When Brad Cooper Got Gold & Rick DeMont Paid A Price For The Failures Of U.S. Officials
The first Olympic doping scandal to spread like wildfire around the world unfolded after the 400m freestyle at Munich 1972. Here's that story, which forms part of our coverage from the 50th anniversary of those Games in 2022 - all heading to the archive as the library grows
This day 50 years ago at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games, 16-year-old Rick DeMont and 18-year-old Brad Cooper were split by 0.01sec as first and second home in the 400m freestyle final but the American 16-year-old would keep the gold for just two days before the start of a saga in which the athlete is left holding a weight of sorrow, then and to this day, while the responsible adults in the room find no way of truly healing the harm they caused.
In age, DeMont and Cooper were a spill either side of David Popovici in an era without World senior, let alone junior, Championships, let alone the science, the nutrition, the instant feedback, the entourage of experts, the goggles, wave breakers, level-deck tanks, second-skin suits and much else. They were the fastest junior 400-1500m men swimming had ever known. Their fate this day 50 years ago, it would turn out, was not in their control: adults screwed up, the athletes paid the price and their narratives were shaped to greater or lesser extent along the roller-coaster of life.
