image at top from an old MAD Magazine...

See also: 

 

in regard to the ban of the russian olympic team...

 

Meanwhile, may be the Chinese could boycott the games in Rio. With Russia and other countries could save themselves falling victims to the Zika virus and start their own parallel games in, say Sochi, or Changhai — and boycott the Olympic games altogether forever. Call these new games the Real Games, the Universal Games or whatever... 

 

 

Without doubt the Rio Olympic Games, due to start on August 5, are on track to be quite possibly the worst Games in living memory.

The 1936 Berlin Olympics were hijacked by the Nazi propaganda machine; the 1970s Games are remembered as the era of East German doping and the Israeli hostage crisis; the 1980s were the boycott Games and now, at the 2016 Rio Olympics, we face a Games beset by security issues, political turmoil, the Zika virus, doping sagas and more.

...

 

In the next few days the International Olympic Committee will be forced to make a decision on whether all Russian competitors will be banned. It follows confirmation of a state-sponsored doping program that has already ruled out the entire Russian track and field team. Most other sports have also been implicated.

If Russia, one of the Olympic movement's most powerful and successful nations, is ruled out entirely, expect President Vladimir Putin to revive Cold War tactics. On the other hand, if Russia is allowed to compete, already sceptical international observers will be left feeling that the real gold medal winner in Rio will be politics – yet again.

Tracey Holmes has reported on the politics and social impact of sport since the early 1990s. Rio will be her 11th Olympic Games. Tracey currently works for the ABC and is host of The Ticket, a weekly show discussing sport's biggest issues.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tracey-holmes-rio-olympic-games-on-track-to-be-worst-games-in-living-memory-20160722-gqbgo5.html

 

May Russia and the Chinese start their own games at the same time as the Rio Olympics... That would throw a spanner into the works... Let's not forget that the USA has about as many drug cheats in sport as the Ruskies...

 

 

The ongoing doping scandal against Russia has been gathering pace thanks to the efforts of one man only, Grigory Rodchenkov, who used to chair the anti-doping laboratory in Sochi, to the greatest shame of the laboratory. The statements from this man of extremely doubtful reputation were laid the foundation of the report, the author of which draws a parallel with the case of Alexander Litvinenko, to the greatest shame of the author of the report.  

Litvinenkno was a political propagandist of the marginal genre. The word 'probably' permeates through all reports about the investigation into his death. They contain no direct evidence, but they do contain many pieces of circumstantial evidence that mostly contradict to each other. To make the ends meet, Goldfarb had to invent that Litvinenko had been poisoned twice, or probably even thrice.  A phrase like "traces of polonium were found" would make any radiochemist collapse. The investigators, who realized that they could not make a mountain out of a mole hill, stated that Lugovoy was guilty just because of the fact that Russia refused to deliver him to Russian justice. Last but not least, Litvinenko's activity, his death and investigation into his death is politics and nothing but politics. 

It does not make any sense to deny the political constituent of the WADA report, because the author of this report deliberately and consciously makes it a political document. 

There are quite a few questions at this point. Grigory Rodchenkov speaks of himself as the person, who falsified athletes' doping samples and produced some special sort of undetectable doping, a mixture of various steroids - methenolone, and trenbolone oksalandron, alcohol based. The cocktail was intended to be used as mouthwash. If the doping is hard to detect, what was the point in falsifying the samples? Rodchenkov claimed that the athletes probably ate something that unmasked his cocktail of drugs. This is a strange statement to make, because what kind of an invisible doping drug is it if it manifests itself in the body depending on what one eats with it. 

According to Rodchenkov, all Russian athletes without exception were taking doping, and if some of them had clean samples, then those were fabricated results. -

 

See more at:

 

http://www.pravdareport.com/russia/politics/22-07-2016/135092-wada_repor...

 

A St. Petersburg city lawmaker has proposed countering the ban on Russian athletes’ participation in Olympics with an alternative competition, similar to the Goodwill Games that took place in the USSR in 1986.

