Fun Stuff > CHATTER
The 2012 Olympics
LTK:
Speaking of world-class athletic performances, here's a write-up of ultramarathon runner Cliff Young, who started competing at age 61. You're all still reading Badass of the Week, right?
Akima:
--- Quote from: idontunderstand on 01 Aug 2012, 13:19 ---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.
--- End quote ---
With regard to all the weaselly smearing remarks being aimed at Ye Shiwen, I am reminded of Pope's famous lines about Addison:
"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer
And, without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike."
I hope they feel really proud of so loudly and publicly pissing on the head of a 16-year-old girl. Suppose she's completely innocent; are they proud of forever tainting her achievement? What heroes! What sportsmanship! If this is what the Olympic spirit means, let's call the whole thing off. A Chinese swimmer wins? Call her a cheat, in weaselly words so that you can pretend you didn't. If she tests negative? Oh that just means she'll be caught a few years down the track "when the good guys learn exactly what chemicals to look for". It is essentially impossible to prove innocence. I mean, seriously, why bother?
--- Quote from: The Seldom Killer on 02 Aug 2012, 00:25 ---That's more to do with the perception of the US litigation culture than anything else though.
--- End quote ---
So basically, if Chinese athletes are going to get some respect, they should start throwing lawsuits around. :(
In the case of the Korean fencer, I'm not quite sure how the organisers justify giving someone a win this way. Something else for the Olympics to be proud of. Maybe Korean athletes should start throwing lawsuits around too. :(
I wonder who the goon in the cheap suit man-handling Ms. Shin is?
idontunderstand:
Probably just that. A goon.
Very well said by the way. They really won't let "innocent before proven otherwise" rule. That being said, a lot of Chinese swimmers HAVE been caught and of course standard testing is warranted. I just don't see why the comments must go in this direction.. but maybe I'm expecting too much from sport commentators.
A couple of quotes from the Swedish broadcasts:
"Here we see a happy Chinese. A happy chinese is a very happy person!" (dunno what they meant really.. just sounded stupid and vaguely racist)
"Here stands a small, confused Japanese!" (about this Japanese male gymnast star. Maybe not racist but definitely condescending.)
I usually just turn of the sound...
Skewbrow:
Khrm. I may have created some false impressions, so let me state a few things for the record. I am not suspecting any swimmer, Chinese or American at this time. I was just delighted that a cheat (who had been caught earlier, had served a suspension, came back still winning) was caught, if only 8 years afterwards, and hopefully his achievements will be erased from the official records.
Let's not name any athletes as this is understandably a touchy subject.
I am not happy with the way US media handles this. In the 80s the same people who were pointing fingers at East German girls (about the same age as this Chinese girl) for steroid use, were simultaneously hero-worshipping NHL/NFL-players who more or less openly gulped anabolics and/or other stuff.
I am not happy with the way our media (or anyone else's) handles it. We had been calling Norwegian Xcountry-skiers cheats for their use of asthma medication in the 90s (come on, if you suffer from asthma, you are not participating in endurance events?). But lo and behold, our entire team was caught using drugs that cover the use of EPO ten years later. :psyduck: The nation has still not recovered from the shame.
A full team of Chinese female track stars (endurance events) disappeared from the scene at one point. Curiously at about the same time as new tests were announced. Their coaching staff had several advisors from East Germany. Mostly hearsay?
A few years back American sprint runners started tattling on each other, which lead to some suspensions, and obviously also litigation. Several were never caught, but a shadow was cast as other athletes under the wing of the same coach were caught.
The weight classes for weightlifting have been redefined (may be twice already?) for the sole purpose to erase the old world records from the books. In other words, they admitted that the old records were most likely achieved by cheats who never got caught.
I may be a pessimist, but I still suspect that not all get caught. Judging from what I have read the testers now think that they are ahead in the game, but that is a recent change. Before that the cheats were ahead, because doing minor alterations to some drugs made them invisible to tests without culling their effectiveness.
Because nations compete and want to win, this is unavoidable. The athletes get caught in the middle. Sometimes they don't really have a choice whether to take a drug or not. Happens in totalitarian countries, but also in the so called free countries it may easily happen that a shady coach or somebody else can influence some eager youngsters so that they cross the line.
I hope Ye Shiwen is innocent. It is sad that the OG is so far away from the original spirit that accusations will fly. It is sad that she is caught in the middle of this, but nowadays that cannot be helped!! Large nations compete for supremacy and lesser nations for their share of the glory. Innocent and guilty people alike are caught in it.
Summary: This is nothing new. This kind of rumors should not have come as a surprise to anyone involved. It is sad that young people cannot just have fun competing, but them's the breaks.
The ancient Greek olympics were not free of similar power struggles and accusations between competing city-states. IIRC one of the reasons they were discontinued was that the games became too political.
I do prefer nations competing at Olympic Games as a kind of substitute to a war.
Lines:
--- Quote from: Akima on 04 Aug 2012, 07:45 ---In the case of the Korean fencer, I'm not quite sure how the organisers justify giving someone a win this way. Something else for the Olympics to be proud of. Maybe Korean athletes should start throwing lawsuits around too. :(
--- End quote ---
I heard about this and thought it was pretty pathetic. Honestly I thought it sounded like they were favoring the other fencer.
I don't know what it is about these games, things just seem weird. The fencing, the Chinese swimmer, the badminton, and the stupid new rules for gymnastics and among other things just make things seem so fishy. I don't remember this going on in 2008.
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