Jump to content

The Rio Olympics


Recommended Posts

The closer we come to the start of these Olympics the more it looks like a disaster:

https://www.olympic.org/

Golf was supposed to be the new big draw except the top 5 in the world begged off. The sailors are sailing through human waste and every day more and more athletes are withdrawing.

Russia has been found to be guilty of state organized doping but the IOC will not bar the whole Olympic team because if they did - nobody would show up. This event has been losing credibility for the last few years and I think they may find that nobody will want to host the next ones.

Too bad. I have been enjoying them for years and have fond memories of attending the 1976 games in Montreal. They seem to have lost any relevance.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 220
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I too, enjoyed the Olympics but now we know there have been MANY countries cheating, it not that enjoyable because the winners could have some substance in them to get the advantage over their rivals. This year there's also the insect problem and I wonder if there will be a terrorist attack.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I too, enjoyed the Olympics but now we know there have been MANY countries cheating, it not that enjoyable because the winners could have some substance in them to get the advantage over their rivals. This year there's also the insect problem and I wonder if there will be a terrorist attack.

I wonder what would follow if there was no drug testing? The drugs that are "illegal" for use in the Olympics are used by professional athletes for a variety of reasons - some legitimate some not.

The previous arguments had been that all athletes would then be forced to use drugs for competition. So what? If an individual wants to shorten or endanger their lives just to win something then it should be their choice. What right has an organization to protect people from themselves?

As it stands to-day, nobody any longer believes that the winning athletes are drug free. They are just temporary winners in the game of knowing the right masking agents or using a drugging timetable to make them read clear for competitions.

The idea of amateurs and professionals is history and so should drug testing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I wonder what would follow if there was no drug testing? The drugs that are "illegal" for use in the Olympics are used by professional athletes for a variety of reasons - some legitimate some not.

The previous arguments had been that all athletes would then be forced to use drugs for competition. So what? If an individual wants to shorten or endanger their lives just to win something then it should be their choice. What right has an organization to protect people from themselves?

As it stands to-day, nobody any longer believes that the winning athletes are drug free. They are just temporary winners in the game of knowing the right masking agents or using a drugging timetable to make them read clear for competitions.

The idea of amateurs and professionals is history and so should drug testing.

You would have an competition between who has the best chemists. I think the IOC is making a big mistake by not coming down hard on this. It could be the death of the Olympics. What self respecting country would want to spend billions to sponsor a competition between druggies and how many people would want to watch it? Would supporting this be a message you would want to send to your kids?

Where would people who don't want to take drugs compete? You are saying to them that you can't compete at the highest level or make a living in sport unless you take performance enhancing drugs that could severely damage your future health and shorten your life. No thanks.

Edited by Wilber
Link to comment
Share on other sites

You would have an competition between who has the best chemists. I think the IOC is making a big mistake by not coming down hard on this. It could be the death of the Olympics. What self respecting country would want to spend billions to sponsor a competition between druggies and how many people would want to watch it? Would supporting this be a message you would want to send to your kids?

Where would people who don't want to take drugs compete? You are saying to them that you can't compete at the highest level or make a living in sport unless you take performance enhancing drugs that could severely damage your future health and shorten your life. No thanks.

Thank you for your comments. I submit that we already have had, are and will be watching competitions between who has the best chemists.

Most athletes compete because they enjoy their sport. Professional athletes have the addition incentive of financial gain - that is why most of them are on drugs that would be considered illegal in Olympic competitions. Professional contact sports, from football, to rugger to ... are fed by the walking wounded who could not participate without a variety of drugs. Professional athletes have a short recovery rate due to medications and other practices that will probably decrease their expected life span. Some sports like gymnastics have been playing around with puberty suppressing hormones for years.

I still believe that if you want a level playing field, then have no restrictions. If the individual chooses to use performance enhancing drugs, they are responsible for their own bodies. As a compromise, perhaps have urine tests after competitions for the winners and publish which drugs were found in the system.

In this Rio Olympics, I believe there will be hundreds of competitors who will be using some kind of performance enhancing techniques from illegal supplements to blood doping to hormonal additives to anything we have yet to identify.

I respect your position but do not feel in this day and age that we have fool proof drug testing procedures - and we never will.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think we have a choice unless we want sport to become a bad joke. I would never support my country bidding for an Olympics where unrestricted drug use was allowed. I would never support my tax money going to support national teams where unrestricted drug use was sanctioned or subsidize athletes who were known to be using performance enhancing drugs.

