Russia has been handed a four-year ban from all major sporting events by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada).
It means the Russia flag and anthem will not be allowed at events such as the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and Paralympics and football's 2022 World Cup in Qatar.
But athletes who can prove they are untainted by the doping scandal will be able to compete under a neutral flag.
[...]Rusada was initially declared non-compliant in November 2015 after a Wada-commissioned report by sports lawyer Professor Richard McLaren alleged widespread corruption that amounted to state-sponsored doping in Russian track and field athletics.
A further report, published in July 2016, declared Russia operated a state-sponsored doping programme for four years across the "vast majority" of summer and winter Olympic sports.
In 2018, Wada reinstated Rusada as compliant after the national agency agreed to release data from its Moscow laboratory from the period between January 2012 and August 2015.
However, positive findings contained in a version courtesy of a whistleblower in 2017 were missing from the January 2019 data, which prompted a new inquiry.
Wada's compliance review committee (CRC) recommended a raft of measures based "in particular" on a forensic review of inconsistencies found in some of that data.
As part of the ban, Russia may not host, or bid for or be granted the right to host any major events for four years, including the 2032 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Russia banned for four years to include 2020 Olympics and 2022 World Cup
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday December 09 2019, @05:56PM (14 children)
It will be interesting to see if there is backlash/retaliation (from Russia or anywhere else) against these filthy neutrals.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 5, Funny) by Thexalon on Monday December 09 2019, @06:14PM (9 children)
All I know is that my gut says "maybe"!
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @06:41PM (8 children)
This is already payback for Russia so easily playing the FBI:
https://www.justice.gov/storage/120919-examination.pdf [justice.gov]
Total incompetence.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Monday December 09 2019, @07:16PM (7 children)
The money quote:
Yet another report that was supposed to prove it's all a witch hunt. And, yet another fail.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @07:38PM (4 children)
That is your money quote? Lol.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Monday December 09 2019, @07:55PM (3 children)
Do people still watch that stuff?
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @08:10PM (2 children)
Last time I went to the Olympics someone bombed it, I haven't been back.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @08:32PM
Wow, one guy has a sub-par performance and you throw a hissy fit and go home? Yeesh.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:43PM
Neither did Richard Jewell.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @07:44PM (1 child)
So, this investigation was unable to even investigate the main players... But what they did find is that the FBI was fed disinfo by a russian agent and then were too incompetent to figure it out or even follow the normal procedures meant to help them not make such egregious errors.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @07:52PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @08:57PM (1 child)
i wanted to see the flag. maybe it's "!=" on a white background?
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday December 09 2019, @09:11PM
It's the Olympics rings logo on white:
https://olympics.nbcsports.com/2016/01/28/independent-olympic-athletes-parade-of-nations-march-opening-ceremony-rio-2016/ [nbcsports.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_Olympians_at_the_Olympic_Games#/media/File:Olympic_flag.svg [wikipedia.org]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @10:01PM
It isn't the first time Russian athletes have used unaffiliated status. You might remember the OAR designation at the 2018 Winter Olympics [wikipedia.org]. Seems public opinion of the athletes themselves was rather high, which isn't surprising since they are still Russian athletes.
(Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:44AM
In Russia, they will consider those filthy neutrals as traitors.
Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @06:02PM (11 children)
Anyone who wins a prize in the next four years won't know if they really were the best in the world, or if there was a Russian who would have beaten them.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by takyon on Monday December 09 2019, @06:04PM (4 children)
Or if there was a Russian supersoldier who would have beaten them. :(
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday December 09 2019, @06:42PM
If Lee Se-dol is any indication, top competitors aren't interested in competing with super-bots that have massive structural advantages over their human forms.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @07:30PM (2 children)
Or just a regular athlete. International politics are getting really stupid recently. This entire case hinges around Gregory Rodchenkov [wikipedia.org], a defector and the primary whistle blower for this whole thing. He decided to come over to the US after quite an interesting past:
The IOC decided his testimony was accurate despite also acknowledging that:
----
I have no idea whether or not Rodchenko is being honest. What I do know is that we have a habit of lying like there's no tomorrow when it suits our geopolitical ends. For instance our 'discovery' that Iraq had WMD that they could launch within 45 minutes was initially declared as coming from a high level intelligence source. In reality? It was a migrant taxi driver [newsweek.com] who had no knowledge of anything and who's entire knowledge was based on him claiming to have overheard a conversation a couple of years prior. That evidence was one of the key points of evidence used to start a war that has cost trillions of dollars and many thousands of lives.
