ardboard 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 w

Melbourne Victory have granted a compassionate release to A-League goalkeeper Danny Vukovic, who is relocating to Sydney FC so he can care for his sick child in his hometown.Vukovic, released from the final two years of his contract with Victory, has signed a two-year deal with the Sky Blues.His young son Harley requires a liver transplant, and 31-year-old Vukovic was eager to seek a treatment course in Sydney for greater family support.Last season was very difficult off the field for me and my family, and the best decision for us at this time is to be closer to our extended family in Sydney, Vukovic said.This was a very difficult decision for me to make, because I thoroughly enjoyed the time I had at Melbourne Victory.I am grateful for the opportunity to represent Victory and I would like to thank everyone at the club and the fans, who have given me unbelievable support.Vukovic joined Victory in 2015 as coach Kevin Muscats No.1 gloveman but lost his spot over the course of the season to 2015 grand final-winning keeper Lawrence Thomas.At Sydney - his fifth A-League club - he will compete with first-choice custodian Vedran Janjetovic for the No.1 spot, under the guidance of respected goalkeeper coach John Crawley.I want to test myself and the competition for places and professionalism on offer at Sydney FC is second to none, said Vukovic, who will link up with his new teammates on Friday.Vedran is a fantastic goalkeeper. 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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.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..dddddddddddd.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 . 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