Ukrainian fencer Olha Kharlan was awarded a place in the 2024 Paris Olympics by the IOC on Friday after she was disqualified at the world championships for refusing to shake the hand of her Russian opponent.
Good, it’s the right thing to do. Russians shouldn’t even be allowed anywhere near international athletics until Putin is arrested and standing trial for war crimes at The Hague.
Also, everything else aside, not until they stop doping all their fucking athletes.
The idea is the majority of their athletes are proven to be clean. There are definitely a decent number who got caught, and more scrutiny should be on Russia athletes than any other (Though all should be fully tested), but I believe it exposed only a subset of the Russian team was caught. 70 percent of the Russians were allowed to compete under the Olympic Flag.
Do I think IOC caught everyone who was doping? Of course not. Do I think every Russian was doping? I find that equally hard to believe.
Then again the fact it was only a four year ban for a state sponsored scheme? WTF… but it just show IOC is still just one of the worst governing bodies in sports.
The idea is the majority of their athletes are proven to be clean.
No the idea is that all of their athletes are basically proven to be doping because it’s a state-sponsored and even secret-service assisted national effort. If you are not partaking in the russian state sponsored program, you simply will not become a russian professional athlete, you will be barred and forbidden to compete. Even their doping tests cannot be considered meaningful in any way because they literally used the FSB to fake or swap out samples or the impersonate doping officials and fake the tests.
This is not athletes deciding for themselves to cheat. This is not doctors helping athletes to cheat. This is a country cheating on a large scale and only sending cheaters to compete.
It’s really sad.
East Germany was infamous for it too. After the wall fell, a lot of athletes found out they were infertile, developed bone diseases, developed cancers, some even changed sex. Roland Schmidt, a weight lifter, developed huge breasts. Shot putter Heidi Krug was forced to change sex.
Some of them knew they were doped. Others were doped against their will or even without them knowing. They took the vitamin pills the doctor gave them, that’s all the knew. They were ofen literal children when it started, as young as 8.
Others were doped against their will or even without them knowing.
I’ve heard rumors about this, and I doubt it. Especially when there was an American athlete who claimed that’s what happened to her…
But I’m sure it has happened over history and my god that must be heart breaking, the people you put your full trust into has betrayed that and both put you are risk, but destroyed your credibility when found out. Fucking heart breaking.
I’ve heard rumors about this, and I doubt it. Especially when there was an American athlete who claimed that’s what happened to her…
East Germany was an authoritarian state with state controlled media and propaganda. They experimented on children for ideological and propaganda reasons. It’s hardly surprising they’d lie to test subjects, when the programme was clandestine. The stasi files, and related court cases/verdicts, indicate as much. Those responsible invariably defended themselves, by saying it was legal and/or that they were forced to do it by the state.
Why would they tell guinea pigs the truth when they could lie? The DDR lied to its people on a daily basis. There were no consequences.
In an authoritarian state you are robbed of the freedom not to do things AND to think things. People were sentenced to years in jail for telling relatively mild political jokes or questioning the offical government line.
Hell, that’s how the DDR made money. They’d arrest people, then West Germany would pay 40,000DM and they’d be sent to West Germany. Quite profitable.
Of course, there are likely athletes who did know they were being doped. They got away with cheating, won a medal, and get to pretend it was won fairly, despite many of East Germany’s records not being broken to this day.
So if I pointed a gun at you and told you to rob someone with a fake gun… I hope you’d agree I should be in trouble not yourself. So if your correct (and you are) and these athletes were forced to by their government to use performance enhancing drugs (or not be part of the programs) why are you blaming the athletes instead of the government that forced them to do so?
If I were a professional athlete I would feel in the right to refuse to shake the hand of an athlete coming from a country proven to have a state-sponsored doping program significant enough to warrant that country’s flag being banned from the Olympics long before this war.
Clearly this was about the war, but let’s not pretend sportsmanship was intact before this handshake debacle came to be.
