2024 Paris Olympics General (non-Basketball/Track & Field) Discussion Thread

[Slacktard]

WADA going hard on the US today.

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/news/wada-statement-reuters-story-exposing-usada-scheme-contravention-world-anti-doping-code

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) responds to a Reuters story of 7 August 2024 exposing a scheme whereby the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) allowed athletes who had doped, to compete for years, in at least one case without ever publishing or sanctioning their anti-doping rule violations, in direct contravention of the World Anti-Doping Code and USADA’s own rules.

This USADA scheme threatened the integrity of sporting competition, which the Code seeks to protect. By operating it, USADA was in clear breach of the rules. Contrary to the claims made by USADA, WADA did not sign off on this practice of permitting drug cheats to compete for years on the promise that they would try to obtain incriminating evidence against others.

Unbelievable... So there is at least one high profile Team USA athlete who recently caught using doping by USADA, but still allowed to compete. And he/she won medals and prizes without any sanctions? I really hope I am missing something here.

In the mean time, IOC is still trying to convince us how unreliable IBA is because they had one minor mistake in the execution of testing procedures during a crisis which requires a quick decision within hours.

Did not see any indication of medals.

heir case was never published, results never disqualified, prize money never returned, and no suspension ever served.

Prize money never returned, didn't say "medals" never returned... but even still this needs to be identified to remove taint by proxy from everyone else. If the reason given for the athlete (or athletes) not being identified at the time was because said athlete was giving 'inside information' on other athletes also trying to game the system illegally and identifying a positive test and suspending the athlete would have hindered those results.

If the athlete(s) are no longer competing then that reasoning IS NO LONGER VALID. They do not deserve to remain anonymous and have speculation and taint on other US Athletes as a result.

[LordCovington33]

I was wondering how an Aussie would win gold in skateboarding. Of course he is a American-Australian man that was born in San Diego - grew up in Australia and then moved back to SD when he was 14 to train.

I understand why he represents Australia though but he's as good as he is because he trains in the best place to train for Skateboarding in the world.

He has spent two-thirds of his life in Australia. Took up the sport in Australia and started competing in major competitions when he was just 8. And when he moved back at aged 14, he won the Dew Tour Am Bowl Final from the get-go. I would say his foundations were already set if he was competing locally for at least 6 years and could win an American competition from the get-go. You guys can’t take credit for that. It is alright to be disappointed since Team USA had high hopes of winning gold, but he sees himself as an Australian and sees America as a place to compete professionally against other riders.

The young girl who won the women’s skateboard park was born & lives on the Gold Coast and attends a local school offering a skateboarding program

She was a keen surfer but found the water too cold in winter so took up skateboarding

Wimp!

I live close to her and swim in the ocean most days

I am originally from the Gold Coast too

[Lalouie]

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/40771262/china-anti-doping-agency-wants-more-testing-us-athletes

what if they tested the basketball team

https://people.com/tv/lamar-odom-used-prosthetic-penis-pass-drug-test-2004-olympics/

Joking aside, here's an interesting part from the ESPN article you shared:

Citing a recent WADA statement, it said 31% of U.S. athletes were inadequately tested in the 12 months prior to the Tokyo Games.

And this is the aforementioned statement of WADA:
https://www.wada-ama.org/en/news/statement-wada-president-politicization-anti-doping-united-states

which leads me to find something related with your question:

To this day, 90% of athletes in the U.S. do not enjoy the protections provided by the World Anti-Doping Code (Code). That is because the main professional leagues and college associations refuse to be brought in under the system overseen there by the USADA.

Bonus:

Also, thanks to our cooperation with law enforcement agencies and NADOs in Europe, 300 million doses of anabolic steroids have been seized and prevented from entering the market. Data collected in this project has revealed that the U.S. is one of the world's largest markets for illicit steroids and performance-enhancing drugs.

