Russian Track and Field Team Barred from Rio Olympics | Hacker News Reader

Russian Track and Field Team Barred from Rio Olympics

nytimes.com

54 pointsgk153 comments

Russia’s track and field team has been barred from competing in this summer’s Rio Games because of a far-reaching doping conspiracy, an extraordinary punishment that might be without precedent in Olympics history

off topic, but wow what a great opening to this article. It actually gets to the point in first sentence, and second sentence (not quoted here) states most important implications and how this news came to be. Reader has the option to keep reading to get more background. This is so crisp and refreshing compared to other articles that feel the need to start with some opening warm up that will get you to the point 1/3 of the way in.

I agree, I am often surprised(not as often as I'd like!) When articles give me the important details first, then go into an in-depth explanation.

I truly wish it was the standard :s

I'm at a bit of loss when it comes to being able to care. Maybe for the athletes that were possibly forced into doping, but otherwise, this is a power struggle between an incredibly corrupt state actor and an incredibly corrupt IOC.

Besides, if the condition reports out of Rio are to be believed (and I see no reason not to) it's not the worst thing to stay home.

http://espn.go.com/espn/feature/story/_/id/14791849/trash-co...

I that for any athlete, being forced out of an olympics is quite a disaster. You only have a few options within the time you are at your best, maybe two or three. I'm not saying that it is unjustified. But you can't just replace competing at the olympics with, say, a world championship.

If I read the article correctly, this isn't the IOC that is imposing the ban.

It's the IAAF, and for which the IOC needs to comply with.

From a different source, the IOC (with IAAF's blessing?) was considering allowing individual Russian Athletes to file an appeal, on the basis that punishing one athlete for the behavior of another is not justice.

I'm struggling to come up with a governing sports body that isn't corrupt on some level.

As a fan of US professional sports, I've yet to come across an athletic association that wasn't mired in some level of controversy endemic to the organization.

High school athletic programs, and even little league baseball have problems with "corruption."

This is interesting. Doping is really common in a lot of other sports too, weightlifting being the one I personally care about.

The IAAF banned Russia not the IOC. I don't like that this is being enforced inconsistently so I'm curious what the IOC will do. It doesn't make sense to me to ban Russia who was doping, and not the other countries who were doping, and not the other sports where Russia is doping.

I'm at a loss for what should be done about doping. Should it should be accepted, whether we should continue how we have it (you must at least try to cheat well), or whether we should become less strict. Because it's currently very easy to cheat depending on your country.

This whole doping scandal explains why Russia won so many medals (gold in particular) at the last Olympics after a long decline.

2014: 33 (13 gold)

2010: 15 (3 gold)

2006: 22 (8 gold)

2002: 13 (5 gold)

1998: 18 (9 gold)

1994: 23 (11 gold)

We also have a dead head of the anti-doping committee (Nikita Kamayev), and a dead ex-head of the same committee (Vyacheslav Sinev), both suspiciously dead within two weeks.

http://www.unian.info/world/1264887-two-senior-ex-officials-...

Russian athletes have been dropping like flies since the beginning of the year.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/10/sports/tennis/meldonium-ru...

http://www.thehockeynews.com/blog/doping-scandal-sees-entire...

> The medication (Meldonium), which is manufactured by a single Latvian company named Grindeks. It helps improve exercise capacity in patients, as well as in healthy individuals and athletes. However, it is only available in the Russian Federation or the former Soviet Bloc nations such as Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus and Armenia.

Just make doping legal.

Everyone does it with varying levels of sophistication. Russians got caught this time.

EDIT: this post is more about me playing devil's advocate then my actual opinion. Olympics has become more about being the best evader of anti-doping procedure or using the "correct" enhancers then about actually making everyone not abuse ANY performance enhancers.

Then you're basically forcing athletes that don't want to dope to do-so in order to remain competitive. I don't think that's fair.

Have 2 different leagues or events or whatever, the naturals and the enhanced.

Should we then also make Adderal legal to be used at work?

Isn't it as long as you get a prescription?

The GPs point is that it is a stimulant that increases performance at the cost of heart health. Were we to make it legal while at work, people who were working without it would be at a disadvantage, prompting a "normal" worker to increase productivity at the expense of their health.

Aaaabd you're back to broblem no 1

People have shown that they'll just watch the one where people have higher performance. Not too many people care about the health of the athletes. Just take a look at football.

Also, I would prefer if we applied ethical considerations across the board.

We already see countries/coaches/teams pressing athletes to use performance enhancing drugs.

This exists in bodybuilding. The naturals are on more moderate steroid doses.

AND forcing the athletes that biologically don't have to dope in order to win.

GP's point is that there are no athletes on this level who don't want to dope.

Replace "doping" with "training"... How is your argument changed?

