RIO DE JANEIRO -- There may have been a time, when athletes smoked pipes, competed in everyday clothes and didnt tweet sponsored messages, a time that fewer and fewer people can remember, when sports were real, not theater. Yeezy 700 Static Outlet .Theater requires audiences to suspend their disbelief, to pretend that the cardboard tree on stage is a forest and that the actor holding a skull is Hamlet.Today, after decades of doping, the best performances in the world of sport are almost immediately followed by whispers and social media postings with one question: What are they on? That wasnt always the case. Sports used to be seen as the most real form of entertainment, with regular humans doing amazing things.Paavo Nurmi, the first athlete to win five gold medals at a single Olympics, in Paris in 1924, was a former bakers errands boy who used his earnings from running to provide his family with electric light and running water.Bill Foulkes, who played in 688 matches for Manchester United from 1952 to 1970, kept his job in a coal mine when starting out at Old Trafford, underground five days a week and training with the club on Tuesday and Thursday evenings.Ethiopias Abebe Bikila retained his Olympic marathon title in 1964 just 40 days after having his appendix removed. Swedish skiing great Ingemar Stenmark strapped on his first skis at age five.Their achievements, one assumes with the rose-colored glasses of nostalgia, didnt need to be second-guessed at every turn. The Say it aint so, Joe reaction in more innocent times to suspect performances has become a jaded shoulder shrug of Dude, what did you expect? or its 140-character equivalent.The acidic drip, drip, drip of cheating by greedy individuals and insecure governments in the past half-century caused this corrosion of the Olympic experience. Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, abused East German teenagers, urine-swapping Russian agents, they all brought doubt to sports. The paradise of being able to accept sporting excellence for what it is, simply excellent, has been lost.Not completely. But enough that arched eyebrows have become as necessary as a cold drink and a comfy cushion when watching cycling, track and field, and other sports taken for too many rides by dopers. Olympic weightlifting isnt worth watching at all, given how history suggests that a sizeable proportion of medalists in Rio de Janeiro will likely be handing them back when the International Olympic Committee gets around to thawing out and retesting drug-test samples taken at these games, as it has done with those from Beijing in 2008 and London in 2012. Those retests have so far yielded 98 positives from multiple countries and sports, including 12 weightlifting medalists from 2012.So, of course, Wayde van Niekerk had to be asked whether he is on drugs after he broke Michael Johnsons 17-year-old world record in the Rio Games 400-meter final. Hopefully, Van Niekerk didnt take the questions personally. They are just symptoms of the twice-bitten times; boxes self-respecting journalists must tick. The South African replied that he is clean.Armstrong, of course, used to say the same thing, evading most journalists sniff tests even more expertly than he and his teammates used to limbo under doping controls. Even now, after Armstrongs belated confessions that his Tour de France wins were a sham, the ease with which he lied remains remarkable for its assured delivery.Ive never taken performance-enhancing drugs, he said in a sworn deposition in 2005 . How many times do I have say it?Re-watching that, thinking how much of sports credibility he and other dopers have stolen, it is impossible not to feel cynical and angry. Likewise, watching any Russian athlete in Rio has been a struggle. Hard not to picture urine samples being passed at night through a hole in the wall of the drug-test lab at the 2014 Sochi Olympics for tipping down a drain.Still, it is important to have some faith.The reason to believe most of what you are seeing from Rio is not the 5,500 drug tests, which smart dopers know how to trick, or what athletes say, but because the alternative -- not believing -- is simply too depressing. Not trusting that most Olympians got here through hard work, good genes and honesty would mean that hard work, good genes, honesty count for nothing. And that is not true.Not believing in Van Niekerks time of 43.03 seconds simply because no one has run that fast before would mean also not believing that 43.03 seconds is humanly possible at all. Same goes for Michael Phelps unprecedented 28 swimming medals or Usain Bolts now seven (and counting) Olympic sprinting golds. Doubting brilliance simply because it is brilliant undermines the strongest reason for holding the games: so that humanitys fastest, springiest and strongest can get together to expand the envelope of what is physically and mentally possible.So although that voice in your head asking Is this for real? is understandable, even healthy, dont be drowned out by it.Dial down the cynicism, arch just one eyebrow, and try to enjoy the theater.