Let's give Michael Phelps a pass

by DAN K. THOMASSON

Does anyone remember Eleanor Holm?

If you don't, it is understandable. But with half the world seemingly concerned about Michael Phelps, it seems appropriate to recall the stunning, blonde 100-meter backstroke champion of the 1932 Olympics whose consumption of a few glasses of champagne and late night dice playing with sportswriters in 1936 cost her a repeat of her earlier gold medal triumph.

On the boat over to the Berlin games, Holm ran afoul of Avery Brundage, the strait-laced, sanctimonious U.S. Olympic czar whose unrealistic defense of amateur standing probably cost U. S. athletes more victories over the years than any other single thing. He saw Holm as a threat to his ideals of how an athlete should act in or out of competition and kicked her off the team, sacrificing her to his own ideals about personal behavior.

There have been arguments over the years as to how much champagne the beauteous swimming star, who was later to become the wife of legendary showman Billy Rose and a movie and aquacade celebrity, actually consumed. A doctor on the boat charged she was suffering from acute alcohol poisoning. Holm vigorously disputed that, saying she had drunk only a couple of glasses during a toast to the team. Nevertheless, she sat helplessly in the stands as a Dutch swimmer won the event she was an odds-on favorite to capture a second time.

While the circumstances of her infamy are quite different than Phelps' or those who have violated strict anti-doping rules, Holm felt the pain of public scorn up until her death at age 91 in 2004.

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