Training doesn't have lifelong implications on mortality. If anything, remaining fit and active throughout your youth is probably a good thing. Sure there will be sports injuries, but those typically do not cause premature death.

Extreme exercise does have negative health effects. Here is one random discussion with some study links (found from a quick search):

http://www.drjohnm.org/2012/06/cw-its-settled-long-term-extr...

These all focus on long endeavors (over 3 hours) which is not very relevant for the majority of the Olympics.

Any athlete aiming for an olympic medal right now is already basically forced to do-so to remain competitive.

As opposed to forcing athletes that don't want to train to do-so in order to remain competitive?!

In the end, sports competition have exactly 0 purpose in this world except for entertainment and personal feeling superiority.

It seems like somehow you've forgotten that athletes are people. And that athletes who are taking performance enhancing drugs face the adverse effects of these drugs.

No, I haven't... Exactly because they're people, that means they have agency; they can choose whether to take the drugs or not, just like everybody else!

Agency is such a ridiculous argument that's been used to promote exploitation for ages. Black people just choose to participate in sharecropping, Chinese women just choose to bind their feet, women just choose to be prostitutes who get murdered at 4 times the rate of the next most dangerous jobs. It's only in retrospect that we view these as atrocities

And to pretend that this is some vacuum that athletes are making this decision in is ridiculous. Allowing steroids in competition means that you have to use steroids to compete. Were you capable of making these types of decisions as a child? Do we allow children to harm themselves or do we condemn it? Should we allow adults to do this when there is a very clear external factor that motivates them?

There's a big difference between someone doing a lousy, menial, humiliating or dangerous job to survive, and an athlete striving to be even better by taking drugs.

Well here they're also forcing innocent athletes to be barred from a competition because of corruption within the only athletics organization available to them.

An Olympic season is one of maybe 3 or 4 that some of these athletes have available to them to make their mark. Taking even one of those away from them can irreparably set back their career.

Yes, let's force people to take horribly damaging drugs in order to compete. Including women -- because taking cross-sex hormones isn't terrible for your health at all.

The problem with that is that you could take doping to dangerous extremes once legalised, and professional sport will become an unhealthy occupation as opposed to being inspirational for many around the world. Only those willing to sacrifice a normal healthy life for short term performance will win.

*Maybe. We'll know on Tuesday.

I am kinda surprised, since the Russians seem to have been cooperative with everything the IAAF asked them to do.

Olympics since cold-war era has been show for high-tech steroid uses. Some get caught but the best ones not.

The article talks about 'track and field', which isn't a term I've ever heard before. It's the athletics team that's been banned isn't it? The article even sounds confused that 'track and field' is administered by an organisation called 'International Association of Athletics Federations', which could have been a clue that the name was wrong.

Track and field is the American English term for what you're calling "athletics".

In the United States at least, "track and field" refers to what other countries might call "athletics" (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_and_field). The term "athletics" in the US would more often be used to refer to sports in general.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_and_field

According to wikipedia athletics covers a few more sports:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_of_athletics

However, the dictionary definition of athletics is "physical sports and games of any kind". That definition makes more sense, because football teams have the word athletic in their name (e.g. "Charlton Athletic"), and the word "athlete" is typically used for any type of sports-person.

In the US, "athletics" is usually called "track and field". Here we have "USA Track & Field" as our governing body.

Track and Field is the common umbrella term for basically the sports that happen in the Olympic stadium: running, throwing, jumping, etc. i.e. the events that involve running on a "track" and doing activities in a "field".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Track_and_field

This is true, but the narrow, international definition of "athletics" (which Wikipedia calls "Sport of athletics") apparently includes road running, cross country running, and race walking. These are often not considered to fall under the term "track and field".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sport_of_athletics

At least here in Canada the term "track and field" is used to refer in general to running, jumping and throwing athletic sports.

In the US "Athletics" is generally understood to be any sport that is athletic. The "Athletics Department" at a school oversees Swimming, Squash, Football, Basketball, etc. Track & Field is a specific sport for which a school would compete: while individuals win their Track or Field competitions, the school gets points for each individual competition. This may not be how the terms are viewed outside the US, though. But high schools will have "Track & Field season", usually in the spring, which is when they have their meets.

At this level of sport, everyone is doping. Whether or not that is moral is another question, but if you want to be the best, you have to do it. It is just a matter of who can hide it best, might as well stop regulating it so they can focus on the sport.

"In general, nations have been barred because of geopolitical considerations, not doping"

Right, because doping really is the sole reason for banning Russia from the games and geopolitical considerations have nothing to do with this decision at all.

Did you miss the part where it's only the Track and Field team? Russian athletes will still participate in many other events.

Have you read about the sophistication of Russia's doping program? Its unprecedented.

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