In a letter to Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, Vitaly Milonov wrote, “We are watching the continuing aggravation of the situation around Rio Olympics with great disappointment. It deems obvious that the international organizations that are applying pressure at our country are just tools in the hands of western powers that exercise a lowly intent to undermine the national spirit of the Russian Federation.”

“Sports have no place for international political struggle without regard to costs. Sports must be fair. What we are witnessing today is just an attempt to name the winners of the Olympics before the games have even started and get rid of our country as a dangerous competitor” Milonov continued.

“Considering the current political situation in the sporting sphere and the obvious witch hunt that the Western nations are waging against our athletes, it would be appropriate for our side to revive the Goodwill Games,” he added.

READ MORE: Russian athletes to remain banned from Rio - Court of Arbitration for Sport

The Goodwill Games took place in Moscow in 1986 as an attempt to negate the consequences of two Olympic boycotts. In 1980 the United States and many other countries refused to attend the Moscow Olympics in protest over the Soviet Union’s military operation in Afghanistan. The USSR and Warsaw Pact nations reciprocated by boycotting the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.

The 1986 games were organized by CNN founder Ted Turner with the participation of UNICEF and other international groups. Those Goodwill Games were attended by delegations from 79 nations. In total there were six Summer Goodwill games and two Winter Goodwill Games. The 2005 games were canceled because by then the Cold War had ended and Olympic boycotts had stopped.

Milonov’s initiative has already gained some support in the federal parliament. MP Vadim Dengin (Liberal-Democratic Party) said in comments with Izvestia daily that Russia had a good base for a major international event in Sochi and enough allies across the world to make the games representative and interesting.

 

read more: https://www.rt.com/politics/352651-lawmaker-proposes-russia-launches-goodwill/

 

Get China, the Russians and their friends and they end up with 65 per cent of the world athletes... Read Gus comment above....

May Russia and the Chinese start their own games at the same time as the Rio Olympics... That would throw a spanner into the works... Let's not forget that the USA has about as many drug cheats in sport as the Ruskies...

 

 

The unfinished state of the athletes village confirms some of the worst fears held about Rio's lack of preparedness for the Games. All Olympic cities end up in a last-minute flurry, but from accounts, Rio has left too much to too late. This builds on an impression formed by visitors to the World Cup of soccer in Brazil two years ago, that infrastructure would prove to be a big and perhaps insurmountable issue for the Olympic Games.

The timing of this latest drama is unfortunate, to say the least. All eyes were turning to Rio on Sunday as the IOC convened to consider throwing Russia out of the Games. This follows the release last week of a damning report on wholesale and state-sponsored doping of athletes in Russia up to and including the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. It was widely expected that the IOC would conclude that it had no choice except to exclude the entire Russian team.

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/olympics/rio-olympics-2016-athletes-village-unliveable-20160724-gqcqxy.html

 

Note: the "damning" report is based on the words of ONE MAN ONLY. This would not pass mustard in decent secret services. This dossier has the smells of fabrication like the Iraq war dossiers used by Bush, Blair and Howard were made up to invade Iraq illegally. Such fabrication is not that hard to do — and people who say "they don't believe in conspiracy theory" should know that conspiracies are quite numerous in the real world of "diplomacy", commerce and warfare. Otherwise we would not need "secret service" nor the complex security to thwart industrial espionage...

The US athletes have used drugs as well.

 

One can sense the western media is disappointed with the decision by the Olympic Committee to let "Russia off the hook" and allow Russia to compete. The western media had prepared reams of editorials to explain why the Olympic Committee had banned Russia, so all the biased journos and crummy editorialists had to go back to their ink pens. 

"No choice except to exclude the entire Russian team" (read comment above)? Rubbish... But the whole process here was also designed to undermine the morale of the Russian athletes who may have slacked off in their preparedness to these stupid Rio games. So don't be too smug if Russia fares poorly in the results. Nothing to do with doping or not, just the undermining psychological warfare...

