Russian Figure Skater tests positive for drugs - delays ceremony for team medals

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To be fair, it was revealed (I believe a security breach) that Biles has (had) a TUE for an ADD drug which helps her focus. Not saying this is illegal but there is a bit of messiness in the pond, as it were.
It was a very targeted hacking that seemed to intentionally go after and shame black American athletes. And the only thing it revealed was that the athletes had medical issues and used the process available to ALL athletes of every country and were transparent with the drug testing/monitoring administrations. Equating the actions of those athletes with what Russia had been doing is an incredible false equivalency and one made on very bad faith.
 
OK, USA TODAY should have considered someone else.
No, they shouldn't have. She is the one assigned to this story who has been reporting on it from Day One (or maybe Day One and a Half since Inside the Games reported it first). There is absolutely no reason not to send her. Her reporting has been excellent and she hasn't broken any journalistic standards which are the only two reasons not to send her.

As for how she interviewed Diane Davis, if journalists weren't hard-nosed at times, we'd never know anything that people wanted to hide from us. It's part of the job. Whether or not it was effective or if some other way might have been is another issue entirely.
 
ouise Radnofsky's WSJ article
By all precedent the answer to the phony question is C. Whether the positive test would ever be overturned and the ROC given co-gold medals is another question

Has there ever been an olympic even without a medal ceremony before?

Who on earth thought that was a good idea and what was the reasoning (nb. I'm old school and want medal ceremonies at the event which would have meant a ceremony for ROC-US-Japan (and an upgrade for the teams after ROC was disqualified.
 
To be fair, it was revealed (I believe a security breach) that Biles has (had) a TUE for an ADD drug which helps her focus. Not saying this is illegal but there is a bit of messiness in the pond, as it were.
The pills help a person with ADHD focus. This is the same as giving a person with a high fever an antipyretic. The temperature simply returns to normal. And, of course, such pills do not make anyone superhuman.
It's also something with a very deleterious side effect: anorexia. Or, rather, not what anorexia means in a colloquial sense, but rather severe loss of appetite paired with increased metabolism (burning calories/fat/muscle faster). It's meth - prescription meth - but meth. Athletes, especially high level athletes, need to eat a LOT of calories to build and maintain muscle and Simone is solid muscle. She's not the old school skinny ballerina, but the new school powerful athlete (which the Russian fans called her fat for) - her team probably has to work and plan very hard around that side effect. I'm sure she wouldn't be on it if she didn't need it.

And, for the record, TUEs for a documented medical condition are very very different from just taking a medication with no medical history, which is what the Russian skaters were doing.
 
There is absolutely no reason not to send her.
Would say her probably not getting to go into the closed trial is a great reason, but I'm sure the desire for fondue is too great.

Her reporting has been excellent
I too love photos of Switzerland in the name of reporting.

Possibly I just have higher standards. And I'm being polite with "possibly" having read loads of American journalism, you could say.

As for how she interviewed Diane Davis, if journalists weren't hard-nosed at times,
OK - hope a Russian reporter does that to someone American in the future, so I can say they're being "hard-nosed".

If it's for the sake of reporting - well what is a bit of harassment between friends, or enemies, or whatever Russia and the US are.

The reporting on Vincent is them being hard-nosed currently. Americans should stop complaining.

As if everyone around the world doesn't know if the tables were turned there would be around a thousand "opinion pieces" about how terrible and inhumane it was.
 
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I could read Louise Radnofsky's WSJ article by clicking on the link embedded here: https://twitter.com/louiseradnofsky/status/1706716751671521688
how is option 2 even an option? If they swapped Valieva for anyone else in the SP or LP it would be, but she did both.

As for how she interviewed Diane Davis, if journalists weren't hard-nosed at times, we'd never know anything that people wanted to hide from us. It's part of the job. Whether or not it was effective or if some other way might have been is another issue entirely.
She didn't INTERVIEW Davis, she attacked her. It wasn't hard-nosed, it was unspeakable and I sincerely hope Brennan prefers to burry that case as deep as possible and never have it dug out.
 
She didn't INTERVIEW Davis, she attacked her. It wasn't hard-nosed, it was unspeakable and I sincerely hope Brennan prefers to burry that case as deep as possible and never have it dug out.
I know we should move on from this but it seems to need clarification. This is not a situation akin to Russian or another journalists printing rumors or falsehoods or slander or whatever. It isn't about what Brennan wrote as a journalist it is about how she treated someone with a disability. People disagree on what happened but to understand the controversy it needs to be clear what it is about.
 
By dropping her points (but not bumping the other women up the standings), I believe Russia still ended up 3rd?
And if the IOC/ISU does that, they are going to open up a can of worms and invite a suit from the COC. But, they might very well do that, especially if they think the COC will bend over and take it.
 
