallowing a cold pill was one of the lowest moments in world sport in 2000.
Andreea Raducan's headache on the morning of the all-round gymnastics final turned into heartache when she entered the realm of drug cheats and doping fiends.
Around the world it seems to have been accepted that Raducan - Romania's first Olympic gymnast champion since Nadia Comaneci - was innocent.
The villain was her team doctor - whether he administered a single cold tablet containing the banned pseudoephedrine or whether he was popping pills into the tiny gymnasts every day.
The doctor has been banned from sport until 2004, but his actions have crushed a teenager's promising career. Attempts to clear her name from the doping charges, and get her gold medal back, have failed.
Raducan's sad case only stirred more harsh criticism of the International Olympic Committee's confused system of policing drug-taking.
While the spotlight was on a kid and a cold pill, some of the bigger fish got away.
Four months later, Raducan is still heartbroken, even though her country has given her a replica gold medal.
But the highlight of my sporting year was the America's Cup.
Maybe it was because I was there when the tip of the black mast peeped into view and 50,000 screams announced Team New Zealand's victorious return from the sea after a whitewash of the Italians.
There are those who will argue till 2003 that the Kiwis had to fend off only one rival, and the cup is no more than a race of rich boys' toys.
The latter debate will only get louder when the Billionaires Club come down in two years to fight for the right to race Team NZ.
The New Zealand effort, led by Russell Coutts, did not span just five races in an Auckland summer.
It was five years of work - technology, technique and training - all of it against themselves.
Their dissection of Prada in the final was clinical; there was nothing heartstopping about their 5-0 rout. In the end, victory became inevitable.
Since that final day in March, the America's Cup has taken another hammering - its reputation damaged by defections and big-dollar deals.
The reality is that the off-water drama makes the cup what it is.
It has never been just about a boat race.
Herald Online features:
2000 - Year in Review
2000 - Month by month
2000 - The obituaries
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