BRIDGE PRO ISN'T PLAYING GAMES ABOUT DRUG TESTING

City Resident Helped American Team Win Medal, But She Was Stripped Of Hers
For Stance

Here are words that don't usually find their way into a story about the
highbrow card game bridge: Olympics, drug scandal and Playboy.

It took a strong-willed native Icelander to make it happen.

Disa Eythorsdottir - a nearly 6-foot blonde with a thick accent - wasn't
looking to make history when she refused to pee in a cup after helping an
American team win the silver medal at the World Bridge Federation
championships in Montreal five months ago.

She wasn't afraid officials would find performance-enhancing drugs in her
system - ''Like what could I take to enhance my performance - smart pills?''
She said it just wasn't right. Besides, she knew she'd flunk the drug test
because she was taking diet pills, even though they had no effect on her
mental capabilities.

''It's ridiculous,'' she said. ''Anyone who had four cups of coffee couldn't
pass that drug test. A lot of old people play bridge, and they are on all
kinds of medicines.

"What does any of this have to do with bridge?''

Because of her stance, her name has been mentioned in Playboy, Sports
Illustrated and countless newspapers across the world. She was even the
subject of a four-minute segment on Comedy Central's ''The Daily Show.''

Eythorsdottir, 37, would rather have the silver medal than all of the
attention the incident brought - in the bridge world and the media - but
she's not hiding from it, either.

For instance, when a producer with ''The Daily Show'' called her at home in
Huntsville and said he wanted to fly her to New York for the show, he told
her it was for a serious journalism piece.

She told him, ''Are you kidding? I watch your show every day. I know you
don't do serious.'' She went anyway. Specifically, that's why she went.

Even though she was stripped of one of the highest honors in bridge,
Eythorsdottir recognizes the humor of her situation. It all happened because
some leaders in the world of bridge wanted to make it an Olympic sport.

(You read correctly. Bridge. In the Olympics. As the reporter on ''The Daily
Show'' said, ''Bridge, where the fast pace of cards is paired with the
athleticism of sitting.'')

With a would-be Olympic sport, drug testing becomes an issue.

Eythorsdottir - a professional bridge player, as is her husband, Curtis
Cheek - doesn't call what she does sport. It's a game. A serious, mentally
challenging, hard-core game.

''I have a friend in Canada who has no arms and no legs,'' she said. ''He
has a head, a body and a foot. That's all. And he is a serious, competitive
bridge player. But you can't tell that he could be an Olympic athlete.''

The World Bridge Federation championships were held in August. Eythorsdottir
was eligible to play for the U.S. team because she's a permanent resident of
this country. She moved from Iceland to Nashville in 1994 when she was
recruited to play on a U.S. team.

She and Cheek, 44, met while on the professional bridge circuit. Cheek, a
1976 graduate of Butler High School, entered the bridge world after a stint
as a missile defense engineer. They were on different U.S. teams.

''We were enemies,'' Eythorsdottir said.

Within a year, they were something else. They got married, and she moved to
Huntsville. They've traveled the country teaching others to play bridge.

She's held the title of North American champ six times; he's held the title
once.

Cheek was there during the controversy in Montreal. He still shakes his head
in disbelief.

''The WBF is well known for its incompetence,'' he said.

For one thing, Cheek agrees that bridge doesn't make sense as an Olympic
sport, although the contingent pushing for that believes the game would
benefit from the resulting government funding and media attention.

For another thing, Cheek said the rules changed ''about every five minutes''
during the championship, and the event had an unprofessional air to it.

Add to that his wife repeatedly tried to talk with federation officials
ahead of time about her diet pills and testing, he said. She was told not to
worry, that the testing would be random and wouldn't affect her.

''It didn't feel random,'' she said. ''It felt like a witch hunt.''

Attempts to reach federation officials for comment were unsuccessful.

Here's the kicker: Before Eythorsdottir had her medal taken away, an Olympic
executive committee made its recommendation. Bridge should not be allowed in
the 2006 Olympics. Chess didn't make the cut, either.

As a result, Cheek said, the reason the World Bridge Federation initiated
drug testing was moot. But in a Sept. 10 press release, the federation
argued otherwise. The federation stated that although it adopted the
Olympics' anti-doping regulations in hopes of becoming an Olympic sport,
that wasn't the only reason.

''It is the absolute belief of the WBF that the anti-doping regulations are
to protect players' health and to ensure the integrity of the competition
and would have been enforced anyway, even in the absence of International
Olympic Committee recognition,'' the release states.

Another American, gold-medal-winning Lynn Deas, was also selected for drug
testing. Because she's in a wheelchair, she declined. She still got her
medal.

Eythorsdottir confesses that she's not so good at politics. She didn't try
to pacify the World Bridge Federation.

She's still OK with that. She knows she played bridge at the silver-medal
level. And she and Cheek are still members of the federation and will still
play in federation tournaments.

With all the hullabaloo, Cheek said it seems unlikely that drug testing will
continue in the bridge arena.

''I guess I'll be the only bridge player in history to be stripped of her
medal,'' Eythorsdottir said. ''I guess that's something.''