Sometimes the spirit of competition can cause heartbreak.

The Winter Olympics have started and Friday night's Opening Ceremonies drew the largest television audience in history, with an estimated quarter of America watching. Whether that interest stems from the feelings of patriotism since Sept. 11 or the curiosity for the first Winter Games in the United States since 1980 (a span that has included two Summer Games on U.S. soil) is impossible to ascertain. But there is interest, and I admit I am intrigued by the thrill of competition that will take place on the rinks, slopes, tracks and runs of the Wasatch Mountains. I'm more interested in these games, I think, than I was in the 2000 Summer Games in Sydney. For one, those took place in September, which was really Australia's spring, not summer, and the 16-hour time difference from the East Coast meant that everything I was watching had already taken place. Only one event -- the men's basketball gold-medal game, won by the United States -- was aired live by the networks of NBC. And although those same networks continue to edit the coverage to their liking -- airing some events on tape delay in the evenings when they happened in the afternoons -- the fact that, for the most part, these competitions are happening in real time makes them more interesting.

But something, I feel, is still missing from these Games. It's something that I sensed while watching my first games, the 1988 Calgary Games, and those in 1994 in Lillehammer, some of which I distinctly recall viewing from a resort condo in Stratton, Vermont.

It's that Olympic Spirit.

Maybe it's not really missing; maybe it wasn't really there in 1988. Maybe it's just that I've grown up and learned a lot. But I don't think so. I think some of that Olympic Spirit -- whatever it is, because it can be defined and quantified in various ways -- is diminished by the makeup of the Games these days. Allowing professionals to compete is the primary antagonist. The fact that the National Hockey League is shutting down its season for nearly two weeks to allow its all-stars to join their countrymen in Salt Lake City is ridiculous. But it's not just the hockey players in the winter and the basketball players in the summer who taint the Games. When you've got athletes sponsored by all kinds of corporations so that they can live and train full-time in Colorado Springs, you've lost a bit of that amateur mystique. Give me top-of-the-line trainers and a good conditioning and nutritional program, and maybe I, too, can be a world-class athlete. I couldn't skate with Patrik Elias or ski with Picabo Street, but I might have made a decent runner if I put my mind, body and 60 hours a week, to it.

But this spirit -- and level -- of competition is ripping the Games apart, because it's ripping athletes apart, and the athletes are the heart, soul and spirit of the Games. The athletes have to do so much to be able to compete with worldwide competitors that sometimes they do not know the extent of their efforts. After a Summer Games in 2000 where we had three local athletes to watch in Sydney, New Jersey has two competitors who qualified for Salt Lake. One, a bobsledder from a Shore town who caught the eye of U.S. coaches at a summertime boardwalk tryout, lives in our immediate coverage area. We were all set to put Pavle Jovanovic on our Olympic preview section cover, until he tested positive for a banned steroid, trace amounts of which apparently came in a nutritional supplement he took over the course of 2001.

Jovanovic took the supplement -- which was approved by the U.S. and world committees, as far as anyone knows -- sometime last year. He was tested on Dec. 29 -- regular testing of athletes is common -- and notified of the results and a nine-month ban around Jan. 26. He appealed the ban and was then given a two-year suspension from competition. He pleaded his case, saying whatever banned substance he ingested was included in but not listed on the label of whatever approved supplement he took. He found no sympathy on the panel. Jovanovic now says that American coaches urged him to take the supplement -- one of 31 he took in the 12 months prior to Dec. 29, and one of 10 he took that day -- yet the World Anti-Doping Agency told him that he alone was responsible for what went into his body, whether or not the manufacturers listed all ingredients on their products' labels.

Now the two sides are trading punches, slinging mud, and it's getting ugly. Tom Hays, the U.S. bobsled team captain, went on a nine-minute rant tonight at the bobsled press conference, saying that he knew, in his "heart, 100 percent, that Pavle is guilty of nothing." A spokesman for the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency was "disappointed" at Hays' speech. Hays now fears for his competitive eligibility. He refuses to put anything into his body but water, chicken and salad. No aspirin, no vitamins, nothing else, until he's got his medal safe at home -- for a few months, because he'll be tested at the Games, and there have been incidents in the past where athletes have been striped of their medals after leaving the site of the Games. There was one incident in Sydney where a 14-year-old gold-medal winning gymnast was disqualified because a doctor gave her an over-the-counter decongestant for a cold, and it resulted in a positive drug test.

The bottom line is that nobody knows all the rules. The International Olympic Committee is testing all kinds of supplements, but will not release the list of those that would produce positive tests until they've completed the testing. So that means there are all kinds of supplements that athletes shouldn't be taking, yet they likely are. And they don't know it.

The WADA and U.S. agency tell athletes they are responsible for what they put in their bodies, yet for the athletes, it's a crap shoot. They have no idea if the supplements they take include banned substances not listed on the labels.

It really detracts from the spirit of the Olympics.