WADA going hard on the US today.

https://www.wada-ama.org/en/news/wada-statement-reuters-story-exposing-usada-scheme-contravention-world-anti-doping-code

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) responds to a Reuters story of 7 August 2024 exposing a scheme whereby the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) allowed athletes who had doped, to compete for years, in at least one case without ever publishing or sanctioning their anti-doping rule violations, in direct contravention of the World Anti-Doping Code and USADA’s own rules.

This USADA scheme threatened the integrity of sporting competition, which the Code seeks to protect. By operating it, USADA was in clear breach of the rules. Contrary to the claims made by USADA, WADA did not sign off on this practice of permitting drug cheats to compete for years on the promise that they would try to obtain incriminating evidence against others.

And of course the whole Russian team getting banned... So there's that.. I expect them to join the fun pretty quickly

[Hoop Hunter]

I've enjoyed these Olympics more than any other. Maybe it's because I've had time to watch them, like all day everyday and half the night. I DVR one channel while flipping back and forth on another 2 or 3 channels. DirecTV.

From gymnastics to track, table tennis, rock climbing, ect. of course Basketball. I like some of the obscure stuff.

I love seeing somebody from a tiny country win a medal, especially if the country had never won one.

The women that won Gold in the 100m from a tiny little Caribbean island was really cool. Then was 2nd to Goddess Gabby Thomas in the 200m.

[DOT]

1) Did Kremlev present any physical evidence during that interview? Did he present a copy of those tests? Did he make a copy available to the press? The answer to all of those questions is no.

Yes, Kremlev does have access to the test's results. That's obvious. But since he didn't accompany his claim with any kind of physical evidence then all we have to go by is his word. That makes it an evidence-free claim and therefore opens it up to doubt.

2) As for Kremlev being liable for his statements. Liable to whom? What kind of repercussion can Kremlev face if he was to misrepresent anything?

Could he be sued for libel? Not really. Given his connections, no Russian court would ever allow that.

Could he be threatened by sponsors pulling their funds? Nope, the IBA's only sponsor is Gazprom.

Could he be threatened with repercussions towards the IBA? Nope, the IOC has already pulled their recognition of the IBA. What more can they do?

I mean, seriously, CAS ruled that the IBA should hold new elections and the IBA was like "nope, we ain't doing that". They straight up refused CAS and faced zero repercussions.

So, yeah, I don't buy this argument at all. Kremlev knows that he won't face any repercussions as long as the current political situation stands.

Your entire augmentation is disingenuous, repetitive and downright deceitful, you ignore all facts presented to you.
You lack the minimal decency to admit you're wrong, instead you just throw shades at basic facts presented to you using politics, while accusing everyone of being politically motivated.
You can bitch all you want, president of official sport organization commenting on a test his organization made is evidence, you can lie and say you don't buy it, it doesn't really matter.
I have hijacked this thread enough in attempts to reason with you, you clearly don't want to reason, but keep arguing using every dishonest tool.
I'm done with argument, this thread have been ruined enough.

lol y'all are so weird.

[California Gold]

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/40771262/china-anti-doping-agency-wants-more-testing-us-athletes

what if they tested the basketball team

Salty because they might lose the gold medal race even after they cheated in swimming.

Typical China, they'll always be in 2nd place.

[California Gold]

It feels like the Womens Water Polo team choked.

[ROballer]

Two wrestlers choked their semi finals as well, missing a shot at the gold. Watson in the speed climbing as well, that should've been a gold.

Plus the 200m in track.


Meanwhile China winning everything in Diving, Weightlifting and Table Tennis.

It's gonna go down to the wire again.

[LordCovington33]

It feels like the Womens Water Polo team choked.

They only made it to QF of the last World Cup. Australia finished 4th. Maybe they just got beaten by a better team.

[California Gold]

It feels like the Womens Water Polo team choked.

They only made it to QF of the last World Cup. Australia finished 4th. Maybe they just got beaten by a better team.