---John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org or follow him at http://twitter.com/johnleicester . See his work at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/john-leicester Yeezy 700 Carbon Blue Outlet . -- There were a lot of firsts for the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday night. Yeezy 700 Outlet . Toronto has dropped games to Indiana and Miami since a five-game winning streak and closed out a three-game road trip at 1-2. http://www.yeezy700outlet.com/discount-y...nta-online.html . Manuel was offered a position the day he was fired. He accepted earlier this week and the team made the announcement Friday. RIO DE JANEIRO -- With the Rio de Janeiro Olympics set to open, worried IOC members grilled top organizing officials about traffic jams, water pollution, security, and the absence of signage that gives the games its own distinct look.International Olympic President Thomas Bach also turned up the pressure Wednesday by talking straight to organizing committee president Carlos Nuzman and CEO Sidney Levy, who tried to soothe almost 100 IOC members.Its delivery time, Bach said. Here we go now. It really starts. We are very confident we will celebrate great games here in Rio and the world will be surprised to see what will happen here.Bach also cautioned: All praise is premature now. ... Its too early to celebrate.Prince Albert of Monaco asked about Rios severe water pollution, which soils Olympic venues for sailing, rowing, canoeing, triathlon and open-water swimming. Rio treats about half of its raw sewage, dumping the rest into the waters surrounding the area of 12 million people.The media has said a lot about the preparations of these games, and they say a lot about the levels of pollution, Albert said. How worried should we be?Rio spokesman Mario Andrada repeated assurances that bacterial pollution levels fall within World Health Organization guidelines. However, organizers have been criticized for the astronomical viral levels in the waters, and for not testing for this kind of pollution.Then theres surface debris.We do have a few problems with the floating garbage, Andrada acknowledged, explaining plans to use a dozen garbage collection boats in the sailing venue. Rio is also using barricades to block the flow of garbage from streams, and helicopters to spot garbage flows.Swiss IOC member Denis Oswald asked about traffic jams in the run-up to the games, which open Friday.Those whove had the opportunity to get to some of the venues have had lots of difficulties, Oswald said.Rio official Leo Gryner said there were some constraints getting the Olympic lane system to work. The lanes are to help get athleetes and officials around town quickly. Cheap Yeezy 350 V2. He said city officials were making changes.They are making the flow quicker and making sure all the athletes get to training and competition on time, Gyrner said.Rio commercial officer Renato Ciuchini was asked why there was so little signage -- signs that give the games it distinct look and help direct fans to venues. It was suggested the number installed only reached 15 percent.We are very confident the supplier will now install everything, but I believe a few will be installed a bit late, Ciuchini said. IOC officials said Christophe Dubi, the Olympic Games executive director, was holding an emergency meeting with the supplier.IOC member Alex Gilady asked Levy about his three largest worries. Levy listed transportation, security -- despite a force of 85,000 police and soldiers -- and finances.He said transportation was going well between the two largest venue clusters -- the Olympic Park and the northern cluster of Deodoro. He said that comprised 75 percent of the trips. The problem area was in urban Rio around Copacabana Beach and the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon where rowing takes place.Its a real challenge, Levy said.He also acknowledged the operating budget is under stress. That is a budget of 7.4 billion reals ($2.3 billion) for operating the games themselves, but not for building venues and roads.Rio organizers have been getting cash advances from the IOC but still maintain their budget is balanced. Several reports say the IOC recently turned down a $70 million loan to Rio.Away from the venues, Brazil is in its deepest recession since the 1930s. Separately, President Dilma Rousseff has been replaced by interim president Michel Temer as she awaits an impeachment trial in the federal senate.---Stephen Wade on Twitter: http://twitter.com/StephenWadeAP .His work can be found at http://bigstory.ap.org/content/stephen-wade ' ' '