The Olympic Committee might be lucky enough though, that Russia does to boycott these games anyway. I am prepared to believe that China would follow.

 

Meanwhile:

 

Fedor Konyukhov is already looking ahead to his next adventure just a day after breaking the world record for the fastest hot-air balloon circumnavigation of the Earth.

The Russian adventurer landed the Roziere balloon near the small WA Wheatbelt town of Bonnie Rock on Saturday afternoon.

During the 11 day journey his endurance was tested to the limit as he battled a storm in Antarctica and a broken heater.

Jacob Orlov was part of Mr Konyukhov's team tracking him from the control centre in Northam, about 100 kilometres east of Perth.

He described the journey as a super-human feat, saying very few people could have matched the achievement.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-24/russian-adventurer-plans-next-adventure/7656344

 

I trust the media for not mentioning that Fedor Konyukhov's balloon was running on steroids...

 

Hillary Clinton’s campaign has accused Russia of meddling in the 2016 presidential election, saying its hackers stole Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails and released them to foment disunity in the party and aid Donald Trump.

Clinton’s campaign manager, Robby Mook, said on Sunday that “experts are telling us that Russian state actors broke into the DNC, stole these emails, [and are] releasing these emails for the purpose of helping Donald Trump”.

“I don’t think it’s coincidental that these emails are being released on the eve of our convention here,” he told CNN’s State of the Union, alluding to the party’s four-day exercise in unification which is set to take place this week in Philadelphia.

“This isn’t my assertion,” Mook said. “This is what experts are telling us.”

In a statement, the Clinton campaign repeated the accusation: “This is further evidence the Russian government is trying to influence the outcome of the election.”

Emails released by Wikileaks on Friday showed members of the DNC trading ideas for how to undercut the campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders, who proved a resilient adversary to Clinton in the Democratic primary. In one email, a staffer suggested the DNC spread a negative article about Sanders’ supporters; in another, the DNC’s chief financial officer suggested that questions about Sanders’ faith could undermine his candidacy.

“I think I read he is an atheist,” the staffer wrote. “This could make several points difference with my peeps. My Southern Baptist peeps would draw a big difference between a Jew and an atheist.”

 

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jul/24/clinton-campaign-blames-russia-wikileaks-sanders-dnc-emails

 

Earlier on Sunday, Sanders had called for Wasserman Schultz to resign and that he was “not shocked” at the damning revelations in the WikiLeaks dump.

Email dump shows DNC officials gang up on Sanders: media bias and religious smear campaignshttps://t.co/mdE0AKprPJpic.twitter.com/enfQ3TNmou

— RT America (@RT_America) July 23, 2016

“I think we need a new chair who is going to lead us in a very different direction, that is taking on the billionaire class and fighting for an agenda that works for working families,” Sanders told ABC’s This Week earlier, adding that “these emails reiterate that reason why she should not be the chair.”

“I think I told you a long time ago that the DNC was not running a fair operation, that they were supporting Secretary Clinton,” Sanders said. “So what I suggested to be true six months ago turns out, in fact, to be true. I’m not shocked, but I am disappointed, and that is the way it is.”

 

read more: https://www.rt.com/usa/353031-sanders-wasserman-schultz-resignation/

International athletes and US anti-doping chiefs have blasted the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for creating "a confusing mess" over the Russian doping scandal, claiming they lacked "decisive leadership" by opting against a blanket Rio ban for Russia.

Key points:

• Athletes label IOC's ruling as "sad day for clean sport" and "passing the buck"
• USADA hits out at decision to ban whistleblower Yuliya Stepanova
• Kitty Chiller wants Australian athletes to "wipe Russia from their mindsets"

The IOC decided against an all-out ban over state-run doping and left international sports federations with the job of clearing athletes for the Games which start on August 5.

Marathon world record holder Paula Radcliffe described the IOC's refusal to ban Russia from the Olympics as a "sad day for clean sport" while British cycling gold medallist Chris Hoy said officials had "passed the buck".

