Originally published on Thu July 19, 2012 11:22 am
As the world's greatest athletes gear up for the 2012 Olympic Games in London this month, viewers like us are likely to see a spike in televised ads for sports drinks, nutritional bars, and energy gel — that goop that so many runners and cyclists suck from foil pouches.
Powerade, in fact, is the official sports drink of the 2012 Olympics, and if it's true what these kinds of ads imply, processed sports foods and neon-colored drinks are the stuff that gold medalists are made of.
In an op-ed piece for the Daily Beast, sports columnist Buzz Bissinger writes that an "insidious culture of sports in America" helped cover up the child sex abuse scandal at Penn State. He argues that the NCAA should ban the university's football program for five years.
It's MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep.
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
And I'm Renée Montagne. The damning report on Penn State by former FBI director Louis Freeh confirmed, last week, what many said all along - the scandal is the biggest and most damaging in the history of college sports. Of course, child sexual abuse and a cover-up go way beyond the infractions commonly punished by the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
