I have no illusions that the US doesn’t have plenty of dopers of its own, but Jamaica should be next on the list of banned countries. Their national anti-doling program is a joke, and the percentage of their top runners already popped by international testers for doping is staggering. Heck, one of their track coaches (who works with Bolt, by the way) literally changed his name to try to escape from his dope-riddled past.
In fact, if the IOC were serious about these anti-doping efforts, they should probably just ban all the sprinting and running events, period.
I think WACKO Donald J Trump supporters should be concerned about his love towards Russia and North Korea…is his plan to sell off the “poorly educated” to these countries, if he becomes POTUS?
Hell, even I wouldn’t mind selling off the chosenly ignorants to N Korea or Russia. They obviously wouldn’t be used for sex slaves … unless one is into people with really bad diets and scared shitless of almost anything of a sexual nature.
Good. It’s about time.
just forget the Olympics. They create a huge expense for the host country which often isn’t recouped (Greece anyone)?
There is rampant cheating by drugs and any other means.
I don’t have any sense of an amateur event when I watch the Olympics. I see a tightly run corporate spectacle in which the human spirit of sportsmanship and joy is ground down under the enormous pressure to “succeed”.
Pretty much I hate watching any sports these days, for similar reasons, so this isn’t a political screed—except insofar as it has to do with the budgets of the host countries.
I’m glad my country of residence did not win its bid for 2022 Winter Olympics.
Remind me please…what was the original point of the Olympics?
This division by nationality is not useful at this point. If we want to see brilliant athletes perform, let them perform within another system.
There will still be cheaters, of course, but hopefully devoid of a geopolitical context.
I pretty much agree, centralasiaexpat. Until they really clean up their act–collectively–and can figure out a way for host cities to not go to ruin financially, I say good riddance. That said, the only thing I like watching are the men’s gymnastics, swimming, etc. LOL – yes, it’s partly that I just love me some eye candy, but there’s also something beautiful about the way some of them swing around those mounts, rings and glide through the water. I even like watching the women do it, but they’re just not eye candy to me.
The Olympics is a taxpayer-paid fuck party for the athletes and a colossal monument to graft and corruption for the cities, nations and over all the power brokers.
London: 150k condoms handed out to the athletes. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2175783/The-raunchiest-Olympics-Record-150-000-condoms-handed-athletes-London-Games--thats-15-EACH.html
Sochi: 100k condoms. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/olympics-fourth-place-medal/the-100-000-condoms-of-sochi-olympics-211349367.html
Rio: 450k to be handed out. http://www.boston.com/sports/olympics/2016/05/20/condoms-rio
Seriously, folks. I know you’re all the finest specimens of the human body on earth (even you, Elisa Casanova), but could you possibly bring your own rubbers for once or, dare we say it, concentrate on the games on the field instead of the games in the sack for a couple of weeks?
The Olympics and FIFA are bloated, corrupt bureaucracies that make you feel dirty for watching the events.
And I could throw in the NFL for good measure.
Hmm… this does suggest other ways for the host countries to recover costs…
The most important numbers to watch are the numbers of Zika cases that result from participating/attending the Rio games… or the number of infections after participating in water venues.
@captaincommonsense— and this year the condoms have to be industrial strength .
I would like to be able to examine the bank accounts of the WHO officials who refused to suggest that holding the Olympics in Rio is too dangerous now.
Rampant corruption, pervasive violence, destabilizing poverty, dangerously polluted waters, and an uncontrolled epidemic to boot.
Sounds like the perfect place for an international sporting event.
Seems to me this is the next organization the US Justice Department should look at. And the companies advertising should rethink it.
They just need good marketing. “Trumplympics!” anyone?
Let’s all pitch in to purchase airline tickets for our Republican “friends” to go and enjoy themselves (they’ll at least get good use out of the prostitution that’s always present at these events) – and revoke their passports before their return flights.
I suspect that, as with sports stadiums in the U.S. that are built with taxpayer assistance, the expense is never recouped.
Ironically the IOC sports doping organization, while ingnoring well-known organized doping programs by major participating nations, has been treating individual athletes in an unscientific, punitive manner.
The list of banned substances is now quite long (~200), and includes many over the counter, or commonly used prescription medications. At the same time the ability of technology to detect these substances has advanced so that they can be detected at extremely low levels (parts per billion or even less). At these very low levels detectable traces of these substances can turn up in almost any medication, in food products, or as various type of environmental contaminants.
What the IOC does with individual athletes is ban them if any of the long list of substances is detected at almost any level without regard to whether their is any possibility of some sort of “enhancement” from those levels. So a fair number of athletes are getting banned each year for medically insignificant traces of common substances, many of whom have no idea where they might have picked it up.
I guess it shows “toughness” without endangering profits.
The original point of the Olympics, both ancient and modern, was to have a positive, non-violent alternative to armed conflict between political rivals: city-states in ancient times, nations in modern times.
This idea seem full as relevant today as in ancient times or in 1898.
The amateur concept is a joke, and I’d like to see the Olympics establish a permanent site to return to every four years with just cosmetic updates as needed rather than brand new facilities.