The spirit of the Olympics

[brandx]

Just read up on Lilly King.  Obviously Efimova's steroid use is an issue, but that was, what, 2013?  Do we just ban any and all athletes who have ever failed a drug test?  I guess maybe for the quad that they failed the drug test in might be understandable.  But to continue to comment on a failed drug test as a result of melodonium is stupid and uneducated.  It wasn't on the illegal substance list at the time that Efimova took it.  The fact that they can give her a drug test for something that was legal at the time she took it is the problem.

One of USA's own athletes competing in the Olympic games failed a drug test for the exact same reason.  Max Holt was prescribed melodonium by his team doctor while playing volleyball for his club in Russia.  It wasn't an illegal substance when he took it, but was later added to the illegal substance list.  If Lilly King takes ibuprofen right now and at noon central time the IOC decides to add ibuprofen to the illegal substance list and test all athletes for it immediately, should we ban Lilly King from ever getting in a swimming pool again?  Seems pretty dumb to me, but according to Lilly King that's how it should be.

She is from Russia. They cheated and doped routinely. It is only known what she got caught using.

We don't know what else she was on any ore than we knew what else Lance Armstrong was on until testing advanced far enough.

And, I say this as someone who doesn't care about doping whether it is in Olympic sports, biking, or PEDs in baseball. But as long as there are rules against it, ........

[GGGG]

Just read up on Lilly King.  Obviously Efimova's steroid use is an issue, but that was, what, 2013?  Do we just ban any and all athletes who have ever failed a drug test?  I guess maybe for the quad that they failed the drug test in might be understandable.  But to continue to comment on a failed drug test as a result of melodonium is stupid and uneducated.  It wasn't on the illegal substance list at the time that Efimova took it.  The fact that they can give her a drug test for something that was legal at the time she took it is the problem.

One of USA's own athletes competing in the Olympic games failed a drug test for the exact same reason.  Max Holt was prescribed melodonium by his team doctor while playing volleyball for his club in Russia.  It wasn't an illegal substance when he took it, but was later added to the illegal substance list.  If Lilly King takes ibuprofen right now and at noon central time the IOC decides to add ibuprofen to the illegal substance list and test all athletes for it immediately, should we ban Lilly King from ever getting in a swimming pool again?  Seems pretty dumb to me, but according to Lilly King that's how it should be.

She's 19 years old.  Many 19 year olds deal with absolutes because they don't understand the world is full of details and extenuating circumstances. 

I personally have been very uncomfortable with the "attack"on the Russian swimmer as an individual.  If Lilly King grew up in Russia and was training under their regimen, and they wanted her to take something, she would have taken it.  In other words, don't take out your frustrations on the athlete, take them out on the corrupt system that allowed this to occur.   THAT is why the entire Russian federation should have simply been banned.

[mu03eng]

Denver was awarded the 1976 Winter Olympics but had to withdraw in 1972 after voters turned down a bond issue to pay for some of the venues.  The games were then moved to Innsbruck.

Time for the "what if" game.  Had Denver approved that bond issue, the 1980 games would likely not have gone to Lake Placid.  (Although they were the sole bidder for the 1980 games.)  Had the 1980 games been held in Europe somewhere, would the "Miracle on Ice" ever had happened?  Doubtful.

Depends on whether or not you believe a butterfly flapping it's wings in Brazil can cause a typhoon in the South China Sea

[wadesworld]

She's 19 years old.  Many 19 year olds deal with absolutes because they don't understand the world is full of details and extenuating circumstances. 

I personally have been very uncomfortable with the "attack"on the Russian swimmer as an individual.  If Lilly King grew up in Russia and was training under their regimen, and they wanted her to take something, she would have taken it.  In other words, don't take out your frustrations on the athlete, take them out on the corrupt system that allowed this to occur.   THAT is why the entire Russian federation should have simply been banned.

Very true.  I just prefer that athletes keep their mouths closed and play and let those in charge of these types of decisions to do their jobs.  To me it just puts a guy like Max Holt in a tough spot, who took the same substance and failed the same test, yet fellow US Olympic athletes are bringing attention to someone else.

