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The Tokyo Olympic Games


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I just can't understand how at some point in the process there wasn't an adult in the room to say "wait....we can't ban non doping ladies for their naturally produced physiological status."

If there's no artificial enhancements then there should be no rules violation. Where we've landed now is akin to something like telling a Wilt Chamberlain he's ineligible for being too tall. It's farcical.

Again, was an adult not available to stop these people?

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11 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Where we've landed now is akin to something like telling a Wilt Chamberlain he's ineligible for being too tall.

That's a pretty funny example considering the NBA did literally change the rules and widen the lane because of Wilt Chamberlain.

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22 minutes ago, DMC said:

That's a pretty funny example considering the NBA did literally change the rules and widen the lane because of Wilt Chamberlain.

True, however they didn't go as far as disqualifying him from competition.

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Natural unfairness > unnatural fairness IMO. Athletes always run the risk of not being the greatest of their generation, simply because someone with a better baseline, who train just as hard as everyone else, happen to exist in the same era.

Also, where do we stand* on testosterone replacement therapy for ageing male athletes who genuinely produced lots of testosterone in their early career, but now see diminishing returns through no fault of their own other than age? I remember when the UFC briefly allowed TRT for some of their fading stars, and it certainly had the desired effect, and more. (Ubereem, Vitor Belfort V2.0...)

*Needless to say, I'm not in favor.

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Just saw this article on The Ringer emphasizing that sports organizations banning marijuana (and other recreational drugs) has always been not only purely cosmetic, but much more malicious than benign:

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By the 1990s, supercharged by the Clinton-era incarceration boom and the prevalence of the gateway drug myth, the NCAA, NFL, and NBA had all outlawed marijuana and were testing for it on at least a semi-regular basis. It wasn’t until then that the IOC added marijuana to its list of banned substances. Then–U.S. director of national drug policy Barry McCaffrey pushed for it as a stipulation for a $1 million government donation to the group. The IOC had been measuring cannabis usage for years, but according to its anti-drug head at the time, Belgian Prince Alexandre de Mérode, the organization viewed it as an “educative measure … not doping.” In a recent Washington Post report, Dick Pound, an IOC member and cofounder of WADA, recalled McCaffrey’s efforts to outlaw marijuana in international competition:

Pound remembered McCaffrey’s office as being “insistent” on keeping marijuana on the banned list. “Barry McCaffrey was very much committed to keeping marijuana there,” he said.

In a 1998 statement announcing the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s contribution to WADA, McCaffrey was transparent about his hopes. “We raise Olympic athletes up on international pedestals for all the world’s children to look up to as role models—it is vital that the message they send is drug-free,” he wrote in a memo to the IOC. “The goal of this whole effort must be to prevent Olympic medals and the Olympic movement from being tarnished by drugs.” This was nearly identical to former NBA commissioner David Stern’s explanation of what he sought from a marijuana screening policy in 2000. He said that he wanted to “clean up the image of the league.”

Emphasis mine.  For those unfamiliar with McCaffrey, following his stint as Clinton's drug czar he's been a fixture on NBC/MSNBC as an asshole "military analyst" for twenty years now.  Before that, Seymour Hersh reported during the Gulf War he ordered US troops to kill retreating Iraqi soldiers after a ceasefire was announced, particularly at the Battle of Rumaila.

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24 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

@Ran, just out of curiosity, are the Olympics just going to be covered in a single thread or will there be a sub-forum like with the major soccer tournaments? 

Ask and ye shall receive.

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Looking forward to the Weightlifting competition - an event that's free of controversy I'm sure.

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A Reduced Competition. This year's comp has a competitor cap of 196, down from 282 in Rio. The cap for Paris in 2024 is even lower - 120, and that's if weightlifting is accepted for Paris (the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is losing its patience with the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF)'s ongoing corruption and management issues).

The IWF has been using its revamped 10 weight categories per gender division for the last few years, however the IOC has only accepted 7 of these weight categories per division this year. So 196 athletes distributed across 14 weight categories gives a cap of 14 athletes competing in each category. Furthermore, there are continental and national quotas limiting the number of athletes countries can send, the maximum being 8 for any one country. Only 4 countries have managed to qualify the maximum 8 athletes; China, the USA, North Korea and Columbia. North Korea has decided (due to Covid-19) not send any athletes, and Columbia was facing a ban recommended by the ITA but somehow has done a deal allowing them to send 3 athletes instead of 8.