They've won the last 3 gold medals in a row. They were also a pretty decent favorite at -300 so it was an upset. They blew it in the 3rd, that's been the theme so far in the Olympics thus far with some of the heavy Team USA favs, just blowing it left and right.

[Lockdown504090]

Steph dropped his age for the dummies who think he washed lol.

Also lmk more about how bad embiid is

[shrink]

The commercials on NBC and USA during volleyball make the sport almost unwatchable.

Since it is much harder to score when a team serves, a 3-0 run can have a huge impact on a match, as well as radically change momentum. These random 3-minute commercial breaks can keep viewers from seeing the critical part of the match.

Is Peacock commercial-free, and could these poor broadcasting decisions be intentionally designed to create Peacock subscribers?

[Tacoma]

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/40771262/china-anti-doping-agency-wants-more-testing-us-athletes

what if they tested the basketball team

Salty because they might lose the gold medal race even after they cheated in swimming.

Typical China, they'll always be in 2nd place.

I have no dog in this fight but according to World Aquatics, the international governing body for swimming, China’s 31 swimmers in Paris have been tested an average of 21 times by various anti-doping agencies since the start of this year, compared with 6 times for Team USA. The guy who won the 100, Pan Zhanle, was tested 29 times, all negative.

The only "evidence" those opposing China has was a number of them tested positive prior to the 2020 Tokyo games, and Pan Zhanle was not one of them. That was more than 4 years ago. How is that relevant today?

The only other "evidence" was Pan Zhanle won by too much. Well... today, McLaughlin-Levrone of US won gold in the women's 400m hurdles, including beating Femke Bol, one of the best, by almost 2 seconds, a huge margin. Can someone now throw accusations at McLaughlin-Levrone for cheating with any evidence other than she won my too much?

[California Gold]

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/40771262/china-anti-doping-agency-wants-more-testing-us-athletes

what if they tested the basketball team

Salty because they might lose the gold medal race even after they cheated in swimming.

Typical China, they'll always be in 2nd place.

I have no dog in this fight but according to World Aquatics, the international governing body for swimming, China’s 31 swimmers in Paris have been tested an average of 21 times by various anti-doping agencies since the start of this year, compared with 6 times for Team USA. The guy who won the 100, Pan Zhanle, was tested 29 times, all negative.

The only "evidence" those opposing China has was a number of them tested positive prior to the 2020 Tokyo games, and Pan Zhanle was not one of them. That was more than 4 years ago. How is that relevant today?

The only other "evidence" was Pan Zhanle won by too much. Well... today, McLaughlin-Levrone of US won gold in the women's 400m hurdles, including beating Femke Bol, one of the best, by almost 2 seconds, a huge margin. Can someone now throw accusations at McLaughlin-Levrone for cheating with any evidence other than she won my too much?

Unlike China, the U.S. has a track record of having superior athletes in Track and Field. China still had people test positive in swimming though no? It's not completely baseless here just because of the time period. I'm not saying the entire Chinese team is cheating but the fact that they did test positive and then want to come back and bark about us getting tested is rather rich.

Like I said, they tried their best and are afraid they're going to finish behind us in Gold Medals so now they want to get salty and put out **** like this while the Olympics are still going on.

[Lalouie]

The commercials on NBC and USA during volleyball make the sport almost unwatchable.

Since it is much harder to score when a team serves, a 3-0 run can have a huge impact on a match, as well as radically change momentum. These random 3-minute commercial breaks can keep viewers from seeing the critical part of the match.

Is Peacock commercial-free, and could these poor broadcasting decisions be intentionally designed to create Peacock subscribers?

peacock in not commercial free and it is an opportunity for nba to shill their junk programming

that being said on peacock you get to watch and listen to knowledgeable announcers during the day more than you do nbc primetime hosts, which is a relief. if you have a complaint do what i do and just lower the volume to where i just get a faint noise of the theater of the sport but not loud enough to hear annoying people or commercials, like that HORRIBLE female whoever who does color for the speed climbing. she might be the most atrocious of them all

also lots of replays where they cover literally the whole event are often w/o voiceover

[bisme37]

Really proud of the USA volleyball women for grinding out a tough 5 set win over Brazil. Gold medal game vs Italy on Sunday.

