What they're saying

By Compiled by Times staff writer

On drugs

So far, the Romanian Olympic team has been caught with more banned substances than the entire upper deck at a Grateful Dead concert.

Tom Powers, Saint Paul Pioneer Press

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If you love the Olympics, and I do, it's easy to feel a pang. The idea and spectacle of the Olympics are so unique, so enthralling. You want to believe the bromides, the idea that if you work hard and want something badly enough, you can not only exceed your dreams, you can redefine human limits. But it gets sad, old and depressing to think that some cheat could still prevail by merely unscrewing the lid on a bottle.

Johnette Howard, Newsday

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The fight to rid the Olympics of (drugs) -- and thus, save the Olympics -- must be as down and dirty as the discus thrower shooting up in a shower stall

It is not only a fight for today, but tomorrow. It is not only about a Taiwanese weightlifter on steroids, but a Des Moines, Iowa, teenage wrestler who is considering them. It is not only about a veteran runner who thinks pills are his last hope, but a high school cross-country champion who thinks pills are her only hope.

Bill Plaschke, Los Angeles Times

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Have you heard the latest? Of course you haven't. There's a drug bust happening every five minutes here. Don't worry if you miss NBC's coverage of the Games -- you can catch the highlights on Cops later.

We now take you to synchronized injecting.

Gary Peterson, Contra Costa Times

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Maybe Johnnie Cochran gets (C.J.) Hunter off the hook ("If it's something he ate, you must reinstate"). But for now, Hunter is sitting in the stocks in the town square, and (IOC officials) are letting fly with the tomatoes. It's all about payback.

How far back do you want to go? ... Jimmy Carter leading the boycott that ravaged the 1980 Games in Moscow. The U.S. soiling Lillehammer's winter wonderland with its sordid Nancy-Tonya soap opera. Atlanta turning the 1996 Games into a street corner flea circus with a mad bomber.

John Powers, Boston Globe

On women's soccer

The surprise was that people wanted to call this gold-medal defeat the end of an era

The reason it's a surprise is because a women's soccer team can actually have an era.

Mike Littwin, Rocky Mountain News

On U.S. baseball gold

The way they put the team together in the middle of the year and playing for a month, I thought they had no chance at all. They played great baseball, and it's not that easy. ... That's basically (Cuba's) pro team ... and for our guys to go out and do the job they did, you have to tip your hats to them.

Tino Martinez, N.Y. Yankee, 1988 Olympian

On pros in the Games

Defining professionalism can be tricky in something as murky as the Olympics.

The athletes in sports such as trampoline, badminton and rowing obviously aren't pros, but is the Chinese girl taken from her home at 7 and trained robotically and maniacally to become a champion gymnast?

Are the Cuban baseball players and boxers pros even though they are poor just like everyone else on their island?

And if money is the standard we're using, can a horse be a professional, or is the one in equestrian with the $5-million price tag allowed to keep its amateur status?

Dan Le Batard, Miami Herald

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Olympic tennis is only a shade more reputable in the overall experience than synchronized anything. ... If these were amateur players, it'd be different. But the amateur Olympics closed (for) high-profile sports about the time middle-aged Larry Bird stretched out his back in Barcelona

Reggie Hayes, Fort Wayne News-Sentinel