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from the amateurs-doping-like-the-pros dept.
After disclosures of an extensive, state-run doping program in Russia, sports officials have been retesting urine samples from the 2008 and 2012 Summer Olympics, in Beijing and London. Their findings have resulted in a top-to-bottom rewriting of Olympics history.
More than 75 athletes from those two Olympics have been found, upon further scrutiny, to be guilty of doping violations. A majority are from Russia and other Eastern European countries. At least 40 of them won medals. Disciplinary proceedings are continuing against other athletes, and the numbers are expected to climb.[...]
The drugs were not detected by the Olympic committee's drug-testing lab years ago, during the Games, because the science at the time was not sensitive enough to detect such small residual concentrations,[...]
"This completely rewrote my Olympics story," said Chaunté Lowe, an American high jumper who participated in four Summer Games but had never won a medal.[...]
Accompanying the joy of her belated recognition, she said, was an awareness of the opportunity costs she suffered. In 2008, her husband was laid off. The couple's house in Georgia was foreclosed on that year, something Ms. Lowe said would not have happened had she distinguished herself in Beijing. I was really young and promising at that point, and sponsors were interested in me," said Ms. Lowe, now 32. "A lot of interest goes away when you don't get on that podium."
Should the Olympics require countries to post a bond if their athletes win a medal, so that if they are discovered to have cheated the people most affected can receive compensation?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by vux984 on Friday November 25 2016, @11:10PM
Why is it legit to spend millions on computer modeling to create the perfect training program, hire experts to work out the perfect nutrition, expect athletes to work full time on training (while pretending they aren't 'professional') and even spend sick amounts of mony on the best science can deliver for the frickin' uniform but a part per trillion of the wrong chemical is 'cheating'. Really.
You've got a point. But on the other hand... games have rules, and game rules are almost by definition arbitrary, and the point of the game is to win within the rules.
The real solution is even more obvious, abolish the olympics. Replace it with ad supported mutant cyborg fights. Or better still... don't replace it at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 25 2016, @11:42PM
Yes.
Gladitorial blood sports are entertaining even when it's not fair. See the slaughter of animals or Emperor Commodus grandstanding at the Colosseum.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by RamiK on Saturday November 26 2016, @01:30AM
games have rules, and game rules are almost by definition arbitrary, and the point of the game is to win within the rules.
Rules that have referee decisions the audience audits with their own eyes are legitimate.
Secret laboratory blood tests by third parties "authorized laboratories" racing against state funded R&D and bribes are theatrics.
compiling...