USOC’s Cycling Apology Masked In Politics Of Sport

The United States Olympic Committee should be ashamed of itself.

Let’s see. The Olympic have been over since Aug. 24. And now the USOC has decided to apologize to the four track cyclists it scolded for wearing masks it supplied?

U.S. Track Cyclist Mike Friedman

The masks were supplied to athletes protect them against pollution. The American cyclists who arrived at the Beijing Olympics wearing masks — Sarah Hammer, Jennie Reed, Bobby Lea and Mike Friedman — were forced to apologize for embarrassing the Olympic hosts for wearing the masks as they disembarked their airplane in Beijing.

A letter sent to the riders from Jim Scherr, chief executive of the U.S.O.C., acknowledged they never intended to offend the hosts or make a political statement. He wrote there was “confusion or a misunderstanding” between the cyclists and the U.S.O.C.

The committee developed and issued the carbon-filtration masks to USA’s athletes before the Beijing Games. At the Olympics, though, U.S.O.C. officials publicly criticized the cyclists for wearing those masks at the Beijing airport.

“We are acknowledging that some things could have been handled differently,” the U.S.O.C. spokesman Darryl Seibel said. “The athletes brought that to our attention in a very constructive way and we are going to do everything we can to make sure that something like this does not happen again.”

The four track riders began pursuing an apology from the U.S.O.C. at the conclusion of last month’s Olympics because they had felt humiliated by the incident and that it distracted them from their performances in Beijing, according to a report in The New York Times.

And so now the USOC has apologized via a letter sent to the athletes.

Hey, USOC. You want to apologize? How about doing it publicly, like before a global television audience?