Russian Olympic Doping Scandal

[Anonymous]

Typically during an Olympic event, when an athlete enters, they receive a fair share of applause from the crowd, even if not from the same country as the competitor, but as of late, a few Russian athletes have received jeers and boos from not only the crowds, but their fellow athletes either in person or via social media all having to do with the revelation that the Russians had and have been cheating.

"A two-month investigation commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency confirmed that there was a state-sponsored doping program in place at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. In May, Grigory Rodchenkov, Russia's former anti-doping lab director, told The New York Times that he'd suppressed evidence of performance-enhancing drug use by the Russian Olympians at the last winter Games.

Before this year's Games began, many fans called for Russia's entire Olympics team to be banned in order to send a message that systematic cheating won't be tolerated. However, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said doing so would be unfair."-People

Originally the thought was to ban the entire Russian team from competing in this years 2016 Rio Olympics after athletes began testing positive for this games, but instead many of the athletes, some 118 of them, most notably, the majority of the Russian track and field teams have been banned along with the entire Russian team being banned from competing in the Paralympic Games in September as punishment for the country's systematic doping program.

This isn't the first major doping scandal. East Germany became notorious for another state sponsored doping program in the late 70's where doctors would inject kids as young as 10 years old without their knowledge with the harmful drugs and hormones to produce results. Many of the former athletes as a result have suffered terribly from the abuse with lifelong serious health problems. Most of their "doctors" barely got off in most cases, with light sentences.

In today's games, it is still the idea that the doping is not done on an individual or random basis which would still be bad, but state sponsored, that understandably makes those athletes competing clean feel as though the game is largely unfair if a few, who are still competing like Russian swimmer, Yulia Efimova, who was previously suspended for 16 months for doping and tested positive again for a banned substance, are allowed to compete and take home medals.

This is Lance Armstrong all over again. How can we award someone a gold medal and praise them as the best of the best when they got that way by cheating? It's one thing if someone is injecting you with something and you are unaware, but when you are in the know and you allow it to happen for a false victory, it wreaks of poor sportsmanship. If we allow these anti-doping rules to be broken for a few here and there, what is the point of even having rules to begin with when the goal is to have fair and even rules that apply to everyone.

On the same token, I don't believe in punishing everyone. Even though 118 is no small number considering most countries don't even have a 1/4 of that number of athletes, I don't think punishing those that did work hard, and did do so naturally and without drugs, would be in the best interest either. The Olympics is made to honor those in victory who have put in the work naturally and have proven that they deserve gold, silver, or bronze.

[Fathoms77]

Doping is just so difficult to stop. A lot of bike riders will admit that just about EVERYONE is doping in some way; if you don't, there's no hope of competing. But the term "doping" is hazy because maybe they're using new stuff nobody has ever heard of and technically isn't illegal (new PEDs are being crafted every damn day).

Then you've got things like the Maria Sharapova scandal and stuff like that is silly, if you ask me. Yes, she broke the rules and willfully, and she should be punished. But what she was taking had little to no effect on her performance, as far as anyone can tell. It's not like she was outpacing any of her peers in terms of fitness or power. She'd had baseline power since she was a teen; it's part of her game and well before she started taking that drug for her heart. And she still never hit as hard as some other people, like Serena Williams.

There are always so many extenuating circumstances, even though I'm one of those hard-and-fast people who often say, "you cheated, you lose, and that's that." :P

[outmyroom]

Honestly this is just more propaganda against Russia. Literally everyone dopes. Everyone. You can't stop it. It's every major country including Russia, US, and China

[myTake Owner]

Why do you say this is propaganda, when its true and there is evidence that it's true. Are you more upset that they got caught or that its true? I'm in no way insinuating that other athletes don't dope... other athletes and teams have been caught a couple of times, but it is wholly unfair to say everyone dopes because that is not the case which is why some of the athletes on the Russian team were allowed to compete as decided by an international committee, not one particular state or country.

[_HimigNgKalayaan_]

Lolz Im watcing a volleyball game between Russia and S. Korea while I found this. Coincidence? I think not

Nah dont ban them. It woud be unfair for those clean Russian athletes but whats remarkable is this was a state sponsored doping.
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Would dady Putin punish these officials or maybe daddy Putin is the one behind it.

[myTake Owner]

Yeah, I wouldn't put it past him to be in charge of the program. He's so concerned with winning and being the best. He's got a total Napoleon complex.

[Anonymous]

Meh, just some more western anti-russian propaganda.