[Pakuni]

Very true.  I just prefer that athletes keep their mouths closed and play and let those in charge of these types of decisions to do their jobs.  To me it just puts a guy like Max Holt in a tough spot, who took the same substance and failed the same test, yet fellow US Olympic athletes are bringing attention to someone else.

#sticktosports?

In fairness, when asked about American athletes who've tested positive for banned substances, King said they also should be barred from the Olympics.

I respect the hell out of Lilly King (and others like her) for speaking out. They have every right to be angry and outspoken when forced to compete on an uneven playing field. Imagine working all your life for a goal only to lose out to someone who's been caught cheating repeatedly? You'd be justifiably outraged. And the best hope - what little hope there is - for the IOC and the various federations to get serious about detecting and punishing the cheaters is for the clean athletes to take a stand against it. Silence is tacit approval.

As for "attack" on Efimova, cry me a river. This isn't 1976 and Efimova isn't some product of a Soviet athletic factory. Hell, she's been living and training in the United States since 2011 - two years before her first positive test. She's not some poor kid who was held down and injected with HGH by Vladimir Putin.  She didn't unknowingly take a cold medicine with a banned substance.
She's a 24-year-old woman who freely chose on multiple occasions to take substances she knew were banned, in an effort to give herself an unfair advantage over her competitors. If that results in people being saying unpleasant things about her (gasp!), so what?

[4everwarriors]

Any y'all do da cuppin' thang? Is it kinda like spoonin', hey?

[wadesworld]

#sticktosports?

In fairness, when asked about American athletes who've tested positive for banned substances, King said they also should be barred from the Olympics.

I respect the hell out of Lilly King (and others like her) for speaking out. They have every right to be angry and outspoken when forced to compete on an uneven playing field. Imagine working all your life for a goal only to lose out to someone who's been caught cheating repeatedly? You'd be justifiably outraged. And the best hope - what little hope there is - for the IOC and the various federations to get serious about detecting and punishing the cheaters is for the clean athletes to take a stand against it. Silence is tacit approval.

As for "attack" on Efimova, cry me a river. This isn't 1976 and Efimova isn't some product of a Soviet athletic factory. Hell, she's been living and training in the United States since 2011 - two years before her first positive test. She's not some poor kid who was held down and injected with HGH by Vladimir Putin.  She didn't unknowingly take a cold medicine with a banned substance.
She's a 24-year-old women who freely chose on multiple occasions to take substances she knew were banned in an effort to give herself an unfair advantage over her competitors. If that results in people being saying unpleasant things about her (gasp!), so what?

Well, not really.  She took a banned substance in 2013.  I honestly don't know the details on that one, but from what I gather it was a legitimate doping suspension, which is obviously wrong and she should (and did) serve the punishment for that.  But the one this year was not a banned substance.  Her response is 100% correct.  As a 21 year old she got caught cheating and did her time.  This year she took what was a legal substance and then failed a drug test because it was later ruled a banned substance.  Why should she be suspended for that?  That doesn't make any sense.  She's completely right.  If the IOC suddenly decides that yogurt is an illegal substance, should every person who's ever ate yogurt be ineligible to compete in the Olympics?

Max Holt, an American playing in these Olympic games, failed a drug test for the exact same drug that she was suspended for this year.  Same situation.  A team doctor subscribed him the drug...because it wasn't illegal...until after he took it...and then he "failed" a drug test as a result.  That's insane.  If Russians (who have men's volleyball players sitting out the Olympics because they were doping) were calling out Max Holt for his failed drug test we Americans would be all over them.

[tower912]

Any y'all do da cuppin' thang? Is it kinda like spoonin', hey?

S-I-L is a doctor of Chinese medicine/acupuncturist.    Huge into needles, and herbs, and oils.    It is not her specialty, but she endorses it.     I understand the theory of it.   

