Dear Gina,

further to your letter to the Romanian Olympic Committee in which you respond to some of the alleged allegations allegedly made by an alleged former national team member allegedly accusing her alleged coaches of allegedly bad treatment.

First of all, thanks for your input. We here at S.A.R.C.A.S.M (Officials) are always anxious to hear from former world class athletes, especially those who have learnt to read and write. We appreciate your taking time out of the extremely hectic schedule of a washed-out former gymnast turned wannabee international judge. With your invaluable contribution to the sport of gymnastics – an overuse of blue eye shadow, an overrated dance element and lots of spastic arm movements – you propel our cause to new levels, thus facilitating the work flow on our Coach to Gymnast (C2G 2004) project. As you surely know, the C2G 2004 project is currently in the final stage of finalising the initial task force which, in due course, will determine the assistant work flow management team. We are confident that this process will be successfully completed by the third quarter of 2045. We are excited to announce that we have a host of international specialists, known for their competence in building a healthy and respectful training atmosphere in which athletes are valued as individuals and not machines, lined up. They include Bela Karolyi, the former head of the North Korean midget throwing team, Kim Sucks Ill, the pharmacist who used to supply the GDR women’s rowing team Hermann Frodite and some guy we met in a pub who was head of the patisserie team at the Soviet National Ballet Academy.

It would be a great honour to include you on the initial finalising team as we feel that your proactive approach to addressing the slight hint of problems that unfortunately seem to have crept into the work flow of the coaching team (Octavian Belu and Mariana Bitang) and the gymnast team (whoever is left and has a cholesterol level of less than 300) would help to further raise the level of expertise of our allegedly really cool team. We would like to congratulate you on the outstanding analysis you present in your crisp, yet detailed reply to Ms Cojocar’s allegedly alleged allegations. And I quote: “I am shocked by the manner in which mediocre gymnasts, who only managed to win one medal and that in a team competition, who were accepted by the team and only excelled with the team, can throw dirt/smear the work and the results built upon sweat, effort and self-sacrifice at Deva.“ I couldn’t have said it better myself – what a poignant portrayl of post-modernist Romanian gymnastics. Brava! Of course, we understand the underlying autobiographical aspect. You, as a mediocre gymnast who won more than one individual medal, can relate to the sacrifices it takes to be the very best at lame choreography and how many tears are behind every single missed cast handstand.

And of course, only a brilliant dancer like you is capable of peaking behind the veil of indifference that hides the agony your beloved coaches go through every time they hit a gymnast. The audience may only see the bruises, but you know how much effort and thought is behind each individual broken bone. You see the sweat that leads to the chronic back problems. Oh yes! Only a master of cheated wolf jumps like Simona Amanar can relate to the inner turmoil, so cleverly hidden beneath the Nixonesque smile of the oily official, as the international mafia forces him to forge yet another passport for the fatherland. Do they enjoy this? Oh no! Is it a walk in the park? But, as they say in Transylvania – a vampire’s gotta do what a vampire’s gotta do!

Gina, I look forward to never hearing from you in the hopefully distant future. Please do hestitate to contact us if you have any further questions. All allegations will be treated with strict non-confidence and passed on to Gazeta for immediate publication and distribution among FIG member federations.

Allegedly yours,

ppa
A. van Kerr
(the Artist formerly known as Dumbledore)

Society of Allegedly Really Conscious Alcoholic Suicidal Morons (Officials)