And so I imagine we were more than happy to indulge Rodchenkov as well as ensure his story matched up with what sparse evidence there apparently was for his wild claims. Doesn't mean they're not true. But it's something I very much take with a grain of salt given our tendency to blame everything down to burnt toast on Russia.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @08:36PM
A quick aside on bias. I find the irony on the above post being downmodded as 'redundant' too interesting to pass up as it's surrounded by about 3 posts, being up-modded, that all say more or less the same thing with minimal effort put into what was said. Bias sucks. The reason we have the broken politicians that we have? It's bias.
Most people cannot help themselves. They respond positively to things that confirm their biases, and with hostility to things that go against them. The problem with this is two fold. The first is it makes you easy to exploit since you become intolerant of information you're not aware of, and overly gullible to information that you believe is confirming your biases. But there's an even worse aspect of this. This means anybody who is not exploiting you will never make his or her way into office. Because they will say things you don't want to hear and you'll retreat to the comfort of the liars who tell you only what you want to hear. Ultimately this is why our elections have devolved into picking the despicable and corrupt liar representing party 1, or the despicable and corrupt liar representing party 2. All because of bias.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Tuesday December 10 2019, @08:37PM
Gee. They just decided he was honest, huh? No corroborating evidence or anything like that, huh?
This sig for rent.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday December 09 2019, @06:06PM (3 children)
There's a difference between, best natural athlete and best drugged up athlete. Sure, I get that pressure and stress may effect your decision processing in relation to cheating/taking drugs to help enhance performance. Just, don't complain when you're called out on it. The problem here isn't, oh random X dude has been doping. The issue is the systemic problem of doping in Russian athletes. You want to compete, then do so within the rules.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @09:12PM (2 children)
As I understand it from Russian buddy of mine, doping _is_ within the _rules_ in Russia. Everyone does it. At least everyone that can afford to pay off the inspectors/lab. So when you compete with that standard at a national level, the winners of that go on to the international level. Do you expect them to just suddenly stop doping? Not a chance. They just continue with their norm, dope and bribe.
Banning the whole country makes sense until they clean up their shit.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 11 2019, @03:06AM (1 child)
I spoke to someone from Russia and when he first came to the U.S. he was amazed at how we have a presumption of honesty compared to Russia. We assume people are honest until proven otherwise. For instance when you go to a local fast food restaurant the drink dispenser is openly accessible for customers to fill their own drinks. He said this would never happen in Russia, the drink dispensers are behind the counter because the restaurant would otherwise be robbed blind.
He talked about how when he first came to the U.S. and was poor he would try to quickly sneak into these restaurants, fill up a cup of soda, and run out and how surprising it was that no one ever seemed to really care and that basically everyone paid for their drinks and abides by an honor system.
Of course my friend now has a stable job, is married with children, has turned into a strong church going Christian, and is a very honest person.
Honest societies function better (and yes, the U.S. is far from perfect). It's a shame Russia is as corrupt as it is.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday December 11 2019, @04:14PM
Fountain drinks in fast food restaurants is also an interesting example, because said restaurants charge like a dollar for $.05 worth of syrup and water, so realistically people could be constantly ripping them off in that specific area and it would probably barely affect their bottom line.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 5, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Monday December 09 2019, @06:10PM
Fixed that for ya. They will know if there are non-cheating Russians that can beat them because they are allowed to compete.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by tangomargarine on Monday December 09 2019, @08:30PM
Which is worse:
1) winning the gold but not knowing if there was somebody who could have beaten you (without cheating), or
2) losing to a person you know is cheating
?
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @06:34PM (4 children)
Absolute shame we are stuck with this sham for a president in the US. We should be turning these people to glass for their continued crimes.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PartTimeZombie on Monday December 09 2019, @08:08PM (2 children)
That seems a bit over the top for cheating at sports.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @08:48PM (1 child)
It is just continued evidence that the Russians will stop at nothing to hurt the west. Be it our sacred elections, wars, oppression of minorities, hurting Ukrainians, annexing territory, cheating in world events that should bring us together. After what they did to ruin the future of the US through the 2016 election meddling we must finally put an end to them.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @10:23PM
Why is it you're so russian sounding? Whoever you are I hope you know that posts like this are no doubt supposed to provide an excuse for some sort of russian escalation.
The US has spent the past 50 years trying to figure out how it can win a nuclear war. I'm sure we have a few plans that sound good enough to the ears of whatever psychopath ends up in the office. You shouldn't assume the next guy will play ball even if he's as under your thumb as our orange jabba.