[Pakuni]

Well, not really.  She took a banned substance in 2013.  I honestly don't know the details on that one, but from what I gather it was a legitimate doping suspension, which is obviously wrong and she should (and did) serve the punishment for that.  But the one this year was not a banned substance.  Her response is 100% correct.  As a 21 year old she got caught cheating and did her time.  This year she took what was a legal substance and then failed a drug test because it was later ruled a banned substance.  Why should she be suspended for that?  That doesn't make any sense.  She's completely right.  If the IOC suddenly decides that yogurt is an illegal substance, should every person who's ever ate yogurt be ineligible to compete in the Olympics?

That's such an awful straw man. Nobody is being punished for having ever taken meldonium (which is exactly like yogurt?).
Anyhow, you have no idea when Efimova - or Holt, for that matter - took meldonium. Only that they claim to have done so before the ban. What we do know is that they tested positive for it months after the ban went into effect, and many more months after the impending ban was announced. they're only saving grace is that WADA can't say with complete certainty how long the drug will stay in a person's system, but even its manufacturer says it's a couple of months at most.
Are you really expecting sympathy for people who - at best - took a substance they knew was about to be banned up to the last moment, hoping they could reap its benefits beyond the ban effective date?

Max Holt, an American playing in these Olympic games, failed a drug test for the exact same drug that she was suspended for this year.  Same situation.  A team doctor subscribed him the drug...because it wasn't illegal...until after he took it...and then he "failed" a drug test as a result.  That's insane.  If Russians (who have men's volleyball players sitting out the Olympics because they were doping) were calling out Max Holt for his failed drug test we Americans would be all over them.

No we wouldn't.

[GGGG]

#sticktosports?

In fairness, when asked about American athletes who've tested positive for banned substances, King said they also should be barred from the Olympics.

I respect the hell out of Lilly King (and others like her) for speaking out. They have every right to be angry and outspoken when forced to compete on an uneven playing field. Imagine working all your life for a goal only to lose out to someone who's been caught cheating repeatedly? You'd be justifiably outraged. And the best hope - what little hope there is - for the IOC and the various federations to get serious about detecting and punishing the cheaters is for the clean athletes to take a stand against it. Silence is tacit approval.

As for "attack" on Efimova, cry me a river. This isn't 1976 and Efimova isn't some product of a Soviet athletic factory. Hell, she's been living and training in the United States since 2011 - two years before her first positive test. She's not some poor kid who was held down and injected with HGH by Vladimir Putin.  She didn't unknowingly take a cold medicine with a banned substance.
She's a 24-year-old woman who freely chose on multiple occasions to take substances she knew were banned, in an effort to give herself an unfair advantage over her competitors. If that results in people being saying unpleasant things about her (gasp!), so what?

Alright that does make things different IMO.  Thanks for the clarification.

[MarquetteDano]

Zika!  Zika!

  My apologies if this got covered in a post in this thread but what is the deal with yelling "Zika!!" at athletes who mentioned it as a concern?  I can see booing them like they have Hope Solo but why are people yelling out a diseases that has killed hundreds of children?  And most of those children are in the very country they are yelling it.

  Maybe South Africans should've all yelled "AIDS! AIDS!"  in South Africa to any athlete who mentioned they were concerned about blood transfusions since South Africa has some of the highest incidence of AIDS.

Again,  no problem booing people but very strange to yell out diseases that are inflicting your own country.

[wadesworld]

That's such an awful straw man. Nobody is being punished for having ever taken meldonium (which is exactly like yogurt?).
Anyhow, you have no idea when Efimova - or Holt, for that matter - took meldonium. Only that they claim to have done so before the ban. What we do know is that they tested positive for it months after the ban went into effect, and many more months after the impending ban was announced. they're only saving grace is that WADA can't say with complete certainty how long the drug will stay in a person's system, but even its manufacturer says it's a couple of months at most.
Are you really expecting sympathy for people who - at best - took a substance they knew was about to be banned up to the last moment, hoping they could reap its benefits beyond the ban effective date?


No we wouldn't.

It's exactly like yogurt in that when it was taken, neither of the substances were illegal.  Why would you possibly even consider suspending/banning an athlete who took a substance that was not illegal when they took it?

Everything I've read said it could remain in the body for "several months" depending on a number of factors.  And I don't really care about what sympathy you want to give the person.  The fact of the matter is that the substance they put in their system wasn't illegal when they put it in their body.  To ban them for taking a legal substance would be insane.