"A sad day for clean sport," wrote 42-year-old Radcliffe, a four-time Olympian, on her Twitter account.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-07-25/us-anti-dopers-slam-ioc-decision-on-russia/7656850?section=sport

 

The Olympics as a tool in the new Cold War

 

 

by Oriental Review

The 6th Fundamental Principle of Olympism (non-discrimination of any kind, including nationality and political opinion) seems to have got forgotten long ago.  In ancient Greece the competition of best athletes was able to halt a war and serve as a bridge of understanding between two recent foes.  But in the twentieth century the Olympics became a political weapon.  Back in 1980 the US and its allies boycotted the games in Moscow as a protest against the Soviet troops that entered Afghanistan at the request of that country’s legitimate government (in contrast, the 1936 Olympics in Nazi Germany were held as usual, to the applause of the “civilized” world).

On May 8, 2016 the CBS program 60 Minutes aired a broadcast about doping in Russia.  The interviews featured recorded conversations between a former staffer with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA), Vitaly Stepanov, and the ex-director of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, Grigory Rodchenkov.  That program was just the fourth installment in a lengthy series about the alleged existence of a system to support doping in Russian sports.

A few days later the New York Times published an interview with Rodchenkov.  There that former official claims that a state-supported doping program was active at the Sochi Olympics, and that the orders for that program had come almost directly from the Russian president.

One important fact that escaped most international observers was that a media campaign, which had begun shortly after the 2014 deep freeze in Russian-Western relations, was constructed around the “testimonies” of three Russian citizens who were all interconnected and complicit in a string of doping scandals, and who later left Russia and are trying to make new lives in the West.

A 29-year-old middle-distance runner, Yulia Stepanova, can be seen as the instigator of this scandal. This young athlete’s personal best in global competition was a bronze medal at the European Athletics Indoor Championship in 2011.  At the World Championships that same year, she placed eighth. Stepanova’s career went off the rails in 2013, when the Russian Athletic Federation’s Anti-Doping Commission disqualified her for two years based on “blood fluctuations in her Athlete Biological Passport.” Such fluctuations are considered evidence of doping.  All of Stepanova’s results since 2011 have been invalidated.  In addition, she had to return the prize money she had won running in professional races in 2011-2012.  

Stepanova, who had been suspended for doping, acted as the primary informant for ARD journalist Hajo Seppelt, who had begun filming a documentary about misconduct in Russian sports.  After the release of ARD’s first documentary in December 2014, Stepanova left Russia along with her husband and son.  In 2015 she requested political asylum in Canada.  Even after her suspension ended in 2015, Stepanova told the WADA Commission (p.142 of the Nov. 2015 WADA Report) that she had tested positive for doping during the Russian Track and Field Championships in Saransk in July 2010 and paid 30,000 rubles (approximately $1,000 USD at that time) to the director of the Russian anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, Gregory Rodchenkov, in exchange for concealing those test results.

Yulia Stepanova’s husband is Vitaly Stepanov a former staffer at RUSADA.  He had lived and studied in the US since he was 15, but later decided to return to Russia.  In 2008, Vitaly Stepanov began working for RUSADA as a doping-control officer.  Vitaly met Yulia Rusanova in 2009 at the Russian national championships in Cheboksary.  Stepanov now claims that he sent a letter to WADA detailing his revelations back in 2010, but never received an answer.

In 2011 Stepanov left RUSADA. One fact that deserves attention is that Vitaly has confessed that he was fully aware that his wife was taking banned substances, both while he worked for RUSADA as well as after he left that organization. Take note that Stepanova’s blood tests went positive starting in 2011 – i.e., from the time that her husband, an anti-doping officer, left RUSADA. With a clear conscience, the Stepanovs, now married, accepted prize money from professional races until Yulia was disqualified.  Then they no longer had a source of income and the prize money suddenly had to be returned, at which point Vitaly Stepanov sought recourse in foreign journalists, offering to tell them the “truth about Russian sports.” In early June he admitted that WADA had not only helped his family move to America, but had also provided them with $30,000 in financial assistance.

