The 2021 Athletics Thread

BittyBug said:
What you've been doing is basically saying, "Neener, neener, neener, suck it up Sha'Carri," which she's already done, and with great aplomb.
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I believe I have commended her for admitting her mistake in this very thread. It is quite refreshing considering the litany of excuses American athletes have given for anti-doping violations through the years.

My criticism has been directed to those Americans (and it is Americans) wanting to give her a pass when every other single athlete in the world has had to comply with the same restrictions. Marijuana being on the World Anti-Doping Agency’s List of prohibited substances has nothing to do with the very long running and serious issues of racial injustice in the United States. To conflate the two just reinforces how unable most Americans on the left or right are to see anything except from their own national perspectives. Sport is organised on an international basis and marijuana is a banned substances in the vast majority of the world.

Sorry if all this hurts, but it should be noted that the number of athletes American or otherwise who believe Richardson should have her (very minimal) ban rescinded are few and far between. I think that says it all. Doing something you have agreed not to do has consequences. This isn’t rocket science.
 
allezfred said:
My criticism has been directed to those Americans (and it is Americans) wanting to give her a pass when every other single athlete in the world has had to comply with the same restrictions.
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Who are those Americans in this thread looking to give her a pass? You're dragging shit from other places here.

allezfred said:
Sorry if all this hurts...
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LOL. This isn't personal and it doesn't hurt. We all seem to agree that the suspension was appropriate, but you seem to want to dance on her grave, which I don't understand and goes back to my original question - why exactly is this specific case such an issue for you?
 
BittyBug said:
Who are those Americans in this thread looking to give her a pass? You're dragging shit from other places here.
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I believe allezfred has been clear that it's not just about opinions here:
allezfred said:
The nationalistic outrage by American journalists and others in the media has been pretty eye opening to watch. It’s almost like they have zero understanding of how anti-doping substances list works. You have to wonder where their empathy towards Ekaterina Bobrova was when she got suspended for meldonium..... :shuffle:
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allezfred said:
My brain is hurting from all the dumb takes I am seeing about this on social media. People losing their minds about someone not being able to compete in a race because they broke a rule that every athlete in the whole world has to abide by. :rolleyes:
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In this thread, it seems like most of us agree that the suspension is fair, and there is some disagreement about whether marijuana should be on the banned list.

I have no opinion on the latter, don't care what people who aren't bound by law/regulations do in their own time, and think weed smells disgusting.
 
MsZem said:
I believe allezfred has been clear that it's not just about opinions here:



In this thread, it seems like most of us agree that the suspension is fair, and there is some disagreement about whether marijuana should be on the banned list.

I have no opinion on the latter, don't care what people who aren't bound by law/regulations do in their own time, and think weed smells disgusting.
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The suspension is fair. My issue is going forward, I think the WADA laws should be looked at again. Because a drug that only merits a one month suspension is probably not a drug that really enhances performance.

I also think it's remarkable how people are determined to look at this through "the rules are the rules" and not examine the racist, xenophobic origins of drug laws in the U.S.
 
canbelto said:
I also think it's remarkable how people are determined to look at this through "the rules are the rules" and not examine the racist, xenophobic origins of drug laws in the U.S.
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Because that it a separate issue. The suspension is due to a global policy (WADA's), not a US-centric one.

Many of us here are not based in the US, and we look at things from our own perspectives and not necessarily through the prism of US racial issues, important as those may be.
 
canbelto said:
The suspension is fair. My issue is going forward, I think the WADA laws should be looked at again. Because a drug that only merits a one month suspension is probably not a drug that really enhances performance.

I also think it's remarkable how people are determined to look at this through "the rules are the rules" and not examine the racist, xenophobic origins of drug laws in the U.S.
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1. As I already suggested, the one month suspension was probably given to show that, like we keep repeating, the rules are the rules and there need to be repercussions. Look at the Berezhnaya example I gave you rather than acting like this is the first time a suspension term just so happens to apply to a big event. What good was suspending Berezhnaya for the month of February? Nothing- there were no events. 2 months? That puts her before the start of Worlds and nothing lost. 3 months? Well now you've missed Worlds for your mistake. You really think an organization is going to suspend a baseball player from December until March? Yeah, sure.

2. The WADA and IOC are not all about the US. Why do you try to keep making it all about the US to support your opinion, which is now all over the place?
 
There are 206 or more countries competing in the 2021 Olympics.

Do you think 205 countries need to view thru the US very limited glasses? If so do the work. Find out how to sit on any type committee that might begin to do that.
 