Just because we don't have fool proof drug testing procedures doesn't mean you don't have to keep trying. You don't stop trying to enforce laws just because you can't stop all crime.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't think we have a choice unless we want sport to become a bad joke. I would never support my country bidding for an Olympics where unrestricted drug use was allowed. I would never support my tax money going to support national teams where unrestricted drug use was sanctioned or subsidize athletes who were known to be using performance enhancing drugs.

Just because we don't have fool proof drug testing procedures doesn't mean you don't have to keep trying. You don't stop trying to enforce laws just because you can't stop all crime.

You are probably correct - but using performance enhancing drugs is not a crime. Steroids and hormones, while requiring a prescription, are not illegal to be used. I agree that you should not stop trying to enforce laws, but you can change the law if/when it no longer makes sense or is unenforceable. I am not an Olympic athlete and take 4 daily medications that would disqualify me from the Olympics.

We will probably continue as per your suggestion notwithstanding the inconsistency of application of penalties for athletes who use performance enhancing drugs.

How many athletes do you think will be found to be using banned drugs at Rio?

How many athletes do you think will be using performance enhancing drugs?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You are probably correct - but using performance enhancing drugs is not a crime. Steroids and hormones, while requiring a prescription, are not illegal to be used. I agree that you should not stop trying to enforce laws, but you can change the law if/when it no longer makes sense or is unenforceable. I am not an Olympic athlete and take 4 daily medications that would disqualify me from the Olympics.

We will probably continue as per your suggestion notwithstanding the inconsistency of application of penalties for athletes who use performance enhancing drugs.

How many athletes do you think will be found to be using banned drugs at Rio?

How many athletes do you think will be using performance enhancing drugs?

It may not be a crime but it is against the rules. You don't want to play by the rules, you don't play. Simple concept that applies to all rules in all sports.

Athletes who use drugs to gain an advantage will always exist but that is a far cry from organized doping programs carried out by governments and sanctioned by organizations such as the IOC.

Instead of concentrating on how many athletes in Rio are using banned drugs you should be thankful that athletes are still able to compete without using them, because of the efforts being made to stop it.

Since when did trying to protect the health of the athletes we send not make sense?

If someone came out with a drug that made its users unbeatable but would kill them within ten years, I'm sure there are some who would use it anyway but should everyone else who wants to be competitive in that sport be faced with that choice?

Edited by Wilber
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Since when did trying to protect the health of the athletes we send not make sense?

It also makes business sense. Sports only exist because of viewers and if drug enhancements were allowed a significant number of viewers would be repelled and stop watching. Edited by TimG
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It also makes business sense. Sports only exist because of viewers and if drug enhancements were allowed a significant number of viewers would be repelled and stop watching.

I disagree. Professional sports is business. Drug use is and has always been rampant in the NFL and NHL. How many hockey fans care if the "enforcer" is crazed on steroids or just doing his job when he starts to pound the **** out of the opposition star. How about the defenceman with a broken ankle playing in the playoffs with his foot frozen? Cross country bike racing, soccer, basketball etc are rampant with drug use - some for enhancement, some because they have too much money and some to stay physically able to compete.

We already know that enhancement drugs are being used by all teams but the attendance or viewing audience has not suffered. I think sport fans are repelled my mediocracy and apathy of players.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...

If someone came out with a drug that made its users unbeatable but would kill them within ten years, I'm sure there are some who would use it anyway but should everyone else who wants to be competitive in that sport be faced with that choice?

Why not? I believe it is the freedom of choice. There are many careers which are far more dangerous than others yet people join in either for the money or the thrill. I enjoyed playing sports for many years. Been on a few winners and a few losers. If a person is not prepared to enter athletics as a career and compete against folks who are probably using some kind of legal drugs but are against the "rules" for that sport then that is their choice.

Soldiering, law enforcement and fire fighting are careers that are more dangerous than politics but folks still join.

About half the soldiers in Vietnam used opiates. Don't know how many got addicted.

Edited by Big Guy
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We already know that enhancement drugs are being used by all teams but the attendance or viewing audience has not suffered. I think sport fans are repelled my mediocracy and apathy of players.