There’s actually pretty famous fencing cheating scandal that happened during 1976 Olympics. The soviet athlete was caught using electronic device to score victory.
The athlete was from modern day Ukraine BTW and IIRC he was allowed to compete in other events afterwards. He achieved very solid results even without cheating. So it wasn’t something that he really needed to do in order to win, it’s just the soviet apparatus wasn’t taking any risks as sports are major propaganda outlets for them. Stakes are just too high for them not to cheat. The system is simply corrupt by design. Modern day russia just continues doing the same.
It’s almost immoral to let russians compete even from the point of russian athletes as they are effectively forced to dope and cheat.
“reinstated”… I mean her win exists, but she still was kicked out of the tournament. She’ll get her place, but I would bet hard money on the fact she would have preferred to stay in the tournament and compete for real.
This is IOC saving face, something they have to do far too frequently.
It sounds like the IFE is also making the right move to remove the handshake. I won’t say all Russians (under the Olympic flag) have to be banned. Though this pro-war piece of shit is make a hell of an effort for me to change my mind on that. But forced sportsmanship needs to stop being a thing, because then it’s not sportsmanship, when it’s a rule, it’s just a requirement of what you have to do.
I don’t think I’d want to shake the hand of someone whose people are illegally pillaging and destroying my homeland either. I’d sooner rather spit on it.
I mean, the US/UK leveled Irak / Afghanistan, but their athletes have been welcome to compete everywhere. No one spits at them, as far as I know.
If someone has such strong feelings against another country, they might as well go to the front line and kill/get killed. Fuck this girl and all chicken hawks out there.
She is on the frontline winning important battles. There are often smarter ways to fight. Perhaps that’s not obvious to vatniks that are told the only way to victory are countless meatgrinder waves of conscripts and prisoners.
I competed in a tiny lil Olympic sport no one outside of the shooting sports has ever heard of (double trap). Wasn’t nearly good enough to attend international competition, but the competitor pool was small and I knew plenty who did.
The IOC and the Olympics are nothing more than a scam. I respect the athletes dedication but after seeing the IOC’s scumfuckery up close I have 0 interest in the Olympics.
Did her opponent support the invasion of Ukraine?
If not, then that’s absolutely bad sportsmanship at its finest.
y’all don’t understand we’re going by a dangerous route again with this kinda shit. nobody sane in their mind thinks Putin is in the right, but if y’all gon refuse to shake the hand of a competitor because they were born in the wrong country with the wrongest politician, that’s just petty and childish, and shows we really never learn from our mistakes.
Read up about this, because you’re mistaken. This wasn’t just because she’s from the “Wrong country”. She’s an outspoken advocate for the war. Kharlan’s brother is defending the Ukraine in the army.
Yeah I wouldn’t be able to shake her hand either.
that changes things
Removed by mod
deleted by creator
Removed by mod
The Ukrainian fencer did offer her weapon for tapping it, which is pretty much an equivalent of a handshake - much less cordial, sure but still. It was the Russian who then threw a tantrum to fuck with her oponent.
Classic russian behavior, play the victim even though you are the aggressor.
“Stop making me invade you! Why are you so meeeeeaaaan?!?”
they aren’t the only ones with that move at the front of their playbook.
No, the one being petty and childish is the Russian who puts out a hand to a person which country is being occupied by theirs.
By competing under a Russian flag (or any flag for that matter) you represent a country and it’s ideas. The “petty and childish” stance is not being ashamed of what your country does to others, not the other way around.
Not to mention that Smirnova was offered to tap sabers and instead decided to sit and pout for close to an hour.
The dangerous route was already taken. Ukrainian people are getting slaughtered, today.
What a beautiful speech you give, completely blind to reality.
that’s some nonsense reasoning
y’all don’t understand we’re going by a dangerous route
who knew that pre-game handshakes were load bearing when it came to the apparent house of cards that is modern society
Fascists gonna fascist
Removed by mod