 

And finally, the third figure in the campaign to expose doping in Russian sports – the former head of the Russian anti-doping laboratory in Moscow, Gregory Rodchenkov.  According to Vitaly Stepanov, he was the man who sold performance-enhancing drugs while helping to hide their traces, and had also come up with the idea of “doped Chivas mouth swishing” (pg. 50), a technique that transforms men into Olympic champions.  This 57-year-old native of Moscow is acknowledged to be the best at what he does.  He graduated from Moscow State University with a Ph.D. in chemistry and began working at the Moscow anti-doping lab as early as 1985.  He later worked in Canada and for Russian petrochemical companies, and in 2005 he became the director of Russia’s national anti-doping laboratory in Moscow.  In 2013 Marina Rodchenkova – Gregory Rodchenkov’s sister – was found guilty and received a sentence for selling anabolic steroids to athletes.  Her brother was also the subject of a criminal investigation into charges that he supplied banned drugs.

Threatened with prosecution, Gregory Rodchenkov began to behave oddly and was repeatedly hospitalized and “subjected to a forensic psychiatric examination.”  A finding was later submitted to the court, claiming that Rodchenkov suffered from “schizotypal personality disorder,” exacerbated by stress.  As a result, all the charges against Rodchenkov were dropped.  But the most surprising thing was that someone with a “schizotypal personality disorder” and a sister convicted of trafficking in performance-enhancing drugs continued as the director of Russia’s only WADA-accredited anti-doping laboratory.  In fact, he held this job during the 2014 Olympics.  Rodchenkov was not dismissed until the fall of 2015, after the eruption of the scandal that had been instigated by the broadcaster ARD and the Stepanovs.  In September 2015 the WADA Commission accused Rodchenkov of intentionally destroying over a thousand samples in order to conceal doping by Russian athletes.  He personally denied all the charges, but then resigned and left for the US where he was warmly embraced by filmmaker Bryan Fogel, who was shooting yet another made-to-order documentary about doping in Russia.

As this article is being written, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is studying a report  from an “Independent Person,” the Canadian professor Richard H. McLaren, who has accused the entire Russian Federation, not just individual athletes, of complicity in the use of performance-enhancing drugs.  McLaren was quickly summoned to speak with WADA shortly after the NYT published interview with Rodchenkov.  The goal was clear: to concoct a “scientific report” by mid-July that would provide the IOC with grounds to ban the Russian team from the Rio Olympics.  At a press conference on July 18 McLaren himself acknowledged that with a timeline of only 57 days he was unable “to identify any athlete that might have benefited from such manipulation to conceal positive doping tests.”  WADA’s logic here is clear – they need to avoid any accusations of bias, unprofessionalism, embellishment of facts, or political partisanship.  No matter what duplicity and lies are found in the report – it was drafted by an “independent person,” period. 

However, McLaren does not try to hide that the entire report is based on the testimony of a single person – Rodchenkov himself, who is repeatedly presented as a “credible and truthful” source.  Of course that man is accused by WADA itself of destroying 1,417 doping tests and faces deportation to Russia for doping-linked crimes, but he saw an opportunity become a “valuable witness” and “prisoner of conscience” who is being persecuted by the “totalitarian regime” in Russia.

The advantage enjoyed by this “independent commission” – on the basis of whose report the IOC is deciding the fate of Russia’s Olympic hopefuls – is that its accusations will not be examined in court, nor can the body of evidence be challenged by the lawyers for the accused.  Nor is the customary legal presumption of innocence anywhere in evidence.

