6 August 2021

Olympics

You may have noticed that the thirty second Olympic Games are reaching their conclusion in Tokyo, Japan. There's a lot that might be said about these games including discussion about whether or not they should have even gone ahead. 

Here on  the island of Britain, the BBC have always provided comprehensive Olympic coverage but this time round the International Olympic Committee have in their wisdom managed to severely reduce the number of hours of live screening available to our principal national broadcaster. These days it's becoming all about the money.

Olympians normally represent their countries but this year a team of native Russians are instead representing something called "The Russian Olympic Committee" or R.O.C.. You may recall that in 2019 the World Doping Agency banned Russia from all international sport.  Afterwards Russian appeals saw reduction of the punishment in a murky quagmire of compromise.

And so we arrive at the Tokyo Olympics. You must understand that Russia is not competing but all the athletes selected to represent the R.O.C. would have represented Russia. The arrangement stinks. Currently the R.O.C. have won sixty two medals including seventeen golds. It is not known how many R.O.C. competitors were involved in past doping programmes.

R.O.C. sports gear is styled in the red, white and blue colours of the Russian flag. It seems that the two main effects of The World Doping Agency ruling are that the Russian national anthem cannot be played at The Olympics and the Russian athletes must not say that they are competing for Russia - even though they obviously are.

What is this doing to stamp out national doping schemes? Privately, Vladimir Putin must be guffawing with delight... "Faster, Higher, Stronger and More Cunning".

34 comments:

  1. Watch out for the random doping tests for country walkers.

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  2. Rolling my eyes. I can't stand being treated like a dummy or the idea of Putin smirking. My house guests don't believe in screen time for the baby, so the TV hasn't been on. I usually watch some of the Olympics, but not this time. Perhaps it was a good one to skip?

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    1. There have been some great performances. I have seen quite a few of them.

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  3. I wonder what the ancient Greeks had going during their Olympics? I imagine there must have been a few schemes and scams even then.

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    1. Maybe they slipped some sprigs of hemlock into competitors' drinking water.

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  4. Across the pond, we have at least four channels of Olympics, three of which are non-stop and one that shows the important ones with our countrymen win medals. Beyond that, the internet coverage has video clips of most of the events with cameras present up for a period of time. More than I care to watch.

    I've been pondering the Russia/ROC team as well. But unless I missed something, there are a lot of events where Russia/ROC hasn't been present much. I saw only a handful in the swimming events and I'm not sure I've seen any on the track yet. Mostly I have seem them in gymnastics. But perhaps they just haven't been flashy because 60+ medals is quite a haul.

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    1. Putin told them to avoid triumphalism and just keep stacking the medals up.

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  5. I went off the Olympics when they dropped the Poetry competitors.

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    1. And it's Northsider for Ireland! He's nailing it! Rhyming couplet after rhyming couplet! And I don't believe it! He's using assonance! It's incredible! The French poet Pierre Le Merdre is trailing way back in second place with his sonnet. He will never catch Northsider! It's gold for Ireland!

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    2. LOL at both of you

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  6. I suspect that Ed is Canadian as I am enjoying so much TV coverage that might remote has been getting a real workout - plus I can livestream other events from my computer!! I am exhausted. I get up at 6am and watch to about 10am for same day evening events - I can catch up on anything I missed during the day and then from 6pm to 10pm I can watch the next morning's events Tokyo time live! I will catch up on my sleep later in the month!

    ROC is a joke! The IOC are wimps! I don't hold with all athletes being punished for a few but this has been going on for years now and a better solution should have been found - especially with having an extra year!

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    1. Ed is from Iowa which is short for " I owe a dollar!" Sounds like you are in the Olympic TV marathon Margie! Gold for Canada!

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  7. Anonymous12:34 am

    Someone had to explain to me what ROC is. To use a couple of well worn expressions, What a load of .... and, If it looks like a duck.....

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    1. Oh dearie me! You Australian chappies can be rather coarse!

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  8. I'm sorry for what I'm about to do, which is veer off from your main point about the ROC, but I don't watch any of the Olympics, so all I want to say is that when I read your first line I thought you were describing the length of the Games and that I had missed something huge! (the phrase was "the thirty second Olympic Games")

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    1. You may require intense coaching to bolster your sports knowledge.

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    2. I shall now belabour the point in case you didn't get it the first time - picture the Olympics taking only thirty seconds to complete :) My bad, of course; I wasn't crystal clear - ha ha

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    3. Ha-ha! Now I get you Jenny. I was a bit slow on the uptake.

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  9. The Olympics are always controversial.

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    1. That's a controversial thing to say Red!

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  10. Sport is not my cup of tea, so the whole affair has passed me by. The 'wriggle' room that is applied to any world event is not surprising though.

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    1. There's still time for you to launch a successful career in women's weightlifting Thelma. Paris 2024.

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  11. Over the years the games have become ever more entrenched in politics, illegal tactics, and outright violence - let's not forget the year Israeli competitors were killed. The whole thing has become a mockery, and the original concept of the games has been lost.

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    1. Why on earth has squash never figured in The Olympics? Skateboarding and surfing but never squash! A nice pint of cold orange squash is very refreshing when you are hot.

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  12. The olympics have not really been of any interest to me since the 1984 ones in L.A., when I was 16 years old and gathered around the TV with my girlfriends, all of us drooling over Carl Lewis.

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    1. I hope you had tissues to wipe up the drool!

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  13. I hate watching sport almost as much as I hate doing it. Yay, someone can run. Yay, someone can jump in the air. Yay, someone can ride a bike. Yay, someone can swim. This last two weeks has been purgatory. I'll be glad when it's all over for another three years. O wait - there are the winter Olympics in 2 years. Yay, someone can ski. Grrrrr.

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    1. Please stop calling me Yay! My name is Yorkshire Pudding or Neil to those who know me.

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    2. ADDY has pretty much summed up my feelings about sports :D

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  14. No doubt after the games are over, Russia will claim victory for all their athletes, and the ROC will be forgotten (until it's next needed).

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Mr Pudding welcomes all genuine comments - even those with which he disagrees. However, puerile or abusive comments from anonymous contributors will continue to be given the short shrift they deserve. Any spam comments that get through Google/Blogger defences will also be quickly deleted.

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