If you want to believe that literally hundreds of athletes that had a very real chance to go to the Olympics continued to take a banned substance after it was added to the banned substance list then so be it.  I'm of the belief that the fact that nearly 200 athletes failed drug tests for the same drug when it hadn't been banned until just prior to those drug tests probably means that there were some traces of the drug still in some of these peoples' bodies after having stopped taking it.  It'd be one thing if it was like 3 athletes.  Hundreds?  That's a little more than a coincidence, in my mind.

[Mutaman]

Denver was awarded the 1976 Winter Olympics but had to withdraw in 1972 after voters turned down a bond issue to pay for some of the venues.  The games were then moved to Innsbruck.

Time for the "what if" game.  Had Denver approved that bond issue, the 1980 games would likely not have gone to Lake Placid.  (Although they were the sole bidder for the 1980 games.)  Had the 1980 games been held in Europe somewhere, would the "Miracle on Ice" ever had happened?  Doubtful.

Doubt it would have happened if the games had been played at MSG. A little known fact is that the Russians and the Americans played an exhibition game at the Garden a few days before the Lake Placid games began. I was there. Russians won like 12-1. It was men versus boys. There were only a few thousand people there. Always wondered if Herbie was lulling the Russians into over confidence. He didn't have to work at it too hard.
LEGS FEED THE WOLF!

[Pakuni]

It's exactly like yogurt in that when it was taken, neither of the substances were illegal.  Why would you possibly even consider suspending/banning an athlete who took a substance that was not illegal when they took it?

Everything I've read said it could remain in the body for "several months" depending on a number of factors.  And I don't really care about what sympathy you want to give the person.  The fact of the matter is that the substance they put in their system wasn't illegal when they put it in their body. To ban them for taking a legal substance would be insane.

You don't know when they put it in their body, you're just buying their claims that it was before the ban. I'm not that naive, especially when it comes to the word of past cheats or athletes from a country guilty of systemic doping.
What we do know is that it's highly unlikely they put it in their body without knowing that it was a) banned or b) about to be banned. WADA announced the ban in September, so in order to believe these athletes were taking meldonium before they knew it was illegal you would have to believe it stays in one's system for six months or more, something not even the Russians or the drug's manufacturer is claiming.
At worst they're cheaters. At best, they were recklessly walking the tightrope to gain a drug-induced advantage on the competition. Either way, they don't come off as victims to me.

As for yogurt, maybe I'm just giving the IOC too much credit, but i have a hard time buying the notion that it'll ever be viewed as something that could enhance athletic performance.

[wadesworld]

You don't know when they put it in their body, you're just buying their claims that it was before the ban. I'm not that naive, especially when it comes to the word of past cheats or athletes from a country guilty of systemic doping.
What we do know is that it's highly unlikely they put it in their body without knowing that it was a) banned or b) about to be banned. WADA announced the ban in September, so in order to believe these athletes were taking meldonium before they knew it was illegal you would have to believe it stays in one's system for six months or more, something not even the Russians or the drug's manufacturer is claiming.
At worst they're cheaters. At best, they were recklessly walking the tightrope to gain a drug-induced advantage on the competition. Either way, they don't come off as victims to me.

As for yogurt, maybe I'm just giving the IOC too much credit, but i have a hard time buying the notion that it'll ever be viewed as something that could enhance athletic performance.

They announced that it would be illegal effective January 1.  So if an athlete put it in their body (knowingly or unknowingly, it doesn't matter 1 iota) on December 31, 2015 at 23:59:59, they were taking a legal substance.  You can't ban or suspend someone for a substance that isn't on an illegal substance list.  Meldonium at that second was as illegal as yogurt was.  And, again, there were 172 athletes that failed drug tests because of meldonium.  The fact that it wasn't illegal as recently as December 31, 2015 and it is unknown how long it stays in one's system, but is known to stay in for multiple months in some cases, leads me to believe that the drug may have stayed in many peoples' systems up through the point of their drug test, despite many of them probably not having taken it since before it became illegal.  I highly doubt 172 athletes with Olympic aspirations were like, "Hey, they just named this drug illegal.  No chance they're going to test me, a potential Olympic athlete, for it!"  Maybe I'm naïve.  But that's an awful lot of stupid, stupid people then.