It appears from Professor McLaren’s statement that no charges will be brought against any specific Russian athletes.  Moreover, they can all compete if they refuse to represent Russia at the Olympics.  There are obvious reasons for this selectivity.  A law professor and longstanding member of the Court of Arbitration for Sport, Professor McClaren knows very well that any charges against specific individuals that are made publicly and result in “legally significant acts” (such as a ban on Olympic participation) can and will be challenged in court, in accordance with international law and on the basis of the presumption of innocence.  All the evidence to be used by the prosecution is subject to challenge, and if some fact included in those charges can be interpreted to the defendant’s advantage, then the court is obliged to exclude that fact from the materials at the disposal of the prosecution.

As a lawyer, McLaren understands all this very well.  Hundreds of lawsuits filed by Russian athletes resulting in an unambiguous outcome would not only destroy his reputation and ruin him professionally – they could form the basis of a criminal investigation with obvious grounds for accusing him of intentionally distorting a few facts, which in his eyes can be summarized as follows.

During the Sochi Olympics, an FSB officer named Evgeny Blokhin switched the doping tests taken from Russian athletes, exchanging them for “clean” urine samples.  This agent is said to have possessed a plumbing contractor’s security clearance, allowing him to enter the laboratory.  In addition, there are reports that Evgeny Kurdyatsev, – the head of the Registration and Biological Sample Accounting Department – switched the doping tests at night, through a “mouse hole” in the wall (!).  Awaiting them in the adjascent building was the man who is now providing  “credible evidence” – Gregory Rodchenkov – and some other unnamed individuals, who passed Blokhin the athletes’ clean doping tests to be used to replace the original samples.  If the specific gravity of the clean urine did not match the original profile, it was “adapted” using table salt or distilled water.  But of course the DNA was incompatible.  And all of this was going on in the only official, WADA-accredited anti-doping laboratory in Russia!

How would something like that sound in any court?  We have witnesses, but the defense team cannot subject them to cross-examination.  We cannot prove that Blokhin is an FSB agent, but we believe it.  We do not possess any of the original documents – not a single photograph or affidavit from the official examination – but we have sufficient evidence from a single criminal who has already confessed to his crime.  We did not submit the emails provided by Rodchenkov to any experts to be examined, but we assert that the emails are genuine, that all the facts they contain are accurate, and that the names of the senders are correct.  We cannot accuse the athletes, so we will accuse and punish the state!

To be honest, we still do not believe that the Olympic movement has sunk so low as to deprive billions of people of the pleasure of watching the competitions, forgetting about politics and politicians.  That would mean waving goodbye to the reputations of the WADA and the IOC and to the global system of sports as a whole.  Perhaps a solution to the colossal problem of doping is long overdue, but is that answer to be found within the boundaries of only one country, even a great country like Russia?  Should we take a moment here and now to dwell upon the multi-volume history of doping scandals in every single country in the world?  And in view of these facts that have come to light, is not WADA itself the cornerstone of the existing and far-reaching system to support and cover up athletic doping all over the world?

In conclusion, we cite below the complete translation of the Russian Olympic Committee’s statement  in response to the WADA report:

“The accusations against Russian sports found in the report by Richard McLaren are so serious that a full investigation is needed, with input from all parties.  The Russian Olympic Committee has a policy of zero tolerance and supports the fight against doping.  It is ready to provide its full assistance and work together, as needed, with any international organization.

We wholeheartedly disagree with Mr. McLaren’s view that the possible banning of hundreds of clean Russian athletes from competition in the Olympic Games is an acceptable ‘unpleasant consequence’ of the charges contained in his report.

The charges being made are primarily based on statements by Grigory Rodchenkov.  This is solely based on testimony from someone who is at the epicenter of this criminal scheme, which is a blow not only to the careers and fates of a great many clean athletes, but also to the integrity of the entire international Olympic movement.

Russia has fought against doping and will continue to fight at the state level, steadily stiffening the penalties for any illegal activity of this type and enforcing a precept of inevitabile punishment.

The Russian Olympic Committee fully supports the harshest possible penalties against anyone who either uses banned drugs or encourages their use.

