'The Agony of Defeat', New Zealand Weightlifter Graham May Dies of Cardiac Causes

Super heavyweight power lifter Graham May died of cardiac causes in his native New Zealand.  He was 55. Story noted here in  Stuff.com.nz.  After retiring from lifting, he admitted to 3 years of anabolic steroid use.

The New Zealand sporting community is mourning the loss of Graham May, the genial giant gold medallist, who turned weightlifting into a television sport.

May, 54, died in Christchurch after a brief illness on Friday – almost 33 years after winning the super heavyweight weightlifting gold medal at the 1974 Christchurch Commonwealth Games.

A committed Christian, May later confessed he had taken performance-enhancing steroids – which were then not illegal – in the three years leading up to the Games.

But the disclosure did not tarnish his standing in the sporting world. Instead, he was hailed for having the courage to clear his conscience. His offer to return his medal was declined.

May is also known as the man who tottered and fell, as the 'agony of defeat' in the intro to ABC's Wide World of Sport.

The Town Hall crowd – with Princess Anne in a front-row seat – held its collective breath as May hoisted a 187kg clean and jerk attempt.

"I got the bar up but I couldn't get it under control," he told The Press in 1991. "I kept tottering forward until I had a momentary blank spot and dropped the thing."

The bar plopped off the platform and rolled towards English referee Tony Flood, who leapt off his high stool in alarm. Sir Ronald Scott, the 1974 Games organiser, once quipped that the May moment was his "most moving experience" of the Games. "I had to move, otherwise the weights would have ended up in my lap."

May became a Christian, and this conversion reportedly spurred him to admit to 3 years of steroid use before his gold medal performance.   Now, like the old Pittsburgh Steelers, Questions will be raised about the role of anabolic steroids in his demise.

It was his Christian conscience which prompted him to admit in a 1989 television documentary to taking steroids in the years leading up to his gold-medal success. Former New Zealand hammer thrower Murray Cheater made a similar admission.

May told The Press at the time that it was "a conscience issue for myself". "Honesty and integrity are more highly prized to me than a gold bauble."

He felt New Zealanders needed to know "their sporting heroes are not lily white". 

Later, he said, he felt "an overwhelming conviction that I should come clean" because of his work with Christian groups. 

Certainly large men are acceptable to diabetes, hypertension, and cardiac disease.  However, the use of anabolic steroids can also lead to cardiac hypertrophy.

New Zealand's Green Party supported a strong anti-doping bill.  Here from a discussion:

Two of the most prominent cases of drug use in New Zealand sport that led to what appears to be early death involve Robin Tait, the discus thrower, and Graham May, the weightlifter. Those people died young, probably as a result of drug use in their sports. We have to realise why drug use takes place. It is not just a case of individuals taking drugs for their own gratification. One of the problems is the nature of sport, particularly the nature of professional sport, in the world today. A huge amount of money is involved. One can become a multimillionaire overnight and famous throughout the world. Very often sport is tied up with national pride, so pressure is put on the officials as well as the athletes to bend the rules and engage in drugs in sport.