From Zika Virus - Drugs Galore - 50 days Counting Down To Summer Olympics 2016

Olympic Games must go after latest doping scandal
BY Julian Garcia NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Thursday, May 12, 2016, 9:17 PM
Can we put an end to this five-ring circus? Please?
After all, what is the point of the Olympic Games anymore?
What started out in ancient Greece way back in 776 BC as seemingly friendly competition by chiseled men wearing next to nothing has grown into scandal-ridden sport played out by the most un-athletic of people wearing suits and sport coats while taking and giving bribes.

And sadly, the athletes who once had the purest of intentions - being awarded a medal while standing on a podium as their country's national anthem played - can no longer be trusted. Any of them. And neither can their coaches or their country's governing bodies.
    
What more evidence do we need than Thursday's report in the New York Times that a Russian official who was put in charge of that country's anti-doping lab before the Sochi Olympics in 2014 was actually helping Russian athletes pass off tainted urine samples as clean? The report said that Grigory Rodchenkov was part of a state-sponsored doping program and that part of his scheme included holes in walls of anti-doping labs that enabled officials to swap tainted samples with pure ones.
I mean gee whiz, do you really think that Russia has figured out such a low tech way to beat the system but other countries haven't, including the U.S.? This isn't exactly the race to be the first in outer space we're talking about, is it? Maybe that's why it's called doping.

Of course, that is a simplistic way to beat the system. There certainly have been other high-tech, hard-to-detect modes used to gain an edge. The fact that athletes would go to such lengths to win is understandable. Who doesn't like coming in first in anything?

But here's a little secret that Russian wrestlers and Chinese swimmers and British cyclers and American track stars need to know: Nobody cares. OK, very few of us care who wins Olympic gold, and even fewer of us are concerned with who comes in second and third place. Oops, I meant to say, wins silver and bronze.

Olympic Games simply do not get the competitive juices flowing anymore, at least not for the average spectator. They've lost their relevance, unless attracting news coverage for all the wrong reason is what Olympic organizers are out for.
How many times in recent years have scandals before, during and after the Games overshadowed those who won on the fields of play? It is the norm now, and it's happened again, three months before the Games will be played in Rio de Janeiro, where an outbreak of the Zika virus has officials concerned about the real possibility of a global health disaster.

At least if that happens we can call it an act of nature. The other serious issues constantly hanging over the Olympics are all acts of stupidity on the part of the men and women who organize and play the Games. Name another event that so few people get fired up about that causes so much controversy. The FIFA scandal? Take a look at those wild World Cup crowds. People care.
Want evidence that the Olympics don't get us fired up the same way? Quickly name three gold medal winners from the previous Olympics, whenever they were held. Two silver medal winners? One who won bronze?

Of course, you would have no problem naming dozens of Major League Baseball stars and dozens more in the NFL and NBA, and now even soccer stars from individual nations are known around the globe. Of course, we know that plenty of those athletes are doping too. It seems like multiple times a week that we find out about a new major or minor league baseball player who's been banned for PED use.

So why not put an end to pro baseball, football, basketball and soccer, too? Simple. Too many of us would go crazy. The Olympics? How much would you miss watching a sport you only watch once every four years, anyway? When was the last time you sat down to watch a track meet your son or daughter wasn't involved in down at the local high school? Did you catch that exhilarating synchronized swimming match at the Y last week? Me neither.