Yikes. Some of those responses are…:eek:
social media slactivism is so annoying at times though it can be a powerful tool at the hands of those who know how to communicate effectively and have their feet planted on the real outside world and deals with people in real life.

One thing I hate about the Olympics or anything where the GP start getting interested in sports they usually ignore is that everyone becomes an expert on every sport on social media. I remember how annoying it was when all these people fell for NBC’s narrative of the salty evil Russians during the 2012 Olympics with Mustafina being queen evil and I did what I could to try to rectify it with my Facebook feed. It’s more annoying to me with figure skating because I’m closer to that sport and suddenly you have situations like where I saw some man on Twitter mansplaining (yes I said it) to Courtney Hicks why figure skating isn’t a real sport because they judge and score you on your costume even after Hicks explained that the actual costumes aren’t judged. I then “explained” to him he was talking to a national competitor and international medalist. So on and so forth.

Anyway, back to the topic of this thread. After reading this thread, I have to say there are a lot of things that have been brought up.

This is just my take. Drug laws and regulations have a lot bad history and can and have touch upon racism or selectivity since those in charge tend to come from a very specific and non-diverse socio-economic and racial group. That said, we cannot act like international drug bans fit neatly with American racist drug laws and the overcriminalization of black and brown folk (mainly men). Now that being said, we all know the US is far from the only place that has problems with that issue and it’s being willfully blind to pretend it does. And with that said, we also have to understand people’s frustrations when one athlete gets selective attention for something like this when other athletes who also may have gotten punished didn’t have that benefit because people are using the situation to publicize agendas that are important but may not fully apply in this particular situation.

Now, it seems everyone seems angry with one another in this thread and having taken sides, but the truth is that most people in this thread have said they agree with the suspension and the only place where people are differing with one another is whether the rules need to change moving forward. I think we can have a healthy and fruitful discussion about that without all of our biases and hang ups and baggage clouding perceptions and making this discussion go out of hand to the point we’re all actually fighting about someone else and reliving “trauma” from past discussions on these topics.
 
allezfred said:
edition.cnn.com

Gwen Berry turns away from flag on US Olympic trials podium, says she was 'set up' | CNN

Hammer thrower Gwen Berry says that the playing of the national anthem while she was on the podium at the US Olympic track and field trials was "set up."
edition.cnn.com edition.cnn.com

Being more concerned about a piece of cloth and a song than actual human lives is not a good look.
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She's a wonderful role model...(not)

Gwen Berry joked about rape, mocked Mexicans and Asians in old tweets
 
Social media is a miserable cesspool. Why anyone willingly partakes is beyond me.

I despise marijuana. The permeating smell makes me ill and I do not understand why this substance is so popular with millennials.

However,some of the more outraged participants here should focus their indignation to the continuous and blatant Russian state-sanctioned doping and cheating. That should be a much bigger scandal than a careless marijuana mistake,in which the American athlete accepts responsibility for her actions.

-BB
 
allezfred said:
The only difference between doping in Russia and the US is that one is state run and the other is privatised (NIKE Oregon project etc).
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It's a pretty big difference though. For example, if you are an athlete who wants to win fairly in a country without state-sponsored doping, you can just avoid the training centers where it's rampant. But if it's state-sponsored, then it's much harder to avoid. It's also easier not to get caught if the state is doing it. If you get a positive test, they just change your record. So there are little to no consequences other than to your own long-term health.

Personally, I don't care what athletes do in their own time. If they want to shoot up heroin or do other hard drugs, it's their lives they are ruining and is between them and their loved ones only. I only care about the drugs they do to get an unfair advantage over their competitors. I think WADA should concentrate on those as well. The whole issue with PEDs is messy enough without also trying to also legislate morality.
 
MacMadame said:
It's a pretty big difference though. For example, if you are an athlete who wants to win fairly in a country without state-sponsored doping, you can just avoid the training centers where it's rampant. But if it's state-sponsored, then it's much harder to avoid. It's also easier not to get caught if the state is doing it. If you get a positive test, they just change your record. So there are little to no consequences other than to your own long-term health.
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US Track and Field have changed doping records for their athletes in the past.

amp.theguardian.com

Lewis: 'Who cares I failed drug test?'