What does this mean? It means countries with top-tier athletes are only selecting the ones they believe have the best chance of a Gold medal. So for the most part the competition for Gold should showcase the top ranked and very best lifter for that category currently in the world. The competition for the minor medals though, will be missing many who are ranked higher than those attending these games, but should actually be just as competitive. 

The elephant in the room with weightlifting as a sport, and especially at the Olympics, is its history of drug use. https://www.iwf.net/category/anti-doping-news/

https://www.iwf.net/anti-doping/sanctions/

I hope the broadcast angle is optimised. Not directly in front, that's a terrible angle to appreciate the lift from, but from about 45deg from the front and at floor level. There are so many great lifters to look out for in both divisions. All eight of the Chinese lifters are in good recent form that they get close to getting 8 golds.

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I'm looking forward to all the categories with these in mind.

In the Men's Divisions. Lu Xiaojun, the goat, in the 81kg for the snatch and total. It all comes down to him getting his first snatch lift, and then first C&J posted as he has a history of missing those.  

Meso Hassouna looks good for gold in the 96kg with the absence of Li Dayin. This is a shame since these two head to head would've pushed each other. Meso has shown himself to be a clutch lifter when its on the line, but unfortunately Li not attending is due to the country cap and that of China only selecting a surer chance of gold.   
 
In the Women's Divisions. Kuo Hsing-Chun of the country of Taiwan should be an absolute lock for the gold in the women's 59kg. She has arguably the best technical form in the business, love watching her lift.

The women's +87kg category should go easily to Li Wenwen, the world record holder. The USA's Sarah Robles is probably favoured to take that silver. The contest for bronze though, depending on who's peaking and how the early lifts go looks like a decent battle between Lee Seon Mi of KOR, Veronica Saladin Tolentino of DOM, Emily Campbell of GBR and Laurel Hubbard of NZL.

Finally - Lasha Talakhadze hopefully setting World Records in all three medal sections of the men's +109kg. we may well see a +225kg Snatch lift, a +266kg Clean & Jerk, and finally a 500kg total! To achieve the latter, he could do it with a 230kg snatch + 270kg C&J or similar combination.

 

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The tv coverage in the UK isn't great this time I have to say. The BBC are showing one sport and there's another one on the red button. I seem to remember, at least for the last couple of Olympics, you could pretty much watch all the sports on the red button. On top of that because it's all just one programme I can't record any of the sports that are on in the early morning. It's a bit annoying.

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2 hours ago, ljkeane said:

The tv coverage in the UK isn't great this time I have to say. The BBC are showing one sport and there's another one on the red button. I seem to remember, at least for the last couple of Olympics, you could pretty much watch all the sports on the red button. On top of that because it's all just one programme I can't record any of the sports that are on in the early morning. It's a bit annoying.

Agreed, really disappointing.

For London, they had BBC1, BBC3 and BBC4 covering the best events and about 8-10 RB channels with literally everything being broadcast.

IIRC for Rio it was down to about 6 RB channels + BBC1, and now we're down to just the 2 options, only really covering British interestans not all of that.

 

Don't have the energy to find out, (grief, and not missing anything I'm explicitly interested in, except the first half of Ire v RSA hockey) but I'd hope it's better on iPlayer, or at least that the organisers and live streaming on YouTube or something.

 

You'd think that increased tech would lead to increased coverage (allowing that being host broadcaster would be different).

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Okay its because the Americans bought the European rights, and shoved them behind a paywall!

https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/24/why-bbc-cant-show-full-live-coverage-of-olympics-how-to-watch-all-the-action-14983122/

 

This is going to get VERY annoying as things get busier. Might have to pretend to be Australian, or something.

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6 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

You'd think that increased tech would lead to increased coverage (allowing that being host broadcaster would be different).

A bit of research after posting has lead me to discover it's because the BBC only has the rights to show two sports at any time. The rest of it's on Eurosport. It's still pretty rubbish though, there's a lot on with no commentary and I gave up on quite a good game between Brazil and the Netherlands in the football because it had the commentary from Taekwondo or something over it.

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16 minutes ago, Which Tyler said:

Okay its because the Americans bought the European rights, and shoved them behind a paywall!

https://metro.co.uk/2021/07/24/why-bbc-cant-show-full-live-coverage-of-olympics-how-to-watch-all-the-action-14983122/

 

This is going to get VERY annoying as things get busier. Might have to pretend to be Australian, or something.

Muhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!

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