Even now Trump is a few fast food meals and a bonk on the head from turning you guys into a cloud of plasma wherever you are. We had to stop him from nuking a hurricane so maybe you should consider the risks of continued shilling.
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @10:29PM
You've been ordered to make these posts no doubt to provide excuses for russian escalation.
Keep in mind you've managed to get a guy elected who is a few happy meals^ and a bonk on the head away from deciding your whole country has been replaced by reptiles so maybe you should reconsider participating in any more campaigns intended to weaken the US. You won't see a complete shit in homogeny in your lifetime but you might get to see the inside of a mushroom cloud if things keep going this way.
^Happy meals are how we deliver antibiotics and vaccinations to poor people in america.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @06:51PM (3 children)
How telling to see the Russia shills come out of the woodwork. This has been a long time coming, why would anyone be backing Russia on this? Individuals are still being allowed to compete, so my only take is SHILLS.
That would explain the oddly persistent users around here constantly ignoring reality and pushing really stupid politics. SN is a propaganda farm! Maybe not wholly owned, just overrun.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DeathMonkey on Monday December 09 2019, @07:20PM (1 child)
How pathetic do you have to be to use the powers of your government to cheat at sportsball!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @08:11PM
Although it's pathetic, there's a long history of Soviet bloc countries running sophisticated doping operations. It wasn't just the USSR doing this. East Germany, for example, was notorious for doping. For that matter, the Soviet hockey players were NHL-caliber professionals who were "employed" in other jobs for the purpose of circumventing the ban on professionals in Olympic hockey. The Miracle on Ice team was a bunch of collegiate players who defeated what was close to an NHL all-star team. Just look at how many NHL all-stars and future hall-of-famers played in the Summit Series [wikipedia.org] and just barely beat the USSR. This is business as usual for those countries.
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @08:09PM
For myself the issue is pretty simple. We've been lying a lot lately, and the consequences for our lies are often extremely severe. One needs only reference the Iraq War where how many hundreds of thousands died, how many trillions of dollars wasted? On lies. We tried the same thing in Venezuela. Remember Maduro allegedly setting an aid truck on fire and hoards of politicians then trying to use that to saber rattle and get us into another unwinnable war? Yeah, that was completely fake. [nytimes.com] Interestingly enough in that case RT reported [rt.com] that our claims were fake, alongside providing footage proving as much, one day after it happened and 2 weeks before the NYTimes decided to call out our lies.
The evidence in this case is also, as is becoming increasingly normal, highly dubious. Our secret informant is a nutjob who was actually arrested in Russia before for trying to engage in doping. His sister (an athlete) went to prison for it. He tried to kill himself and was put in a mental hospital where he was diagnosed with a paranoid personality disorder. You're trying to remove Russia from the Olympics for the sake of testimony from this guy. Is this rational? Want to test the living hell out of the Russian athletes? That'd be unfair (if similar treatment was not applied to everybody else as well), but magnitudes better than this. You can prove (or disprove) any conspiracy and they otherwise get to compete under their flag and anthem, like every other nation. Why not go this route? I mean to me these seem like pretty simple questions.
Ultimately, I think the only solution to lying is skepticism. At the rate we're going today it wouldn't be a surprise if World War 3 was eventually started not on an assassination or one country invading another, but on overt lies. Yet perhaps this can be changed if people simply became a bit less gullible and more critical of what they're told. Why are you being told this? Who is the source? Who stands to gain, who stands to lose? Are the allegations and suggested causes of action logical? Are the alleged crimes logical? What does the alleged offender have to say for himself? So forth and so on. We need to stop thinking like fools frenzied into some sort of a decentralized mob and get back to behaving and thinking like independent and critical thinking individuals. Otherwise what's the point of that lump of matter that should exist in the dome resting atop your neck?
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 09 2019, @07:54PM
Russia was banned from the 2018 Olympics over this doping scandal. It's too bad WADA didn't take this action last year. It would have been hilarious to see Russia banned from their own World Cup.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:06AM (2 children)
It doesn't matter much anymore, does it? They have uncovered so much corruption in the IOC that it's ridiculous for them to get upset about countries breaking their rules against doping. For the end user, there's so little sports actually shown in Olympic coverage that it has completely lost touch with its original ideals as an international athletic contest.
Let the Olympics die. They can die next to the NFL, to Hollywood, the MSM, and every other institution that once stood for something honorable and good, but now exemplifies depravity.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Tuesday December 10 2019, @10:22AM (1 child)
What is MSM? Morehouse School of Medicine?
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday December 10 2019, @12:53PM
Mainstream Media.
Washington DC delenda est.