OT: Russia banned from international sports for 4 years, including Olympics and WC
The World Anti-Doping Agency has handed down a 4 year ban on all international competition for Russian athletes for tampering with and falsifying testing data. This includes both winter and summer Olympics and the World Cup. Russian athletes not directly implicated may choose to compete under a neutral flag.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:06 AM ^
The Neutral Athletic Doping Syndicate (NADS) will perform great without Russia's official support.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:10 AM ^
yeah, what about that. they still get to compete and i'm sure putin will fill their bank accounts with rubles if they win something, just like if they weren't caught. its kind of like if ohio finally got caught but still could play football with no penalty other than not having the band spell out 'o-i-h-0'....
December 9th, 2019 at 11:22 AM ^
Sort of like when they did get caught, and had 5 players banned from the next season's first 5 games. They were allowed, however, to play in the upcoming (2011) Sugar Bowl, largely because they were 11-1 and had a shot at the MNC that season.
Thanks for the hardcore penalties, BT and NCAA!
December 9th, 2019 at 12:07 PM ^
It really depends on how liberal they'll be applying the "implicated" standard for barring individual athletes. If they ban only a few directly implicated, then it's bullshit. If they lump in anyone associated with a certain sport or training facility that's known dirty, I'd be ok with it. There are undoubtedly clean athletes who don't dope (ie. Sports that don't benefit from it) who would be screwed over by a blanket total ban.
December 9th, 2019 at 12:27 PM ^
Great responses everyone but per what the OP wrote, I'm not sure NADS is a thing.
December 9th, 2019 at 1:01 PM ^
Go NADS!
December 9th, 2019 at 1:12 PM ^
Somebody GETS it!
December 9th, 2019 at 1:49 PM ^
The Neutral Athletic Doping Syndicate (NADS) will perform great without Russia's official support.
If they've been abusing steriods, then the performance of their nads will likely be one of the first things to go.
December 9th, 2019 at 10:08 PM ^
Anyone who’s done steroids knows NADS go away for a little bit so it’s a good name.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:06 AM ^
Always wondered why Hotel Putingrad's 90 lb 14 year old gymnasts could squat 700 lbs now we know!
Wonder what would happen if the world anti-doping folks monitored NCAA football programs?
December 9th, 2019 at 11:07 AM ^
On a related note - what exactly is the anti-doping approach in college sports? Are there unannounced random tests after games and practice sessions including camps?
December 9th, 2019 at 11:10 AM ^
Does the NCAA do surprise checks? Not sure but I'm positive there is some strategic cycling involved plus drugs that leave the system quickly. I wonder if they do hair checks or simply blood/urine analysis?
December 9th, 2019 at 12:28 PM ^
Staee's star linebacker was dumb enough to get caught by whatever the NCAA does.
December 10th, 2019 at 6:49 AM ^
Being a STAEE player, he was probably so brainless that he forgot to remove the syringe from his arm.
"Hey, what's that thing sticking in your arm?"
"Uh ... my new piercing?"
December 9th, 2019 at 11:11 AM ^
They mostly just play solitaire and then they test Mitch McGary for pot after a game he didn't play in.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:11 AM ^
I believe so. Isn't this how Clemson was surprised by a 'mistake' showing, what, 7 players tested positive for performance enhancers?
December 9th, 2019 at 11:11 AM ^
More bark than bite, since Russian athletes can still compete. The uniforms still generally say "Russia" (following 'Olympic Athlete from'), so they just don't play the Russian anthem (though as we saw in the Winter Olympics, the hockey players and crowd sang it loud enough to drown out the Olympic anthem that was playing instead.) So while this sounds like a significant penalty it is functionally nothing at all for what was a systematic attempt to game the system.
I can't decide whether this penalty - of NCAA penalties - are less impactful.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:16 AM ^
I actually quite like the approach. Important to remember that most Russians are actually normal people just like us, and that the main problem is with the kleptocracy at the top. So this way, non-cheating athletes get to compete but people are reminded at events that the country's leadership is extremely corrupt.
Obviously that's the positive spin, reality is a bit messier but still closer to that than the extreme view that all Russians are bad.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:51 AM ^
All Russians are bad.
