Why Shirley Babashoff’s Making Waves Was The Vortex Book Of 2016
Shirley Babashoff released her autobiography "Making Waves" on July 12, 2016. A monument to all that was and remains rotten in the state of swimming, the American ace's story, which ought to be seminal but is unfinished business yet, is as relevant today as it ever was
From The SOS Archive - July 12, 2016 - Book Review and Editorial
When the International Olympic Committee failed to impose a blanket ban on Russia for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, it drove another stake into the hearts of victims of doping through the ages. The IOC decision came 40 years after the 1976 Olympic Games and the dominance of the DDR. The Oral Turinabol and those who supplied and injected it into tens of thousands of athletes won the day but ultimately there were no winners. The Olympic Movement could and should have done something about it. To its eternal shame, it failed to do so and for decades, while spending and insisting that others spend many millions every year on anti-doping regimes, has sent a message that the bigger you cheat, the more silent, the more inactive we will be.
Today, this July 12, 2016, we turn to Shirley Babashoff's biography Making Waves to remind ourselves what the IOC's lack of clarity, lack of due process, and lack of determination to set things right down the years means for clean athletes and what it could mean for the autonomy of sport in the face of inaction from Olympic bosses all the way down through international and national federations.
Context, from words written in our preview of the Rio 2016 women's 200 to 800m freestyle events and thoughts on where Katie Ledecky might fit in a history of Debbie Meyer, Shane Gould, Janet Evans and Co:
"And then there was Shirley Babashoff, who, but for the GDR and State Plan 14:25 at Montreal 1976, might have won the 200, 400 and 800m freestyle, and shared gold in the 4x100m medley. With the gold she did claim with teammates in the 4x100m freestyle, Babashoff has a plinth in the pantheon alongside the greats of women’s freestyle swimming.
"She might have repeated the 200, 400, 800 triple that Meyer launched in 1968. We will never know, for Babashoff was robbed of that right by state-sponsored systematic doping."
The foreword in Making Waves is penned by Donna de Varona, Olympic champion, broadcaster, ISHOF leader and keen one of the keenest minds you may meet in the pool.
De Varona's contribution runs to a couple of pages but includes one of the most poignant and to-the-point references in the work:
"It was frustrating to see how little support both the U.S. swimming and USOC executives provided to our brave athletes when they finally began to point fingers at the East German team...
"The cost of these leaders' inaction cannot be measured on any level; their failure to protect the sport created generations of cheats both outside and inside the U.S. It also allowed the East German government to continue to abuse its own athletes, many of whom suffered lifetimes of depression, guilt and health problems. Even after it was proven that the East Germans used performance-enhancing drugs, neither FINA not the IOC provided any sort of remedy for those whose Olympic medals were stolen from them." Donna de Varona
De Varona concludes with the words:
"It is a cautionary tale, & one every athlete, coach, administrator, & parent should read."
- Making Waves - Shiley Babashoff with Chris Epting
- Preface by Mark Spitz
- Forward by Donna de Varona
- Santa Monica Press
Read on ...