[Nuntius]

As for "trying to discredit IBA testing". If that argument is directed at the IOC then fair enough, no skin off my back. If it's directed at me, allow me to reiterate once more:

Lol, no need for the rest. I am definitely addressing IOC's mismanagement of the situation by trying to question IBA's legitimacy, rather than simply saying - "whatever the test results, we proudly support Imane competing here in Paris".

Go to any well-known outlets to read about the situation and you can see how they are making the main argument as IBA's legitimacy, how awful they are, how "Russian" they are, and Gazprom is their sponsor. And now, we come to the point where everyone is repeating "he's Russian so how can he be a good person?" POV instead of the issue of competitive (dis)advantage.

Since you are addressing the IOC here and not the points I made then I don't have a lot to say here. I cannot speak for IOC or for the outlets that you are referring. What I can do is give my own POV on this which is this:

If anyone is making the claim that Kremlev is "bad" because he's Russian then there's no reason to listen to their opinions. That's a straight-up racist position after all and therefore deserves no merit. The reason why Kremlev does deserve criticism has nothing to do with his nationality. It has everything to do with his actions, his leadership and his financial ties and interests. Those are the issues, not his nationality.

And I do have to mention once more that all of these issues with Kremlev and the IBA started way before they disqualified the two athletes in question last year. This conflict isn't new and it's definitely not the result of this current controversy. This current controversy is just one more avenue in which the two conflicting sides (the IOC and the IBA, in this case) can express the hostility towards each other.

That would have been not only fair enough but also perfectly consistent with their current stance on making women's sports is an open category. They look at passport and how an athlete identifies himself/herself. Thus, when the associated country, federation send for example a trans athlete, IOC is already ok with that.

The rest is another discussion and here's a good read who shares different POVs instead of pushing an agenda in contrast to most of pieces on the subject.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/29/us/lia-thomas-women-sports.html

This particular case has nothing to do with self-identification or trans rights. That's a separate discussion altogether.

[Nuntius]

He can't share medical specifics of a such a test. At the end of the day, it is not a doping case where Imane is accused with such a misconduct. That Russian guy shouldn't have talked about this stuff in the first place. If that's the evidence we are looking for, we won't be getting these results. And we really shouldn't learn about someone's disorders and medical tests. Remember when even NBA didn't announce players actually having Covid, instead they used a reference to "health and safety protocols". For the same reason.

I know that he cannot share medical specifics. My point is that we cannot call something evidence when all we have to go by is someone's word.

Notice that now that a third party (Alan Abrahamson) has independently verified that they have seen these results and also updated the IBA's updated criteria, I have no issue considering that evidence enough of the claim.

I have been very clear on this from the get go. I simply wanted some more evidence that would corroborate Kremlev's interview. Simply taking someone at their word isn't evidence-based reasoning. I have been harping on that point quite a lot in this thread but that's also because it took around 600 posts until someone finally procured some independent verification

IBA does testing regularly, like every other time, and their testing is often accepted by other prominent organizations, including IOC. Already said it multiple times in this thread, recently a Turkish boxer is barred from Olympics based on IBA's testing which is still an open case.

https://www.iba.sport/news/iba-and-ita-celebrate-five-years-of-anti-doping-cooperation/
https://olympics.com/ioc/fight-against-doping/ita

Thus, IBA finds ICO testing reliable, because of the involvement of prominent organization: ITA. Therefore, the problem here is not whether the tests are real, or manufactured by one corrupt Russian. The actual problem here, IOC is against gender testing. Otherwise, IOC can EASILY verify whether that the tests from that corrupt organization who let Russian boxers in their organizations is indeed correct. Again, if their testing is correct, IOC still does not see it as a reason to bar Imane. Why?

