IOC, Russia & China

Now that a UK relay team was stripped of its Olympic medal from the Tokyo Summer Olympics after one member of the medal winning team failed a blood test, this throws a whole new spotlight on the drama happening at the Winter Olympic Games in Beijing.

One might remember that a U.S. lady sprinter just recently questioned publicly what is the difference between her disqualification from the Tokyo Olympics and the failed drug test of the 15 year old Russian skater after the IOC allowed the Russian teenager to continue competing in the Beijing Winter Games after she too failed a test in December.

Okay, we have to mention the age because that was the IOC's reason.

Punishing the Innocent

At any rate, may we add this whole saga has punished the innocent skaters who are still not allowed to stand on the podium and have their Olympic moment for winning their medals because of this conundrum. What does the IOC's inability to act on this matter punish them when they are actually the aggrieved parties? These athletes had not tested for banned substances, trained for these games and competed honestly but will have their once in a lifetime moment, the fruit of their labors taken away from them.

Public Sympathy

And then the media are making the Russian teenager to be the victim (although of course she may be) and how the Russian coach has been harsh on her and probably making her lie or cheat or both.

Olympic athletes especially in these types of events start training very young and none of this treatment and training are new, almost all world class skaters and other related disciplines are subjected to similar punishing high caliber military training regimens. That's the price to pay for Olympic greatness.

But being lenient and indecisive over this incident involving Russia whose Olympic athletes are already competing under the name of the ROC because Russia is under a ban for state sponsored doping are mind boggling and jaw dropping.

If anything the IOC should be harder on Russia for once again failing more drug tests while still serving their ban for the same violation.

And we are not even going to say anything about China who has a long reputation for home cooking and which everyone watching the games have already witnessed several controversial decisions on these ongoing Chinese Winter Games and suspiciously all of these were only benefiting Chinese athletes. One can only wonder why.

Does anyone really have to spell out what's been happening here?

Nethaneel Mitchell-Blake, Richard Kilty, CJ Ujah and Zharnel Hughes of Team GB celebrate winning the silver medal that was just stripped in the Men's 4 x 100m relay at Tokyo 2020. Getty Images.