The idea of hosting the Olympic Games causes nations to drop billions of dollars on bids and facilities, and it also causes otherwise smart people to make very dumb financial decisions, such as spending very large sums of money to build stadiums and arenas that will never again draw the kinds of crowds that show up for that three week span when the Games are played.
So really, what is the point?
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/more-sports/garcia-olympic-games-latest-doping-scandal-article-1.2635522 

The WADA declaration of non-compliance places a question mark against the participation of Kenyan athletes in Rio. Rene Bouchard, Chairman of WADA’s compliance review committee (CRC), said Kenya’s drug testing agency was declared “non-compliant with immediate effect.” Russia’s anti-doping agency was declared non-compliant last year after a WADA independent committee uncovered evidence of a state-sponsored doping program which led to Russia’s suspension from international athletics. Russian track and field athletes will be banned from Rio unless the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) lifts its suspension next month.
But even as WADA held its board meeting in Montreal, a fresh round of revelations about drugs at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi erupted in the New York Times. The Times report quoted the former head of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory as saying that dozens of Russian athletes, including 15 medalists, were involved in a successful plot to evade drug-testers. Urine samples swapped.
The laboratory director, Grigory Rodchenkov, detailed how athletes were given a three-drug cocktail of performance enhancing substances combined with alcohol to boost absorption. Up to 100 tainted urine samples were replaced with clean ones collected months before, with samples passed through a hole in a lab wall at night. “We were fully equipped, knowledgeable, experienced and perfectly prepared for Sochi like never before,” Rodchenkov was quoted by the Times as saying. “It was working like a Swiss watch.” Russia topped the table in Sochi with 33 medals, including 13 Olympic titles. Rodchenkov moved to the United States following his resignation after WADA’s initial report into Russian doping was released in November. In February, after his departure, two of Rodchenkov’s former anti-doping colleagues in Russia died unexpectedly.
The New York Times report also alleged that Russian officials involved in the plot had found a way to access supposedly tamper-proof containers used to collect urine samples without anyone knowing. The International Olympic Committee called on WADA to investigate the claims. “These allegations are very detailed and very worrying and we ask the World Anti-Doping Agency to investigate immediately,” an IOC spokesman said. -
See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/sports/sport-others/russia-kenya-face-rio-2016-olympic-threat-after-new-revelations-2798718/#sthash.jon6ntAR.dpuf