We don't 'know' that and if someone is found out they are punished. There is a huge difference between watching a competition with some cheaters and watching a competition to determine who has the best drug cocktail. Normalizing drug use in sports would be bad for viewership.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Why not? I believe it is the freedom of choice. There are many careers which are far more dangerous than others yet people join in either for the money or the thrill. I enjoyed playing sports for many years. Been on a few winners and a few losers. If a person is not prepared to enter athletics as a career and compete against folks who are probably using some kind of legal drugs but are against the "rules" for that sport then that is their choice.

Soldiering, law enforcement and fire fighting are careers that are more dangerous than politics but folks still join.

About half the soldiers in Vietnam used opiates. Don't know how many got addicted.

When the risk is in the sport itself, that is a known quantity which everyone can see up front. That is totally different from taking performance enhancing drugs. I'm surprised you can't see the difference and that you think people should put themselves at risk by taking unnecessary drugs for the pleasure of spectators and national egos.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Wasn't the Montreal games slightly ruined because there was a boycott from African countries as a protest against letting South-Africa into the games and the boycott more or less watered down the middle and long-distance events?

Then the next two olympics were marred by boycotts as well as in 1980 the USA boycotted the Moscow-games because of the Soviet invasion of Afganistan and four years later the Warsaw Pact-countries boycotted the Los Angeles games in a boycott which was just a tit for tat for the west's boycott of Moscow.

In the 1984 games the hammer-throw gold-medal was won by a Finnish thrower. However, he was ridiculed and made fun of that victory for the rest of his life because at the time there were at least 10 better hammer-throwers in the world but they all were Russian or from the other Eastern bloc-countries which boycotted the games. Therefore the Finnish guy's gold medal was seen as meaningless and nothing to be proud of.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In the 1984 games the hammer-throw gold-medal was won by a Finnish thrower. However, he was ridiculed and made fun of that victory for the rest of his life because at the time there were at least 10 better hammer-throwers in the world but they all were Russian or from the other Eastern bloc-countries which boycotted the games. Therefore the Finnish guy's gold medal was seen as meaningless and nothing to be proud of.

It would be if he was clean and the other 10 weren't. The East Bloc teams were notoriously dirty. East Germany set the gold standard for drugging. Most of their records are no longer recognized.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

... you can't see the difference and that you think people should put themselves at risk by taking unnecessary drugs for the pleasure of spectators and national egos.

I believe that people have the freedom of choice to do whatever they want with their own bodies to attain an end. You have the steroids of body builders, the starving and drug use by models to keep their weights down and the same with jockeys. Fighters in all sports doing strange things to make weight before a fight.

The second string offensive tackle in the NHL going on a steroid program to get that extra 10 lbs of muscle to make it to the first team. The truck driver using amphetamines so he can increase his driving times and make more money for his family etc.

These folks in sport put their bodies at risk not for the spectators but for their own gain. No one is forcing them to do this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

When the risk is in the sport itself, that is a known quantity which everyone can see up front. That is totally different from taking performance enhancing drugs. I'm surprised you can't see the difference and that you think people should put themselves at risk by taking unnecessary drugs for the pleasure of spectators and national egos.

You are absolutely right. In Russia, athletes are groomed from a very young age to excel in their sport which includes performance enhancing drugs. These atheletes really have no choice except to take the drugs or be banned from competing.

These are Dick Pound's thoughts:

“I do get the impression, reading between the lines, that the IOC is for some reason very reluctant to think about a total exclusion of the Russian team,” he said. “But we’ve got institutionalised, government-organised cheating on a wide scale across a whole range of sports in a country."

"Pound urged the IOC to take decisive action, saying: “You’ve got to send a message that will deter that conduct. One of the ways you can do that is to say: ‘We just don’t want to play with you any more. You’re cheating. You’re destroying the competitions in which you’re participating. It’s not fair to anybody else. So why don’t you take a vacation?’”

"Warming to his theme, Pound warned of the dangers of inaction. “I think the Olympics have to be very careful having said for so long: ‘We have zero tolerance, zero tolerance, zero tolerance,’” he said. “You’ve got to keep from turning that into: ‘We have zero tolerance except for Russia.’ On the other hand, if you do take the tough line and walk the walk as well as talking the talk, I think a significant portion of the world would be very pleased.”

"It would demonstrate that, on matters of principle, and the protection of clean athletes and the integrity of competition, that the Olympic movement is prepared to suspend even one of its most successful countries, because it has been demonstrated to endorse and in fact organize cheating."

