Ukrainian fencer Olha Kharlan was awarded a place in the 2024 Paris Olympics by the IOC on Friday after she was disqualified at the world championships for refusing to shake the hand of her Russian opponent.
Ukrainian fencer Olha Kharlan was awarded a place in the 2024 Paris Olympics by the IOC on Friday after she was disqualified at the world championships for refusing to shake the hand of her Russian opponent.
Good, it’s the right thing to do. Russians shouldn’t even be allowed anywhere near international athletics until Putin is arrested and standing trial for war crimes at The Hague.
Also, everything else aside, not until they stop doping all their fucking athletes.
The idea is the majority of their athletes are proven to be clean. There are definitely a decent number who got caught, and more scrutiny should be on Russia athletes than any other (Though all should be fully tested), but I believe it exposed only a subset of the Russian team was caught. 70 percent of the Russians were allowed to compete under the Olympic Flag.
Do I think IOC caught everyone who was doping? Of course not. Do I think every Russian was doping? I find that equally hard to believe.
Then again the fact it was only a four year ban for a state sponsored scheme? WTF… but it just show IOC is still just one of the worst governing bodies in sports.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doping_in_Russia#2010–2014:_allegations_of_state-sponsored_doping_and_2014_ARD_documentary
No the idea is that all of their athletes are basically proven to be doping because it’s a state-sponsored and even secret-service assisted national effort. If you are not partaking in the russian state sponsored program, you simply will not become a russian professional athlete, you will be barred and forbidden to compete. Even their doping tests cannot be considered meaningful in any way because they literally used the FSB to fake or swap out samples or the impersonate doping officials and fake the tests.
This is not athletes deciding for themselves to cheat. This is not doctors helping athletes to cheat. This is a country cheating on a large scale and only sending cheaters to compete.
It’s really sad.
East Germany was infamous for it too. After the wall fell, a lot of athletes found out they were infertile, developed bone diseases, developed cancers, some even changed sex. Roland Schmidt, a weight lifter, developed huge breasts. Shot putter Heidi Krug was forced to change sex.
Some of them knew they were doped. Others were doped against their will or even without them knowing. They took the vitamin pills the doctor gave them, that’s all the knew. They were ofen literal children when it started, as young as 8.