April 24: Carl Lewis has broken his silence on allegations that he was the beneficiary of a drugs cover-up claiming he was just one of "hundreds" of American athletes allowed to escape bans.
amp.theguardian.com amp.theguardian.com

The fact that an athlete suspended for a doping violation was allowed to compete at a national championships at all days a lot about the culture of doping in a country.

olympics.nbcsports.com

Brianna McNeal, Olympic 100m hurdles champ, loses appeal of five-year suspension

Brianna McNeal, the 2016 Olympic 100m hurdles champion, lost her appeal of a five-year ban in a drug-testing case and is set to miss the next two Olympics.
olympics.nbcsports.com
 
allezfred said:
The fact that an athlete suspended for a doping violation was allowed to compete at a national championships at all days a lot about the culture of doping in a country.
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It says a lot about the culture of that sport. I don't think you can extrapolate to the entire country. And as for comparing the USATF to Russia, USATF is not the government but a private entity.

To be clear: I think taking PEDs is wrong and should be stopped and punished. It's just that when it's your government doing it, you are also taking away an athlete's agency and interfering with any ability to catch them and that is doubly wrong.
 
MacMadame said:
It says a lot about the culture of that sport. I don't think you can extrapolate to the entire country.
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Cycling anyone? #DopeStrong

Oh I remember people on here refusing to believe those of us who said Lance Armstrong was juiced up. Even better was the person who said Floyd Landis couldn’t have cheated because he was Amish. :rofl:
 
There were a lot of people who truly believed in him because they weren't spending all their time actually researching the gossip and seeing that there was fire behind the smoke. Once it all came out, Lance Armstrong was no longer supported and he seems to have lost all of his endorsements and public support. I for one didn't know he wasn't doping just because I personally didn't pay that much attention to him, and I had no idea who Floyd Landis was. So yes, the whole country didn't support the doping.
 
Nevertheless there is clearly a strong sporting culture in the US that prioritises winning at all costs.

Except when it comes to pair skating. :saint:
 
This is off track, I guess 😁, but just to wade into the marijuana issue for a moment. Research suggests that cannabis use may play a role in the emergence of schizophrenia and/or other psychotic conditions. This connection has been studied for some time now. As one of these papers mentions: "A contributory causal relationship is biologically plausible because psychotic disorders involve disturbances in the dopamine neurotransmitter system with which the cannabinoid system interacts."

Cannabis use and the risk of developing a psychotic disorder - PMC

We briefly review the evidence that cannabis use in adolescence and young adulthood is a contributory cause of schizophreniform psychoses, by summarising longitudinal studies that: a) have examined relationships between cannabis use and the risk of ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Cannabis use and psychotic disorders: an update - PubMed

This paper evaluates three hypotheses about the relationship between cannabis use and psychosis in the light of recent evidence from prospective epidemiological studies. These are that: (1) cannabis use causes a psychotic disorder that would not have occurred in the absence of cannabis use; (2)...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

I first read about this connection in the memoir of a woman whose son developed schizophrenia.

Also, here's an article that discusses how and why marijuana can affect people quite differently. It's not a one-size-fits-all kind of thing.

www.menshealth.com

Why Pot Makes You Paranoid—but Mellows Out Your Buddies

The kind of high you experience depends on a whole bunch of thing
www.menshealth.com www.menshealth.com

"Some people have a very broad tolerance to the drug, and this is true of sugar and tobacco and alcohol,” he says [Gregory Gerdeman, Ph.D., an assistant professor of biology at Eckerd College].

Tolerance likely depends on a number of factors, including genetics, the makeup of your own neural network in your brain, and how much you’ve used the drug, Kinsey says [Steven Kinsey, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology and coordinator of the Behavioral Neuroscience Training Program at West Virginia University].
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The father of a friend of our son has a medical marijuana prescription for mental health issues so definitely not a one-size fits all substance.

I can’t stand the smell of it but can see why edibles would be attractive to some.
 
Actually what is insane about this is that all the talk is about one athlete getting a ban when it should be about what an incredibly strong American team will be going to Tokyo. Incredible how athletics isn’t a more popular sport in the US given its dominance across so many events.
 
I was skeptical that Armstrong was doping when it was rumored because he'd had cancer and doping would risk its return. But I clearly don't think like a championship athlete. Or even a Pairs skater.
 
allezfred said:
Nevertheless there is clearly a strong sporting culture in the US that prioritises winning at all costs.

Except when it comes to pair skating. :saint:
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Hardly the only sport in the US where we don't prioritize winning at all costs, but you still gave me a good chuckle, lol.
 
kwanfan1818 said:
I was skeptical that Armstrong was doping when it was rumored because he'd had cancer and doping would risk its return. But I clearly don't think like a championship athlete. Or even a Pairs skater.
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Testicle cancer has a strong link to anabolic steroids. Not always, related, but can be.

When I first heard about Armstong's cancer..I thought yep. Doping.
 
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