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Thread: Phelps is involved in gold medal conspiracy!

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[quote=KATRINA,315202]Phelps was not made available for an interview. His agent, Peter Carlisle of Octagon, said he had no plans to ask for the release of the images. “That sort of stuff is an issue that FINA deals with,” he said. “We don’t get involved with what happens in the pool like that.”

Carlisle said he did not see a conflict in Phelps’s arrangement with Omega. “I don’t see how the company decides the outcome of a race,” he added.

The timing devices are operated and managed by Olympic officials at the Games, not by Omega, said Peter Roby, the athletic director at Northeastern in Boston and formerly the director of the university’s Center for the Study of Sport in Society.

"Given that everyone participating in the swimming events was subject to the same timing technology, it seems to eliminate any impropriety,” Roby said.

By standing on policy instead of openness, though, the I.O.C. and FINA seem to be trying to avoid having to defend themselves on every close decision at an Olympic event, said Kevin Wamsley, a historian at the International Center for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario in Canada.

"It creates a lot of controversy whether it’s necessary or not,” Wamsley said in a telephone interview. “Those of us who like to see transparency in all decision making would like to have all the photos released. It gets rid of all doubts and the conflict of interest sitting there like the elephant in the room with the corporate sponsor.”

Despite reforms enacted after the bribery scandal connected to Salt Lake City’s bid to host the 2002 Winter Games, the Olympics remain awash in apparent conflicts of interest.

James Easton, an I.O.C. member from the United States, runs a sporting goods manufacturing company that has provided equipment for such Olympic sports as softball, hockey, archery and cycling. Mark Schubert, director of the United States national swim team, has a contract with Speedo, whose suits have helped swimmers set numerous world records this year. And Phelps is on the payroll of Omega, which timed his way to eight gold medals, including a disputed one.

"I think the stakes are high enough now that conflicts of interest are real,” said Jay Coakley, a sports sociologist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and the author of “Sports in Society: Issues and Controversies.” “They ought to be regulated in some way. I would just as soon not have the sponsor of a particular athlete providing me with the split-second result. That seems to be a no-brainer.”

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