Fun Stuff > CHATTER
The 2012 Olympics
Blue Kitty:
--- Quote from: jwhouk on 31 Jul 2012, 16:24 ---NBC major fail example #527, from Wil "the birthday boy" Wheaton's tumblr
--- End quote ---
What I found even funnier was the VISA commercial that played after Michael Phelps got second place in his swim talking about how he might be getting gold medals.
Also, corruption in badminton? Really? It's fucking badminton.
Patrick:
I like how as soon as a 16yo Chinese girl whomped ass in the women's 200m IM race, first thing NBC's announcer says is something involving "now of course there's going to be suspicion and she will be subject to blah blah rigorous drug/doping test" and "breakthroughs are common in sporting events but so is doping" and all kinds of super accusatory-sounding shit. Come on, NBC, are you fucking serious
idontunderstand:
As soon as the Chinese win there will be accusations. I'm not convinced at all that it's justified.. the other day this 15-year old Latvian won and there were no accusations. No one accuses the USA of doping (at least not regularly) despite some very famous incidents.
The Seldom Killer:
I don't think that it's accusations being levelled just because the swimmer is Chinese. I'd heard of the "unbelievable performance" without reference to the nationality and thought that it warranted suspicion. Although I did find out about the nationality when looking further into it, it was still the basic and seeming anomalous facts of the performance that maintained that suspicion. It was the full context of events that justified the performance as natural, however it would have been disingenuous not to consider doping as a potential reason. Innocent until proven guilty doesn't mean we absent suspicion altogether.
Of course I caveat this as coming from a person who's almost sole sporting interest is in cycling where sudden and unexpected performances are very often key indicators of doping. I accept that it isn't easy to directly transliterate that to other sporting activities. With regards to the very forward vocalisation of doping concerns. That might be partly due to the combination of concerns of the integrity of the sport and defeat of vicarious ambitions in an emotional moment. That the first and easiest justification of an anomalous athletic performance is often doping says a lot about the current state of sport overall, not just racist attitudes towards other countries. Doping very easily wrecks the integrity of a sport that it is found in and, as any fan of cycling will know, can lead to any win of any order rousing suspicions. Sadly it can take a lot for the balance of evidence in favour of clean racing to be accepted by the masses.
As for not accusing the USA of doping? If I were a commentator, I would be cautious about externally voicing suspicions of any American athlete without the backing of substantial evidence. That's more to do with the perception of the US litigation culture than anything else though.
Skewbrow:
Re: Doping.
The athletes who use performance enhancing drugs often get caught nowadays. If not right away, then later, when the good guys learn exactly what chemicals to look for. My son just told me that a Belorussian hammer thrower has just been caught like that. He will probably lose his olympic gold from 2004 and the world championship won in 2005. Not official yet, but WADA has the right to deepfreeze the samples and perform more tests later on. If confirmed, this case should act as a deterrent.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version