Russia has been banned yet again from competing at the Olympic Games next year in Tokyo. I did a post about two months ago that this was probably the most likely outcome. Banning an entire county doesn't mean it will be a clean games though and is more of a smoke screen than the real truth. I blame the Olympic Committee and whoever is in charge of the IOC for it getting to this point.
source
When records are smashed especially when those records have stood longer than 20 years questions and suspicions will be raised. There are around 45 records under suspicion from dirty runners and will most likely be beaten by the modern dirty runners.
When the documentary Icarus was being filmed there was one very uncomfortable moment for the heads of the Olympic Committee when they filmed a discussion ion the board room. The discussion was based on how an athlete can be seen to be clean yet they aren't. The people around the table were a bit put out by this as it basically said they were kidding themselves and the rest of the world with what they were doing. They knew what the general public had been thinking and have tried to cover it up with the odd banning of someone ever since. They have been trying to save a movement that has lost it's way many years ago and it is destined for the scrap heap.
Technology has moved so far ahead with cheating that the do gooders have been left in it's wake and are not able to keep up. The Olympic Games wants World records as it is good for their image, but surely their image is already tarnished by how many athletes who weren't caught at the time and have now been proven to have cheated. Every record that is miraculously beaten these days has to be under severe scrutiny. A simple blood test testing A and B samples is just not good enough anymore as it has been proven this method does not work. The amount of money the Olympics generates surely they could spend money on technology to get ahead of the cheating scientists. The real answer is they know the answer already and that there is no clean athletes left anymore which is not good for their "sport" or "business".
The problem the testers now have is that blood can be stored and reintroduced to the body at a later time covering up whatever special treatments the athletes have been on. The cheating scientists know exactly when to introduce the steroids so that when tests are done they don't show up. Until one of the cheating scientists switch sides they (the testers) have no chance of catching the steroid abusers until way after the games have been completed and it could be many years down the line.
Imagine the stink it would cause now if Usain Bolt was proven to have been on steroids and his world record wasn't genuine. This wouldn't be good for the sport and would chase fans away. I look at athletes today and everyone has a question mark over their heads. If an athlete has to perform against another athlete on steroids then he has to as well as there is very little chance that he can win.
A prime example is Florence Griffith-Joyner breaking the World record in the 200 m beating the old record by 0.28 seconds set by the queen of dope Marion Jones. What chance does a clean athlete have of achieving these times and there is a call to wipe the slate clean and delete all records set before 2005.
source
World Record still stands and is the longest record in track and field to not be beaten. It was common knowledge their was a state sponsored doping program yet her tests all came back negative.
Russia had a chance to come clean as part of their deal to come back into the Olympic fold and failed. They hid test result sand only gave back a small percentage that were clean. The deal was that they hand over all the data and that included the dirty athletes as well as the clean ones.
After watching Icarus the chances of having a clean athlete who has been performing since the mid 80's is probably very unrealistic. This program hasn't just happened over night and has been around for decades already. The banning has to be because it was backed and run by the government and not by the individual athletes themselves.
Surely it is time for the Olympic Committee and the IOC to do more than they have been as it is destroying what the games stood for. At this rate there won't be an Olympic Games to watch and everyone will just walk away. I read somewhere that the Eastern Bloc introduced steroids for the 1976 games and have been doing it ever since. That means that for 44 years the Olympic Committee has not been able to stop it's growth. I think you will find many of the athletes who work for the Olympic committee were part of the problem themselves as they are normally the bigger names in the sport.