Signed,
Poland and the rest of central and eastern Europe.
December 9th, 2019 at 12:54 PM ^
They’re not so bad ... when they visit your homeland one at a time.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:12 AM ^
I sense a Tweet storm coming on about how unfair this is to our most precious ally.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:35 AM ^
Oh puh leeze....MSNBC Sheep in da House
December 9th, 2019 at 12:14 PM ^
Nah our most precious allies are those great fellows, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:17 AM ^
Proposed neutral flag.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:19 AM ^
They've had a state sanctioned doping program for a while now. Watch the documentary "Icarus", talks all about it
December 9th, 2019 at 11:33 AM ^
I personally think it would be really cool one day to host some kind of world athletic competition that DOES allow doping.
People are going to keep doping anyway. Might as well have a competition with it to see just how far the human body can reach.
December 9th, 2019 at 12:02 PM ^
Embed attempt.
December 9th, 2019 at 1:28 PM ^
bill burr said basically this in one of his comedy specials, albeit in a much more hilarious fashion
December 9th, 2019 at 1:28 PM ^
bill burr said basically this in one of his comedy specials, albeit in a much more hilarious fashion
December 9th, 2019 at 11:34 AM ^
its About damm time..This has been going on woiith Russia for DECADES and probably China as well
December 9th, 2019 at 11:37 AM ^
Again? Jeez, Russia, give it a rest already.
December 9th, 2019 at 11:49 AM ^
I'm surprised China didn't get nailed first.
December 9th, 2019 at 12:32 PM ^
FINA (swimming governing body) was trying to save Chinese golden boy Sun Yang, after his blood sample vial was smashed after a test (bodyguards apparently smashed it). FINA let him off the hook, but WADA is going after him hard in an appeal. He faces a lifetime ban if he's "convicted" by WADA (decision coming in a couple of months).
December 9th, 2019 at 12:59 PM ^
Yeah, that, among other violations, they've had over the years has been an unbelievable case of "Why the f*** are these athletes allowed to compete?" I guess they're just not as brazen as the Russians until Sun Yang came along. Anyone with a pulse knows they've been cheating their asses off for decades, they've just improved the masking techniques.
They had 40 swimmers get caught in just an eight-year span back in the 90s. They've managed to whittle that down to roughly one swimmer every other year or so.
December 9th, 2019 at 1:13 PM ^
The Chinese had the same East German guy who was doping up the DDR women in the 70's and 80's...then the Chinese started winning a lot of swimming. No coincidence. US women (who are not without shame as well) would say that they thought they heard men in the locker room at international meets - it was the Chinese women.
December 9th, 2019 at 12:03 PM ^
Mark Dantonio has a couple of open roster spots for them...how's their pad level?
December 9th, 2019 at 12:26 PM ^
The sport I can think of that the ban would affect the US the most in terms of success would be wrestling.
December 9th, 2019 at 12:31 PM ^
Track and Field.
There's been a shit ton of violations by the US in track over the last 20 or so years.
December 9th, 2019 at 12:33 PM ^
We just had a prominent male swimmer banned, Conor Dwyer.
December 9th, 2019 at 1:39 PM ^
Are you a Russian sympathizer?
December 9th, 2019 at 2:03 PM ^
No, I'm a vet and you can fuck off with that shit.
December 9th, 2019 at 12:27 PM ^
What a corrupt country, who would want to be friends with them?
December 9th, 2019 at 1:45 PM ^
China, who buys as much oil and natural gas as they possibly can.
December 9th, 2019 at 1:14 PM ^
Impeach Harbaugh
December 9th, 2019 at 1:33 PM ^
all this time I thought Putin was a good guy
December 9th, 2019 at 1:37 PM ^
Nyet!
December 9th, 2019 at 1:44 PM ^
Fake news from a declining West that can't decide how many genders there are.
December 9th, 2019 at 2:16 PM ^
I think this means they will have to compete under the Olympic banner, if I am not mistaken. It would be so much easier for Russia to just change their flag to the Olympic flag - they seem to be going about this the hard way.