misskarne
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The questions are whether:
- WADA acts/rules based on proper scientific standards/evidence
- WADA punishes/sanctions uniformly and fairly, based on explicit criteria and processes
- WADA's standards are applied equally and fairly, both by themselves and by the IOC and member Federations
And we know the answers to these are
- No (look at the meldonium bullshit.)
- No (look at the way they booted Russia from the Paralympics on the flimsiest of evidence)
- No (look at the way they are specifically targeting one country at this point)
My question is why we are more concerned about the rights of the "clean" Russian athletes to compete rather than the rights of athletes from the rest world. Their right
Personally I don't care if the "clean" Russian athletes get to compete because I think that the rights of the athletes from other countries can only be guarantied if WADA rules are enforced on all countries and it seems Russia is and was unwilling to comply.
- to know that they are competing on a level playing field and that the host Country is not running a doping scam
- to know when they win a competition they get their moment of glory on the Olympic podium at the games rather than 2 years later after the original "winner" is removed for doping.
1. Oh dear, better take away hosting rights from China then, and no track competitions ever in the US again, at all!
2. That can happen to athletes from any country about athletes from any country. What about someone like Lance Armstrong? Don't you think the runners-up of those TdFs would rather have had their moment in Paris? But they don't get to have that moment because of an American doper.
According to Christine Brennan's article today, RUSADA has not tested or tested only once many top winter athletes this year. So I went and checked USADA's test history on US figure skaters and here's the link https://www.usada.org/testing/results/athlete-test-history/. Just choose from the pull-down menu for 2017 and figure skating and hit "Search." You'll see all the skaters' test history for this year, ex. Max was tested 2x, Jason 4x, Nathan 4x, Josh 1x, Adam 1x, Vincent 2x, etc. An interesting observation and thread drift: Does the testing frequency suggest USOC puts much more stock on Jason and Nathan for their potential Olympic selection?
The happiest, most wonderful thing that I have read in this thread is that Josh was tested by USADA this year. He was tested by USADA this year. That means he's in the pool and is considered a competitive athlete for their purposes this year.
But we know USADA is not exactly infallible - look at that bullshit one of their people was saying about Adelina last week and let's not even get started on that old chestnut of their doped-up track team (nobody with a brain believes for a second that Gatlin is clean). So I'm not sure why they're being held up as some kind of gold standard here?
Tossing an entire country from the Games for something that is still little more than unsubstantiated gossip would be unforgivable and the death of the Olympic movement. Tossing innocent athletes for the sins of a few is morally reprehensible. It cannot be allowed.