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/dick-pound-ioc-russia-ban-1.3687153

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/jul/20/russia-olympic-games-rio-drugs-dick-pound

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I believe that people have the freedom of choice to do whatever they want with their own bodies to attain an end. You have the steroids of body builders, the starving and drug use by models to keep their weights down and the same with jockeys. Fighters in all sports doing strange things to make weight before a fight.

The second string offensive tackle in the NHL going on a steroid program to get that extra 10 lbs of muscle to make it to the first team. The truck driver using amphetamines so he can increase his driving times and make more money for his family etc.

These folks in sport put their bodies at risk not for the spectators but for their own gain. No one is forcing them to do this.

When you chose to do a sport, you know the risks involved. When you take the latest greatest performance enhancing drug you have no idea what risk you are taking. Most of our Olympic athletes will never make a dime in their sport and a lot of them don't live much above the poverty line so they can compete. Any country that expects them to take drugs that could damage their future health and welfare in order to fly its flag, is morally bankrupt in my opinion.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It would be if he was clean and the other 10 weren't. The East Bloc teams were notoriously dirty. East Germany set the gold standard for drugging. Most of their records are no longer recognized.

Unfortunately, it depends on the individual if they "recognize" a record. I have no doubt that most of the "records" in professional sport are as valid as the attitude of the person reading them.

Babe Ruth was drunk for many of his home runs as was Mickey Mantle. Steroids were used for many years in baseball by those who set records before baseball was shamed into testing for drugs. Nadia Comaneci set gymnastic records at age 14 (wow aged 14 and still not having gone through puberty) and even at 16 she was a world class gymnast. When she finally went off steroids and was allowed to go through puberty she looked like an old lady at 20.

Once in a while we got a Ben Johnson whose Canadian chemist was inept and not as good as the one for Carl Lewis.

There is not one medal or winner of a world class competition that we can guarantee was not helped by drugs - except of course bike racing - just ask Lance Armstrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is not one medal or winner of a world class competition that we can guarantee was not helped by drugs - except of course bike racing - just ask Lance Armstrong.

So what, you want a world full of Lance Armstongs? You want to make heroes out of people who can't win without doping? You want a world where everyone who wants to compete on a level playing field has to dope? Might as well give up on the Olympics altogether because then it is no longer about sport, just a pissing contest between national egos and their chemists. How cynical, is that how we have bastardized what the Olympic ideal was supposed to be about? How sad.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

20 is pretty much over the hill for female gymnasts. Was just looking at some up to date photos of Nadia. Looks pretty decent for 54. Of course she competed for Romania, run by one of the worst of the Communist dictators.

As far as the attitude of the person reading them goes I'm amazed at how things have changed. Known dopers like Bonds, McGuire and Sousa are idolized but poor old Maris who held the home run record for over 40 years clean, can't even get into to hall of fame.

Edited by Wilber
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It also makes business sense. Sports only exist because of viewers and if drug enhancements were allowed a significant number of viewers would be repelled and stop watching.

How do you know they wouldn't be fascinated, even encouraging fans to indulge in similar enhancements themselves?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

So what, you want a world full of Lance Armstongs? You want to make heroes out of people who can't win without doping? You want a world where everyone who wants to compete on a level playing field has to dope? Might as well give up on the Olympics altogether because then it is no longer about sport, just a pissing contest between national egos and their chemists. How cynical, is that how we have bastardized what the Olympic ideal was supposed to be about? How sad.

Why do you assume that the reality of to-day is what I want? Certainly, I would prefer that all athletes be clean, that people were honest, that people were moral and ethical, that people would prioritize good will over profit ... But that is not reality.

Many years ago I gave up on the Olympics. In the 1970's, I was involved in athletics on the national level. It was then that "blood doping" was first revealed in International competition and the level playing field to tip. It has continued to tip.

"I promise that we shall take part in these Olympic Games, respecting and abiding by the rules which govern them, committing ourselves to a sport without doping and without drugs, in the true spirit of sportsmanship, for the glory of sport and the honor of our teams."

Liar, liar, pants on fire!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.


  • Tell a friend

    Love Repolitics.com - Political Discussion Forums? Tell a friend!
  • Member Statistics

    • Total Members
      10,713
    • Most Online
      1,403

    Newest Member
    nyralucas
    Joined
  • Recent Achievements

    • Jeary earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Venandi went up a rank
      Apprentice
    • Gaétan earned a badge
      Very Popular
    • Dictatords earned a badge
      First Post
    • babetteteets earned a badge
      One Year In
  • Recently Browsing

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...