IOC openly supports the inclusion of trans athletes in women's sports and I don't know if we can really assume they think different when it comes to SDSs and intersex athletes. Thus, trying to discredit IBA and their testing is meaningless, and moving the goal post with a speed of a 100m runner. Btw, it is a completely different discussion, I am just talking about how IOC is mismanages the process from day one instead of addressing the issue. They had committees getting tons of money for years just to develop policies proactively. At this point, I feel for Imane and think this situation is escalated because of IOC was trying to avoid their responsibilities to create a fair competitive environment by making vague statements to discredit IBA's testing. The problem was never IBA's testing. It is not IBA's testing today.

Yes, the IOC is against gender testing. That is pretty obvious. They've said it themselves that they do not want to go back to the dark days of sex testing. Based on the available medical information, I happen to agree with this stance. And, yeah, the IOC would definitely have no issue with the inclusion of intersex athletes. That is pretty easy to surmise as well.

As for "trying to discredit IBA testing". If that argument is directed at the IOC then fair enough, no skin off my back. If it's directed at me, allow me to reiterate once more:

My issue has always been that the IBA's official communication made no mention of chromosome testing and that this whole issue was started by the President's comments that couldn't be verified. That's it. We were asked to take Kremlev at his word and, personally, I'm not keen on doing that. That's where this whole discussion about whether the IBA is credible or not started. It essentially loops back to what I said at the start. Taking someone at their word isn't evidence-based reasoning.

Ok I’ll ask you what I asked someone else a few pages back.

If an XY chromosome test could be proven to be accurate and authentic to YOUR STANDARDS would you believe that test alone to be sufficient enough reason for that fighter to be banned from participating in women’s Olympic boxing?

If the answer to that question is “no” or “I don’t know” then anything about Russian Corruption is meaningless as the results of the test are meaningless to you anyways.

I

Allow me to clarify something:

The reason why I wasn't willing to accept the claim that Kremlev made in that interview as a fact was because it lacked verification. It lacked corroborative evidence. The claim itself was absent from any and all official IBA statements on the topic in question. Now, I do understand why IBA statements on the topic were vague (medical privacy reasons). It makes sense that they were vague. But the fact remains that until that Abrahamson article there was nothing to corroborate Kremlev's statement so, no, I wasn't going to accept that claim as a fact without corroboration.

And I do have to note that this attitude of mine isn't specific to Kremlev or even this particular topic. We live in a time full of disinformation and fake news. We live in a time where politicians are trying to create "post-truth" narratives. So, no, I'm not going to take anyone's claim as a fact without further corroboration. Not Kremlev's nor anyone else's. That's just how I have personally chosen to approach information in this day and age. This is also why I try to verify the claims I make in all these threads before I actually make them. And when I screw up (like I did earlier in this thread with Chris Roberts), I admit that I screwed up and apologize for it.

So, "Russian Corruption" wasn't the reason why I didn't accept the claim as a fact from the start. I wouldn't have accept it as a fact without any corroborative evidence anyway. All the corruption around the IBA and Kremlev definitely didn't help, of course, but it wasn't the reason why.

Now, to the question about whether a XY chromosome test would be enough to disqualify someone from the competition:

In the absence of a scientific consensus on the subject matter, my answer to this is no. Since we are talking about intersex people here and we already know that, depending on the intersex condition, the way that their testosterone and androgen receptors work is not the same way they work for non-intersex people, I do not believe that there is enough evidence that their chromosomes and testosterone levels give them an unfair advantage over the competition.

I believe that we need proof that someone actually has an unfair advantage over the competition before denying them the chance to compete. We cannot pre-emptively disqualify someone without enough scientific evidence that supports that disqualification.

[JustBuzzin]

Noah Lyles is a goofball.

