Speaking on Today FM's Last Word this evening, Jimmy Magee said that the business of doping in athletics is less of an issue than the prospect of '25 black men running for Denmark'.
The elder statesman of Irish sports broadcasting previewed the Olympics alongside Ewan MacKenna. The latter struck a different tone throughout. The show was presented by Gavan Reilly tonight.
As ever, Jimmy will be part of RTE's coverage for Rio. It's his fifteenth Olympics, a number we found surprisingly low, all things considered. But then RTE only went on air in 1962.
His phone went off not once but twice early in the interview but this was a fairly minor embarrassment.
After predicting a medal haul of four for Ireland, Jimmy was inevitably asked about drugs. Anyone who has heard Jimmy's thoughts on topic before will be unsurprised to learn he was sanguine and philosophical, saying that more or less everyone was taking something but it doesn't lessen the magic for him.
You can't check everybody in the world. God knows what I'm at, or you're at, or Ewan's at... I'm not promoting doing wrongs. Maybe, thirty years ago, I might have been aghast at this stuff. But I now realise that I think nearly everyone is doing something. It may be for a headache, it may be for that pain you have in your back. It may be for so loads of little things. No matter what I'm saying here, it's going to be construed that I'm agreeing with it. I'm not.
He alluded to Lionel Messi being pumped for a growth hormones in his early teens, saying that this would probably make him 'one of the original drug addicts. It doesn't take away from his talent'.
He was asked about Michelle Smith, a topic on which he has spoken many times before. Among other things, he ridiculed the notion that she took anything to enhance her performance when she finished in the top 3 in her Bar exam.
I had a page of results at home. The results of the 400m (freestyle) in the swimming. Five Olympic games. So, I said to one of my daughters, "will you have a look at that and see what you think of it?" So she looked at it and I said, "what do you think?" She said, "I just see a list of winners." "But do you see anything else?" And she said "well, I see Michelle's name." I said "Yeah, but anything else". She said, "yeah. Of the five Olympic champions, she's the slowest of the five." And I said, "if she was taking something, do you think she should get her money back?" And I left it that. And I'll leave it at that.
She has since become a barrister. A working barrister. Not a lot of them get good work. But in doing that she took this bar exam. And in all of Ireland, in ALL of Ireland, she came in the first three in the exam. She wasn't taking anything to enhance her performance in that. I rest my case again.
No way was the magic of the Olympics lessened for him. He is troubled by the spectacle of '25 black men running for Denmark', aka, men born in Africa competing for either their European colonisers or another European nation of their choice.
Because we didn't have any possessions abroad, when you see the Irish team abroad, you can take for granted they are Irish. When you look at Sweden or Denmark or you see 25 black men running for Denmark or Sweden. I think that's a bigger than the drugs to be honest with you.
The slot ended at that point. Ewan took to twitter to vent.
That was incredible. Was trying to think of way to debate it but how do you debate what is so completely and utterly fantasy-world stuff?
— Ewan MacKenna (@EwanMacKenna) July 29, 2016
Opinions so utterly bonkers that you feel bad pulling someone up on them, like tackling an elderly grandparent on mild racism. Unbelievable.
— Ewan MacKenna (@EwanMacKenna) July 29, 2016
I actually hadn't planned on drinking today, especially not at 3pm local time, but I've been driven to it. Can what's been heard be unheard?
— Ewan MacKenna (@EwanMacKenna) July 29, 2016
"At least we know all our lads are Irish. Not like Denmark and Sweden, who've 25 black men running for them. More of issue than the doping"
— Ewan MacKenna (@EwanMacKenna) July 29, 2016
They get into it around the 38th minute mark.