At the same time, the ROC – acting in full compliance with the Olympic Charter – will always protect the rights of clean athletes.  Those who throughout their careers – thanks to relentless training, talent, and willpower – strive to realize their Olympic dreams should not have their futures determined by the unfounded, unsubstantiated accusations and criminal acts of certain individuals.  For us this is a matter of principle.”

 

 

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says a three-person panel will have the final say on which Russian athletes can compete at the Rio Games.

Last week the IOC said individual sports' governing bodies must decide if Russian competitors are clean amid claims of state-sponsored doping.

But it now says the newly convened panel "will decide whether to accept or reject that final proposal".

More than 250 Russian athletes have so far been cleared to compete.

The three-person panel comprises Ugur Erdener, president of World Archery and head of the IOC medical and scientific commission, Claudia Bokel of the IOC athletes commission, and Spanish IOC member Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, son of the ex-IOC president of the same name.

• How many Russians will compete in Rio?
• Russia doping 'across Olympic sports'
• Russia escapes blanket ban

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) had recommended all Russian athletes be banned after its independently commissioned report found evidence of a four-year "doping programme" across the "vast majority" of Olympic sports.

The IOC stopped short of applying a blanket ban in a move criticised by Wada and others, while swimmers Vladimir Morozov and Nikita Lobintsev have become the first Russian athletes to appeal against their ban to the Court of Arbitration for Sport.

The Olympics start in Rio on Friday.

IOC stands by Stepanova decision

Meanwhile, Russian whistleblower Yulia Stepanova has asked again for the IOC to reassess her exclusion from Rio.

The 800m runner's testimony helped shed light on the scale of doping in Russian sport, and she was to compete under a neutral flag in Rio.

But the IOC ruled that she should not be allowed to take part as she had previously failed a doping test.

In a letter to the IOC on Saturday, Stepanova and her husband Vitaly asked the body to "reassess the decision on Yulia".

The IOC responded by saying it had rejected any review of her case and had not discussed the matter at its executive board meeting.

"The final decision has been taken already," IOC spokesman Mark Adams said

 

http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/36934760

 

On what evidence will these three person make their decisions? Anyone familiar with such process knows that the game is rigged in advance to minimise the participation of Russia... Of course there is 99 per cent chance a new secret performance enhancing drug exists in the markets  — a drug (or drug cocktail) which is undetected so far and mostly used by some US athletes... No trace, no drug? Pull the other leg... My view is that the Russians should withdraw their support of the IOC and have their own Friendship Games. These games would be cleaner than the Olympics...

 

 

Oiselle CEO Sally Bergesen attended the trials to root on 14 of her athletes, including middle-distance runner Kate Grace. When Grace pulled off a surprise win in the women’s 800-meter final, Oiselle posted celebratory notes on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram.

The next day, Oiselle got an email from a USOC lawyer, demanding the company delete the social-media posts. If Oiselle wanted to celebrate Grace’s achievement, the USOC said, the company needed to avoid a long list of trademarked words and phrases, including “Olympic,” “Team USA” and “Road to Rio.” Any pictures of Grace running at the trials or celebrating would have to be censored, because the Oiselle racing top she wore at the trials also had a USOC “Road to Rio” logo with the Olympic rings.

Oiselle deleted the posts and replaced them with notes that referred, vaguely, to Grace’s upcoming appearance in “the Big Event in the Southern Hemisphere.” Photos of Grace’s winning run were re-posted with black boxes censoring trademarked images on Grace or in the background.

In an interview, Bergesen estimated that Oiselle had spent about $300,000 endorsing Grace over the past four years, a figure that included salary, travel, and gear. In that same time period, the USOC and USA Track and Field had spent about $10,000 on Grace, Bergesen estimated. Nike hasn’t paid Grace anything. (Grace declined an interview request but confirmed the estimates.)