By dropping her points (but not bumping the other women up the standings), I believe Russia still ended up 3rd?
Yes, you are right. Russia would end up with 54 points which is one point more than Canada.
The question is would her points just be dropped from Russia or awarded to the other skaters? That would mean USA ends up with 67, Japan with 65, Canada with 55 leaving Russia with 54.
 
That's what Russia will advocate for. The problem is that precedent has already been established for re-calculating and awarding the points to the other countries as if there were only 9 competitors in the women's SP and 4 competitors in the women's FS - the men's SP and pairs SP in the very same Team Event in Beijing only featured 9 competitors because Shmuratko UKR and Hase/Seegert GER were in Covid quarantine and could not compete. Points were awarded for 1st through 9th, not 2nd through 10th. I'm not sure how the IOC/ISU would rationalize a different way of awarding the points from the Women’s SP and FS - I'm sure some ridiculous rationale/logic could be concocted. The problem in that then becomes would this hold up if the COC pursued it with CAS?
 
I know we should move on from this but it seems to need clarification. This is not a situation akin to Russian or another journalists printing rumors or falsehoods or slander or whatever. It isn't about what Brennan wrote as a journalist it is about how she treated someone with a disability. People disagree on what happened but to understand the controversy it needs to be clear what it is about.
It's a pattern with her of "punching down," if you will -- going after people with no power over a situation. I was really put off by the way she acted toward Diana. And to some extent, she treated Nathan Chen the same way -- reaming him out for not trying to cancel Nationals when he had absolutely no say in the matter, and in fact (according to his book) he desperately wished that the powers that be WOULD cancel it.
 
It's a pattern with her of "punching down," if you will -- going after people with no power over a situation. I was really put off by the way she acted toward Diana. And to some extent, she treated Nathan Chen the same way -- reaming him out for not trying to cancel Nationals when he had absolutely no say in the matter, and in fact (according to his book) he desperately wished that the powers that be WOULD cancel it.
If she is "punching down" on someone who has a disability, that ought to concern people regardless of whether they find her reporting of value or not.
 
A reporter is asking questions (her job) about a major sports drug case and all the outrage is not about the use of drugs in figure skating (no one seems to care about that) but about the way the reporter went about asking her questions? This "outrage" seems grossly misplaced.
 
If she is "punching down" on someone who has a disability, that ought to concern people regardless of whether they find her reporting of value or not.
I found a reddit link so people can judge it for themselves:

I think the screenshot is from FSU - but probably from a private thread, so I'm not sure how it was discussed there. On reddit and twitter, I was definitely agreeing that she crossed a line though.
 
A reporter is asking questions (her job) about a major sports drug case and all the outrage is not about the use of drugs in figure skating (no one seems to care about that) but about the way the reporter went about asking her questions? This "outrage" seems grossly misplaced.
Its quite possible to be concerned about more than one thing at the same time.

The issue of Christine Brennan does belong in another thread, however.
 
A reporter is asking questions (her job) about a major sports drug case and all the outrage is not about the use of drugs in figure skating (no one seems to care about that) but about the way the reporter went about asking her questions? This "outrage" seems grossly misplaced.
If you've spent any time at all in this over-3000-post thread, I think you realize that there's plenty of outrage about the use of drugs in figure skating. :)
 
I know we should move on from this but it seems to need clarification. This is not a situation akin to Russian or another journalists printing rumors or falsehoods or slander or whatever. It isn't about what Brennan wrote as a journalist it is about how she treated someone with a disability. People disagree on what happened but to understand the controversy it needs to be clear what it is about.
Problem is, there is also Dianas public rejection of the notion that she is in any way hampered by her hearing disability. https://www.facebook.com/TheSkating...-thinking-that-im-sick-and-/2449169941871626/. I assume the translation is accurate. If not, it's a whole different problem.
 
If she is "punching down" on someone who has a disability, that ought to concern people regardless of whether they find her reporting of value or not.

Right. And on top of that, “You’re American, why don’t you speak English?” is offensive in any context. I never had any problem with Brennan until that exchange and I do think her reporting has had value at times, but that whole exchange was indefensible. Even if you accept the premise that a comment from Diana Davis might have added anything relevant to the doping story (which, eh), she could’ve pressured Davis for a comment without doing any of that.

A reporter is asking questions (her job) about a major sports drug case and all the outrage is not about the use of drugs in figure skating (no one seems to care about that) but about the way the reporter went about asking her questions? This "outrage" seems grossly misplaced.

It’s pretty clear that a lot of us are upset about the doping. Brennan was interrogating a teenager who wasn’t accused of doping by questioning her a) disability and b) language skills. Someone can be reporting on the most important story in the world, but they’re going to make things worse instead of better if they turn their focus to punching down instead of going after the people in positions of power.
 
