Hans Blix Goes to the Olympics

If I were pitching this as a script for a dark comedy, I describe it as combination of Boys Don’t Cry, Slapshot, and Team America:

Professor Arne Ljungqvist, chairman of the IOC’s Medical Commission, has said he will look into the matter after North Korean defenders Song Jong-Sun and Jong Pok-Sim failed doping tests at Germany 2011. [….]

Ljungqvist says he wants to know more about testing in North Korea, but is realistic about finding out more about doping checks in the Asian totalitarian state.

“I understand the mistrust of others, but I do not really know much about doping controls in this country, which has a closed society like no other in the world,” said Ljungqvist at the 123rd IOC Session in Durban, South Africa.

Which means, of course, that the doping standards that apply to other countries will have to be relaxed, just for North Korea.

Let’s just hope that IOC does a more creditable job getting to the bottom of this than FIFA did at getting to the bottom of those “criticism session” allegations. Taken to extremes, the drugging of female athletes disfigures them. You do remember what East Germany did to its female athletes, right? In one case, it turned a Heidi into an Andreas.