The USOC and USA Track and Field “say that they give athletes the opportunity to make a living through endorsements, but they also structure that opportunity in such a way that it severely devalues them,” Bergesen said. “They’re basically saying, knock ’em dead, go get sponsors, and then they say, simultaneously, once you get to the Olympic trials and the Olympics, those sponsors you’ve gotten no longer have any visibility.”

Exclusive sponsorship deals with companies such as Nike, Blackmun said, are vital to funding the USOC.

“What our sponsors are most interested in is exclusivity. . . . We generate about $100 million a year in sponsorship revenue. We wouldn’t be able to get that revenue unless we could make a promise of exclusivity,” Blackmun said. “If someone can make a credible case that our athletes who are medal-capable will receive more support under a different model . . . we would be very willing to look at that.”

Bergesen has suggested allowing Olympic athletes the right to put their individual sponsors on their race uniforms, along with the Swoosh. USA Track and Field board chairman Steve Miller believes the exclusive Nike deal will guarantee a better base salary for more track and field athletes than any alternative.

“If Nike got out of track and field, I don’t know who or what would replace them and their money,” Miller said.

At smaller U.S. sport federations, athletes are less concerned with the sway held by sponsors, and more bothered by the power held by coaches and executives.

At US Rowing, based in Princeton, N.J., women’s head coach Tom Terhaar has major input on who makes the Olympic team and how much they get paid. Terhaar is US Rowing’s highest-paid employee, at $237,000. Men’s coach Luke McGee makes $197,000....

 Read more:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/olympics/olympic-executives-cash-in-on-a-movement-that-keeps-athletes-poor/2016/07/30/ed18c206-5346-11e6-88eb-7dda4e2f2aec_story.html?hpid=hp_hp-top-table-main_olympicmoney-720pm%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

 

 

These days, financial concerns, not Cold War posturing, counterbalance attitudes about doping. Ever since the 1984 L.A. Games — forced by a local ballot measure that denied the organizers any public funding — showed how much cash the Olympics could generate from television rights and sponsorships, the IOC has left behind Coubertin’s moldering warnings about the “serious dangers” of mixing sports with moneymaking and turned the Olympics into a commercial extravaganza. Pro athletes are welcome, and today it costs upward of $200 million to become an official Olympic partner. That money comes with a license for corporations to drape their brand in youthful possibility, human achievement and global unity.

Admitting that an entire country — in this case, Russia — blithely flouts all the doping rules would undermine this commercial contract by defiling the sanctifying myth of Olympic purity. It would also expose the IOC to enormously costly legal liability. World Anti-Doping Agency studies indicate that testing snares less than 2 percent of doped athletes. Changing sports’ enduring chemical traditions is hard compared with kicking doping scandals down the road to independent sport federations, as the IOC just did with the Russians.

Sending all Russians packing from Rio would have relayed a comforting message that sports can be an island of chemical and moral purity, and that we might someday return to Coubertin’s fantasy of fair play. Ultimately, though, that the IOC instead steamrolled the World Anti-Doping Agency and gave Russia a pass is no surprise. Commercial and geopolitical interests are still stronger than the moral reductionism of anti-doping missionaries.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/07/29/doping-has-always-been-part-of-the-olympics-of-course-russia-got-off-the-hook/?hpid=hp_no-name_opinion-card-f%3Ahomepage%2Fstory

 

Doping is not a Russian pass-time. It also has had an imprimatur in the US sporting industry. American laboratories are constantly on the lookout for new drugs to improve performance and these may or may not be detectable — and should these be detectable, THEY MAY NOT BE BANNED SUBSTANCES YET.

To single out the Russians exclusively is political motivation that would have killed the rich pickings for the Olympic committees from their sponsors which to say the least are mostly Americans. 

 

Russia will have 271 athletes eligible to compete at the Rio Games, says the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

This is more than two-thirds of their original entry list of 389 athletes, despite the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) recommending a blanket ban after a doping scandal.

Russia's Olympic Committee president Alexander Zhukov said his country will have "the cleanest team" at the Games.

The Olympics opening ceremony takes place on Friday.

http://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/36970627