Dirty Olympics ?!

[Rach3]

From AxiosPM tonight:

The world's Olympic athletes weren't subjected to the usual rigorous anti-doping regime over the 16-month period before the Tokyo Games, which open tomorrow, Axios' Erin Doherty writes.

For three months early in the pandemic, virtually all drug-testing programs were suspended. That may have opened the door for athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs, AP notes.

There was a 45% reduction in testing globally in 2020 compared with 2019, according to the World Anti-Doping Agency.

"Unless you’re a fool, you’d have to be concerned," said Travis Tygart, CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency.

Between the lines: Track and field has seen a slew of personal bests in addition to NCAA, national and even world records over the past year-plus.

[Rach3]

From "Men Yell At ME" today:

Welcome to the cursed Olympics.

The Olympic Games were conceived as a way to display virulent nationalism and also somehow come together as a world community. Consequently, despite the over-the-top marketing, they have never truly been able to transcend the politics and problems that plague the globe. There are so many things wrong with the Olympics and they haven’t even started. Let’s make a list.

In the run-up to the 2021 Games, the Olympic Committee banned track star and gold-medal favorite Sha’Carri Richardson for testing positive for marijuana use.

Black simmers are not allowed to wear swim caps designed for their hair.

Becca Meyers, a deaf-blind Paralympian, quit the games after she was denied her request to bring her mother as a personal caregiver.

The Norwegian women’s beach handball team was fined for the crime of not showing their entire asses and insisting on wearing shorts.

Oh, but good news, the Olympics decided moms who are nursing can bring their babies. Thanks for your permission. Oh, wait, what’s that? They still have to find their own childcare? And nursing babies can’t stay with their mothers? Great. Great system you got there. It’s not like it’s racist or sexist or ableist in any way.

But don’t worry, the Olympics also discriminates along class lines! Most athletes have to crowdfund their Olympic hopes and dreams. And so many barely make it.

Also, hosting the Games absolutely destroys cities financially. Just ruins them.

And there are the cardboard beds. Which aren’t anti-sex beds, but still look absolutely terrible for sleeping.

No, wait. Don’t forget the actual pandemic. The novel and deadly virus is still out there, and it’s infecting athletes left and right.

Instead of peace and love and harmony, the Olympics are spreading death sprinkled with a dash of sexism, racism, and ableism.

At this point, we have to ask ourselves, what is right with the Olympics? Did the Olympics pick up a cursed monkey paw? Did the Olympics open a mummy’s tomb thereby condemning them to a life of pain and pestilence? Did the Olympics wear the Hope Diamond? Did the Olympics shout “Macbeth!” inside a theater?

You could tell me that the Olympics stole the Lindbergh baby and I’d believe it.

Natalie Shure, writing for The New Republic, sums it all up very nicely:

“Boil down all the sanctimonious drivel about how edifying the games are, and you’re left with the unavoidable truth: The Olympics wreck lives. I may not be the world’s biggest sports fan, but if massive biannual musical theater festivals were diverting resources from social services and wiping out entire neighborhoods, I’d be screaming bloody murder about it. The Tokyo Games should be canceled—but if not, they ought to be the last ones any of us ever see.”