For some reason, I am having trouble getting excited about watching the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics. Perhaps it is because while I expect to see some athletes provide record setting performances, I am bothered by the possibility that it might be revealed later that some may have used performance-enhancing drugs.
The average sports fan thrives on witnessing greatness in sports, it is an experience where he or she can get so excited about someone else's accomplishment, but to have performance enhancing drugs tarnish the feat and moment can be quite a disappointment.
A few such past experiences have provided me with some negative feelings towards the upcoming Olympic Games.
The United States government's investigation into the Bay Area Laboratory Co - Operative (BALCO) and founder Victor Conte really added fuel to my negative fire, when a number of athletes in various sports, particularly Track and Field, were exposed.
My personal disappointment started with Canadian Ben Johnson who appeared to have blown defending 100-meter dash champion Carl Lewis' doors off with a world-record time of 9.79 during the 1988 Olympics.
I admit, I was not much of a Lewis fan because I believed him to be too arrogant and pompous and it would have been enjoyable to see him kicked off his high horse. Johnson was later exposed and stripped of his gold medal by the International Olympic Committee when his post-race drug test indicated steroid use.
Since that time, a number of marquee track and field athletes have been exposed, including one of my personal former favorites, Marion Jones, who sits in jail after being found guilty of perjury charges regarding steroids.
Jones had it all - fame, respect and wealth - but made some bad decisions, which seemed so much out of character for the athlete who we thought we knew.
Other athletes exposed during the BALCO investigation and steroid era include:

• Sprinter Antonio Pettigrew - won a gold medal with the U.S. 4–400 relay team at the 2000 Olympics and never tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs in a career that ended in 2001, but he admitted to using drugs for a four-year period between 1997 and 2001.
• A government witness who supplied testimony, Angel Heredia, said he supplied steroids to past American track gold-medalists including Jones, Tim Montgomery, Jerome Young and Dennis Mitchell.
• Even the 100-meter gold medalist from the Athens Olympics, Justin Gatlin, tested positive for performance enhancers and after exhausting a number of appeals fighting a suspension, he missed the recent Olympic Trials.
• Michelle Collins, a 2000 Olympian was stripped of her 2003 world indoor and U.S. championships at 200 meters after an arbitration panel found she used banned substances provided by BALCO. She never tested positive, but the panel concluded she used the drugs for several years.
• A disciple of track coach Trevor Graham, who also worked with Jones, Montgomery and Gatlin, later admitted to using the substances and was originally suspended for eight years, but appealed and wound up with a four-year ban and was recently reinstated in May 2008.
• U.S. world champion sprinter Kelli White was banned from competition for two years including the 2004 Olympics after she admitted that she used steroids. She was the first athlete to be banned without a positive drug test.

So what will it take to woo me back to the Olympics? At first I thought about the U.S. Men's Basketball team earning a Gold medal might ease my pain, but they have struggled in the last few international contests, and if they win the gold, it was to be expected.
I will have to rely on the one thing that drew me to the Olympics in the first place, history.
Things like Jesse Owens' colossal performances in Berlin, Germany during the 1936 Olympics; Tommy Smith and John Carlos taking a stand by wearing black gloves and socks during the awards ceremony in Mexico City at the 1968 Olympics; and Nadia Comaneci was scoring seven perfect 10s in gymnastics during the 1976 Games.
Perhaps performances from athletes like swimmer Michael Phelps, sprinter Tyson Gay, the Williams' sisters (Venus and Serena) in tennis can reel me back in. Maybe!!!
I just hope many of the athletes have learned valuable lessons because it would be nice to witness a few performances that actually are legit and are not tainted. Is that too much to ask?

For more, please subscribe to the Columbus Post.