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. 

China Is The Most Powerful Country In The World

No one has yet admitted it but China has already emerged as the most powerful nation on the planet for a long time now. 

There I said it. 

China is the most powerful nation on earth, and let no one doubt that. 

Countries in their part of the world knows about this for a very long time, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, and all the smaller nations in Asia, particularly those that China has the territorial disputes over the islands in the South China Sea.

• China Does Not Recognize the South China Sea Ruling

China has taken over international organizations. 

The World Health Organization bows down to China.

The United Nations bends over backwards for China.

The U.S., E.U., NATO and Climate Change Leaders walk on eggshells trying not to make China upset. 

Nations which owe China money are on this list.

• Hundreds of countries owe China hundreds of billions of dollars

Giant international corporations, local Chinese companies and the Chinese people fear and go all the way not to antagonize the Chinese government. In fact many countries, companies and sports organizations are held on a lease by China.

Rich and famous Athletes kiss China's feet. 

The news, social media, other prominent people and who else, almost everyone are scared of China.

IOC

Of course even the Olympics have come up with a different set of rules for China than for everyone else.

Take for example Eileen Gu.

Olympian Eileen Gu

18 year old Eileen was born in the United States and she lives there. She is of Chinese and American parents. She studies and trains in the U.S. and basically "visits" the land of her Chinese parent on school breaks, like most families who migrated abroad.

But the thing about Eileen and China is that China does not allow dual citizenship. 

And there is no record of Eileen having renounced her American citizenship or obtaining Chinese citizenship -- which should be a matter of public record.

The response from Eileen when she says that "when I'm in the U.S., I am American and when I'm in China, I am Chinese" is a fairly common sentiment among migrants to the United States. But not when you are representing a nation in international competitions. In the Olympics, there is only one nation that you are representing, you are to choose one.

We know many athletes and countries have done something similar in the past, but the pathways are always messy, complicated and hard to comply with. Now for a country that does not subscribe to the idea of dual citizenship this is really just a case of some old-school host-nation home-cooking right here.

Okay, now the case of the other infamous teenager, 15 year old Olympian (Russian) skater Kamila Valieva is even more bizarre. I guess Russia is riding China's clout and influence and this really makes the power of China even more impressive. 

Media Is A Big Part of the Problem, Always Has

Olympics

Sinone on the Cover of SI's Olympic Preview

Counting the Eggs Before They Are Hatched

Media is the biggest reason why Simone Biles withdrew from the all around competitions of the ongoing Tokyo Olympic games. And media is also the main issue why Naomi Osaka withdrew from Roland Garros two months ago. 

Truth Be Told

And the sad part is that in both cases, media people were just doing what they normally do, their dirty jobs.

The issue with Naomi Osaka who withdrew from the French Open was because of an issue with her fulfilling her media interview and news conference obligations, Simone Biles withdrew because of another type of pressure but from the same source, the news media.

News Conferences

Media was the main issue with Naomi because they were just too hard and too malicious on their intent to break these athletes down emotionallly and psychologically (what when they were already physically and emotionally drained).

Reporters are just so eager to throw their stupid and crazy questions at the faces of these athletes, many of which are below the belt and ill-timed, and then they ask the same kind of questions if not the same questions all together, over and over again in the hope of making these athletes blow up on camera.

But unlike the issue witb Naomi, who had an issue with media obligations which is part of the contract she signed, Simone's issue was partly self-inflicted.

Darling of the Press

Her media interviews weren't mandatory. They could have begged off of these on cam appearances and interviews as they weren't mandatory.

But the media has their own ways of messing with your heads. They labeled Simone as the Greatest of All Time (the GOAT) and she eventually owned and embraced it like anyone else on her position would.

Foresight

Team USA should have known better than to place this extra load on the back of Simone and in her head. 

If anyone in the team was smart enough, a media blackout should have been implemented, I mean we are in a pandemic. There are so many reasons to sequester and quarantine their athletes and let them concentrate on their training without any outside interference or distraction. Interviews can be done when the goals and the golds were secured. And not bragging about how they will be bringing home the bacon like it's a given -- it's not, that's arrogance, stupidity and disrespectful.

Predators

Anyway, they couldn't even stop a predator from within their organization who was preying on their own, so how could we expect them to stop predators from the outside? And besides any publicity is good publicity, right?

They lavished their athletes and treat them like royalty and celebrities, and it wouldn't be unlikely that a few will and have acted as divas. 

Crap, someone has to be answerable for this and the culture and atmosphere they have created. But we wouldn't know if anyone really would take the blame. This is almost unique just for Team USA women's gymnastics.

Relentless

Biles was constantly being promoted and marketed as the GOAT, even having an image of a goat on her outfit. Media was all over her, asking her could you ever be beat?  Wait, what?

And constantly telling her you will be the most decorated gymnast of all time, yada, yada, yada.

Now when the pressure was just too much and the resulting shit hits the fan, will media even own up to their part in all these? Of course not, moving forward they will even up the ante and milk this until it's dry. They were only doing what they were supposed to be doing. Well somebody has to do the dirty jobs. And besides, they were only giving their intended audience what they wanted to see. So see how this goes?

This is Why Not Everyone is An Olympian

This Has Gone Long Enough

Everyone has jumped on this olympic marijuana suspension and this has divided America once again.

If this was a different day and time and if it was a different athlete then we probably wouldn't even have  a discussion and all this brouhaha.

But because of the current times, this normally none issue has become a super issue.

Suspended

After Sha'Carri Richardson was suspended for one month for failing her drug test, for having tested positive for THC, the main psychoactive component of marijuana after her Olympic trials, every other sports spectator is livid and yelling why.