[Nuntius]

And speaking on the particular case that triggered this discussion, Imane Khelif and Lin Yu-ting, I do not believe that their records are good enough to constitute an outlier. Therefore, it doesn't appear evident to me that they have an unfair advantage.

So first, I appreciated your other post recognizing my lack of stubbornness.

Now, this might be a bit of a backslide here, but I'll say a few things on the part in bold.

1. I think it's understandable in theory to say "Hey, until we see people from Type B dominate people from Type A, there is not sufficient evidence to conclude fundamental advantage." The tricky thing then is what you do when Type B people begin to dominate.

If you ban them from competing with A at that point, then you're basically saying "You were only allowed to compete as long as you didn't win." That's not good.

If you don't ban them then, then the prior use of logic is reveled to have been disingenuous. That's not good either.

2. I think it's important to be thinking statistically when considering what an advantage should be expected to look like. There are surely 120 lb women who can beat some 120 lb men and basically any sport, but no one thinks this is a reason the sexes shouldn't be separated in competition. Why? Well there are many ways to answer this, but when we're talking about something like the Olympics we're not interested in competition between randos, we're interested in the absolute peak of what humans are capable of. And if we expect that the two categories are going to have to clearly differing peaks, we either separate them, or we know that one group will dominate.

I think this should be kept in mind as we consider intersex conditions, we're not talking about 50% of the population, we're talking about quite rare conditions. Quite possibly more like .005% of the population. Now, if every person on Earth devoted themselves to training to compete in a particular sport, a .005% group is more than enough for that group to dominate competition.

But of course, most people don't devote themselves to compete in a particular sport, and in general women are historically considerably less likely to be trained as athletes.

So I think we have to consider that it's possible that a .005% group is too small given the lack of importance of sport for us to know that such a group doesn't have an advantage.

And of course, that .005% number is not a real measure, just something I'm typing. It's entirely possible that if we were to break things into sub-sub-types, there are particular phyla that are way more rare than that. How are we to make performance-based judgments on such ultra-rare groups?

3. So yeah, all of this gets me back to the 3 possible approach as I see them:

A) We go by agreed upon physical traits that we know have no direct impact on performance - such as the existence of external female genitalia.

B) We go by agreed upon chemical traits that scientists conclude are likely to impact performance - such as testosterone levels.

C) We use an agreed upon hybrid model with both physical and chemical traits.

(A) has the advantage of being something we know we can do coherently, and it is the kindest to the athletes in question, but the disadvantage of not actually being the competitive reason why it makes sense to split categories.

Once again, you are making fair points here.

Point #1, in particular, is a point that I cannot contest. You are correct here. We cannot allow someone to compete and only disqualify them when they start winning. That is indeed not the right way to approach this.

As for point #2, the performance-based judgements could be made on a theoritical case-by-case basis. Rules that disqualify athletes based on the testosterone levels on their blood already essentialy make determinations on a case-by-case basis as those levels vary between individuals (and it's why athletes like Mboma were allowed to compete while others haven't been allowed back). But, again, a performance-based judgement would run into the same issues of point #1.

Here is my issue with point #3, though. It is this specific part:

B) We go by agreed upon chemical traits that scientists conclude are likely to impact performance - such as testosterone levels.

Is there a scientific consensus on whether elevated testosterone levels in intersex individuals are likely to impact their athletic performance? Afaik, there isn't any. I don't even know if there have been enough studies on intersex athletes so that the scientific community can start working towards a conclusion on the subject matter.

Because it's just like you said. Intersex conditions are rare. Sometimes, these conditions are even difficult to identify and an intersex individual may only learn about their condition much later in life. Since all of us have been brought up in this male/female binary it's often hard to imagine that exceptions to this can exist. But they do exist. And they should be treated equally.

Therefore, this is the approach that I would take:

Allow them to compete until there is a scientific consensus that their particular condition gives them an unfair advantage.