Russian track and field athletes banned from Rio Games

Friday, June 17th 2016, 3:52 pm CDT
By NESHA STARCEVIC and STEPHEN WILSON
AP Sports Writers
VIENNA (AP) - Russia's track and field athletes will be banned from competing for their country at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics after a landmark decision Friday that punished the sports powerhouse for a systematic doping system that operated "from the top down" and tainted the entire team.
In an unprecedented ruling loaded with geopolitical ramifications, the IAAF upheld its ban on Russia's track and field federation, saying the country had made some progress in cleaning up but failed to meet the requirements for reinstatement and would be barred from sending its athletes to the Rio Games that begin in 50 days.
"Russian athletes could not credibly return to international competition without undermining the confidence of their competitors and the public," IAAF President Sebastian Coe said.
President Vladimir Putin condemned the decision as "unfair," telling a meeting of leaders of major international news agencies in St. Petersburg that athletes who compete without doping "shouldn't suffer."
Russia does not accept "collective punishment" for all athletes, he said, comparing the ban for the entire team to a prison sentence that "an entire family" could get if one of its relatives has committed a crime.
"I hope we will find some solution here, but it does not mean that we will get offended and stop battling doping. On the contrary, we will intensify our fight on doping," Putin added.
Russia's Sports Ministry also said Rio Games will be "diminished" by the absence of its athletes, and the Russian track federation said it was considering an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport - the sports world's highest court.
The IAAF, track's world governing body, left open a "tiny crack" that would allow any individual Russian athletes who have been untainted by doping and have been subjected to effective testing outside Russia to apply to compete in the games.
However, the IAAF said those athletes would be few and would be eligible to compete only as "individuals" - and not under the Russian flag.
"The crack in the door is quite narrow and there won't be many who manage to get through that crack in the door," said Rune Andersen, the Norwegian anti-doping expert who headed the IAAF task force that determined that Russia's reforms were not enough.
The IAAF said it was necessary to ban the entire track and field team because there was no way to verify which athletes could be considered clean.
"The system in Russia has been tainted by doping from the top level down," Andersen said. "We cannot trust that what people might call clean athletes are really clean. If you have one or two or five with negative tests, it does not mean the athletes are clean. History has shown that is not the case."
Coe dismissed suggestions there were any political motivations behind the decision.
"There were members from all four corners of the world, and the decision was unanimous," he said. "Politics did not play a part today."
The ruling came four days before a sports summit called by the IOC to address "the difficult decision between collective responsibility and individual justice."
The IOC said it had "taken note" of the IAAF ruling and that its executive board will meet by teleconference Saturday to "discuss the appropriate next steps."
There has been speculation the IOC could overrule the IAAF or impose a compromise that would allow "clean" Russian athletes to compete. However, Coe made clear that the IAAF runs the sport and determines which athletes are eligible, not the IOC.
"I don't have a message for the IOC," said Coe, who will attend Tuesday's meeting in Lausanne, Switzerland. "Eligibility is a matter for the IAAF."
The suspension of the Russian federation, known as RusAF, was imposed in November following a report by a World Anti-Doping Agency commission that alleged state-sponsored cheating, corruption and cover-ups. On Wednesday, WADA issued a new report citing continuing obstruction and violations of drug-testing in Russia.
"The deep-seated culture of tolerance, or worse, for doping that led RusAF being suspended in the first appears not to have changed materially to date," the IAAF said.
Coe said the unanimous decision by the 25 members of the IAAF council to maintain the ban sends "a very clear signal to athletes and the public about our intention to reform our sport."
The decision was hailed by many sports officials and athletes' groups outside Russia who have been pushing the IAAF to take a hard line to restore some credibility to the much-maligned global anti-doping system.
"It gives a measure of hope to clean athletes that there are consequences not only for athletes who dope, but for countries which do not engage seriously in the fight against doping," U.S. Olympic Committee CEO Scott Blackmun said. "That is a much-needed message."
Added U.S. Anti-Doping Agency chief executive Travis Tygart: "Obviously, banning Russian track and field from the Olympics is the right outcome. The world's clean athletes came together and demanded that their voices were heard."
In expressing its disappointment, the Russian Sports Ministry appealed to IOC members to "consider the impact that our athletes' exclusion will have on the dreams and the people of Russia."
"Clean athletes' dreams are being destroyed because of the reprehensible behavior of other athletes and officials," the ministry said. "They have sacrificed years of their lives striving to compete at the Olympics and now that sacrifice looks likely to be wasted."
It added that the Olympics "are supposed to be a source of unity, and we hope that they remain as a way of bringing people together."
The IAAF rejected a last-minute plea by Russian Sports Minister Vitaly Mutko, who claimed the country had cleaned up its anti-doping system and met all the requirements for readmission.
"We firmly believe that clean athletes should not be punished for the actions of others," he said in an open letter to Coe.
Two-time Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva was among the Russian athletes hoping to compete in Rio. She has threatened to go to court on human rights grounds if she is excluded from the games. Other cases could end up in CAS, the Swiss-based appeals court.
The IAAF did change its rules to make way for "any individual athletes who can clearly and convincingly show that they are not tainted" by doping and who have been outside Russia and subject to effective drug-testing systems.
Those individuals can apply to a special IAAF committee for permission to compete as a "neutral athlete," not for Russia.
The IAAF also recommended that Russian whistleblower Yulia Stepanova be allowed to compete at the Olympics as an independent athlete. The 800-meter runner who served a doping ban gave information along with her husband that led to a broad investigation of doping inside Russia.
The IAAF task force recommended she be allowed to compete because of the "extraordinary contribution" she made to the anti-doping effort.
Wilson reported from London. Associated Press writer Nataliya Vasilyeva in St. Petersburg, AP National Writer Eddie Pells and AP Sports Writer James Ellingworth also contributed.
http://www.kait8.com/story/32244731/russian-track-and-field-athletes-banned-from-rio-games