Would say her probably not getting to go into the closed trial is a great reason, but I'm sure the desire for fondue is too great.
Aren't they banning ALL journalists and non-parties from the hearing? It's kind of the opposite of some systems that believe court proceedings should be public. However, this is a Court for Arbitration, and arbitration doesn't play by the same rules of public-sponsored court systems.
I too love photos of Switzerland in the name of reporting.

Possibly I just have higher standards. And I'm being polite with "possibly" having read loads of American journalism, you could say.
I think journalistic standards wasn't really the topic of this thread because it's been mostly focused on whether Brennan was "sent" by "USA, the country" and then some explanation about why she of all journalist seems to be the only one who is based in the U.S. who bothered to go in person via her three-decades long history of reporting for this sport and her being on top of this story from the beginning.

OK - hope a Russian reporter does that to someone American in the future, so I can say they're being "hard-nosed".
People have opinions. Often times, people will have different opinions. People on FSU have been defending Russian statements in interviews and Russian journalists' takes on situations, and even found them "refreshing". Also, many on FSU used to be entertained at the harder interviews of the past, and would remember situations, like when a reporter made Shae-Lynn Bourne cry during a press conference when it turned out that reporter was like Pasha Grishuk's aunt or something. So not everybody minds the same things.

Further, Brennan and Phil Hersh (who used to cover figure skating extensively for decades) have been the subject of ire from many skating fans who don't find what could be categorized as needlessly hard-boiled questioning to skaters entertaining, especially American ones because that was the majority of their readership.
If it's for the sake of reporting - well what is a bit of harassment between friends, or enemies, or whatever Russia and the US are.
Some saw it as harassment and took in the context that although Davis was an adult, she grew up to be a figure skater and there may not be the same sort of growth and maturity with her as one could expect and she deserved some consideration, especially the sensitive nature of the scandal that involved her actual mother.

There have been others who believe figure skating and figure skaters should be treated the way other sports and athletes are treated and not be given kid gloves with regard to journalism. Many subscribe to this, Dave Lease being one. These folks would argue that categorizing Brennan's line of questioning as "harassment" is purposefully miscategorizing the actual nature of the questioning, and doing so is just a PR move to victimize Diana Davis for an agenda. Others who may be more generous would say it was infantalizing her, and not giving her credit for being mature or grown enough to at least provide a no-comment type of answer to a question some differ about whether it was a "hard-nosed" question.

I personally think it was fair for Brennan to ask the question and to push a bit when Davis was trying to use her partner as a shield. However, I also think Brennan was going after the wrong target, needlessly went after someobody who wasn't shown to be involved in any of th Valieva situation at all other than being the daughter of the coach who may have been a power player, seemed to not understand that Davis may have had hearing issues and didn't give her much accomodation, if any, that seemed to stem from a place of believing she was just using her disability to avoid answering questions (which is super offensive), and some of her expressed frustration with Davis was performative, over-the-top, and revealed some ignorance about "Americans not being able to speak English". That said, I also think that last comment was motivated by accusatory reasons than actual ignorance, which wasn't as clever as Brennan thought it was.

The reporting on Vincent is them being hard-nosed currently. Americans should stop complaining.
Vincent wasn't posed questions directly, so the situation is different as he had no responsibility towards the notable Russian skating figures whose responses that are the subject of people's comments. Nobody said those responding didn't have a right to do so, but rather are finding the hypocrisy of their statement amusing and also have seen the same formulaic responses before and know exactly what these responders are doing. People are also noting the uber defensive is being much more revealing than they want. Also, bringing up pursuing a lawsuit against Vincent gave us another amusing talking point.
As if everyone around the world doesn't know if the tables were turned there would be around a thousand "opinion pieces" about how terrible and inhumane it was.
There certainly were hundreds of posts about it here that has continued more than a year after it happened, and it would be amazing that there would be a "thousand opinion pieces" considering it seems as though there wasn't even a "thousand opinion pieces" from American outlets about this current scandal, the lack of medals awarded, and the IOC appeasing Russia. It's been mostly among the skating fandom.
 
I just came across this video in which Vincent Zhou was interviewed by Don Riddell, CNN's TV & digital sports broadcaster, starting after the 2-minute-mark of this 7-minute segment (it took place on Monday, Sept. 25 before the CAS hearing began): https://www.cnn.com/videos/sports/2023/09/25/exp-vincent-zhou-chat-fst-092505p-seg1-cnn-sports.cnn

ETA - and here's Riddell speaking with Christine Brennan from her hotel room in Lausanne yesterday (4 mins.): https://www.cnn.com/videos/sports/2...oping-controversy-092605pseg1-cnni-sports.cnn
 
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