[Pakuni]

"Hey, they just named this drug illegal.  No chance they're going to test me, a potential Olympic athlete, for it!"  Maybe I'm naïve.  But that's an awful lot of stupid, stupid people then.

Cause hundreds of Olympic athletes would never knowingly take a banned substance.
Well, except for the hundreds who've been caught.

Again, the absolute best argument you can make for these people is that they ALL took a performing enhancing drug they knew was about to be banned to gain an advantage. That doesn't exactly make them heroes.

[wadesworld]

Cause hundreds of Olympic athletes would never knowingly take a banned substance.
Well, except for the hundreds who've been caught.

Again, the absolute best argument you can make for these people is that they ALL took a performing enhancing drug they knew was about to be banned to gain an advantage. That doesn't exactly make them heroes.

That's a lot of stupid people then.

Doesn't make them heroes. They also did nothing illegal or even wrong, though.

[forgetful]

I looked into the efimova stuff also as they seemed to make a huge deal of it. 

Her first positive test was for DHEA, which really does nothing but is likely in a lot of over the counter supplements.  Very easy to test positive unintentionally.  Also, DHEA is not going to enhance your performance.

The meldonium is also a head scratcher.  It is only used in Eastern Europe/Russia, where it is a very common prescription and is used by a lot of the population to treat a variety of ailments.  It isn't even known if it is performance enhancing.  It was banned, because a large population of Eastern European athletes were testing positive for it.

If she was trying to cheat, she was doing it wrong.  Those are terrible drugs to use to attempt to enhance performance.  After looking into them, I felt kind of bad for Efimova.

Thought this needed to be restated.  Both Efimova's positive tests were really BS.  Meldonium and DHEA shouldn't even be banned substances.

[wadesworld]

Thought this needed to be restated.  Both Efimova's positive tests were really BS.  Meldonium and DHEA shouldn't even be banned substances.

Thanks.  Hadn't looked into the first suspension, just read that it was for a "steroid."

[brandx]

Very true.  I just prefer that athletes keep their mouths closed and play and let those in charge of these types of decisions to do their jobs. 

Really?

Wades, I agree with the concept of the point you were making, but if we are going to rely on those in charge, there has to be at least a minimal belief that THEY are honest. This is like saying "Just trust FIFA. They are in charge and know what they are doing."

[Pakuni]

Thought this needed to be restated.  Both Efimova's positive tests were really BS.  Meldonium and DHEA shouldn't even be banned substances.

DHEA has been shown to boost testosterone in women (but not men, interestingly enough). That's why it's banned, and that's why it matters that a female swimmer tested positive for it.

[mikekinsellaMVP]

As for yogurt, maybe I'm just giving the IOC too much credit, but i have a hard time buying the notion that it'll ever be viewed as something that could enhance athletic performance.

J.H. Kellogg disagrees.

[forgetful]

DHEA has been shown to boost testosterone in women (but not men, interestingly enough). That's why it's banned, and that's why it matters that a female swimmer tested positive for it.

The problem though is that it is in so many supplements (unlisted ingredient) that it is easy to accidentally test positive for it. 

If she really wanted to cheat she would be taking HGH or testosterone not DHEA.

[mikekinsellaMVP]

The problem though is that it is in so many supplements (unlisted ingredient) that it is easy to accidentally test positive for it.

I don't know why this made me think of it, but it sure is great to see our youngsters follow in the footsteps of the legendary Carl Lewis, speaking out against a rival's use of a banned substance.  Our athletes are fortunate to have such a great anti-doping role model.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

"As for yogurt, maybe I'm just giving the IOC too much credit, but i have a hard time buying the notion that it'll ever be viewed as something that could enhance athletic performance."

Is yogurt banned for real?  During Sochi, they were joking on sports talk radio that Chobani is a major sponsor of the US Olympic teams and the athletes can't even get it in Sochi.  Didn't realize there was some seriousness to this.