The reason is that the World Anti-Doping Code which the US Olympic Team is a signatory to and which the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is adhering to. By the way, the Olympics follows WADA rules.

WADA What?

So for racing while using THC, Richardson got a one month suspension and she cannot compete in the 100-meter race at the Tokyo Olympics.

For her part, Sha'Carri admitted to using the banned substance and have already apologized about the incident.

For what? For knowingly breaking the rules and getting caught. 

But so many are still up in arms and calling this an injustice.

The Phelps Comparison

So some people are pulling the Michael Phelps case and why he was able to compete in the 2008 Olympics. If we cannot remember his case, here it is: he was suspended for not just a month but three months in 2009 after a photograph of him came out that showed him smoking marijuana.

He did not even test positive for any banned substance. Plus the photo was taken months after the 2008 Olympics.

Count Our Blessings

Anyway, Richardson can still compete in the Tokyo Olympics in the relays as the race will be outside her one month suspension.

So she could still be able to compete for Olympic gold.

Let us just all calm down and be grateful for what we have rather than being too uptight about what we don't. This is really a big reason why America is in so much crap now -- nobody wants to follow the rules anymore. Plus all we want to do is complain. This is why the world hates America. 

The Olympics is for the select few willing to sacrifice everything for the chance to represent their country. Following the rules is part of that discipline and sacrifice.

For the rest of us, we will have front row seats in our living rooms, as olympic spectators. 


WADA Rules: What is prohibited. 

Growing Number of US Activist Athletes

What To Do With Them?

In case we aren't aware, more and more American athletes are joining the bandwagon of hating on America. Taking all the opportunities they had and turning around to bite the hand that feeds them. 

But who can blame them?

We all know that the USA is not perfect. Far from it. It states it right in the Preamble of the Constitution of the United States of America: "in order to form a more perfect Union".

The problem is there is really no "union" in the USA and there probably will never be one.

And there is no "pefect", there or anywhere.

Division

We understand the US is not united. There are massive issues with race, gender, age, disability, violence and many many others. And the progress towards unity is slow and even stagnant, and most times it is one step forward, two steps back.

American Sports

But athletes who represent their country overseas shouldn't do so just for the "sole purpose" of protesting on foreign soil.

Of course the idea isn't novel (it has been done since these new activist athletes were even born).

For sure it is a good opportunity to send out the message they want to send out there. (But it's not like some of us haven't seen them on social media yet anyway). 

Bitter Taste

In the end, it just leaves a "bitter" taste in the mouth, especially because the theme of international sports meets are and should be one of friendship, togetherness and fair play. And how many of their foreign competitors would just love to trade places with them? And wanting to tell them, quit while they're ahead. 

In the News Lately

How bad has it become?

It has been in the news that Chelsea Wolfe, who qualified to be an alternate to represent the U.S. in the Tokyo Olympics said previously that her "goal" was to win an Olympic medal just so that she can burn a US flag on the podium.

This was followed by Gwen
Berry who was already sanctioned back in 2019 when she raised a closed fist in the Pan American Games on the medal podium after capturing the gold medal.

She just did this on the medal podium as she qualified for the Tokyo Olympics.

She turned to the side and placed a shirt on top of her head which read Activist Athlete

Berry was quoted to have told reporters that she will continue on with her protests, promising that she will figure out something to do (possibly in the Tokyo Olympics).

Win-Win Proposition

So what can we do for these American athletes who hate on America? And there are alot more in the professional leagues as well, with money, with prestige and power.

Why not we allow them the freedom to go where their heart lies?

Country of Immigrants

Most American athletes are not really Native American. Their family migrated from somewhere -- South, Central or North America, the Caribbean, African continent, Europe, Asia, the Pacific and/or Australia.

People around the world are fed up with our pampered and fully trained and funded American athletes who have been dominating certain sports and sporting events. 

Exchange Athlete Program

So why not have them denounce their American passports (even for a temporary basis) and lend them to the country of where their ancestors came from? Like an exchange athlete program.

I mean wouldn't say Canada want to win a gold medal in the sport James Naismith invented? Wouldn't lots of South American, European and African countries want that too? And not just basketball? 

Let's allow these athletes to put their money where their mouths are. 

Many other countries and their sports coaches and sports prograns would love this! And these American athletes can continue their protesting over there while representing the countries of their forefathers. 

In exchange, the US can take in athletes who are struggling in those countries who would do just about anything to live and train in the US and see for themselves the American dream and understand what American athletes are protesting about.

Any takers?

Transgenders in Sports

We are seeing more and more transgender women taking over women's sports.

Granted they identify as women and they have a "right" to compete as women, "women's" rights really have taken a massive hit and women and men who are for women's rights who were and are still calling for equality now cannot turn around and deny trans their rights. That will be highly hypocritical of them.

Catch 22

First Openly Trans Athlete At The Olympic Games

First Openly Trans Athlete At The Tokyo Olympics

When people with different reproductive organs share the same bedroom, bathroom, changing room, massage room, treatment room, locker, gym, sports arena and when the old dividing (gender) lines between who can compete in individual and team sports and sports programs are permanently taken away, then it will just be a matter of time for both men and trans women to rule both mens and womens sporting events.

Physical

A world without those long drawn dividing lines will spell the death of sport scholarships for people born with female reproductive organs and female sports in general (even if we are smart enough to implement weight and/or height divisions -- which is hard to do for most sports).

Men and women are really different kinds of people, they are just built differently, they have different interests and they have different strengths as well as weaknesses.

Trans men will not dominate most men's sports but trans women will dominate most if not all women's sports. Hard to not see this coming but now almost inevitable. Men are just bigger, taller, stronger (on average). 

CDC: Average height, weight, body measurement. US