Time until Putin shifts blame for his country's athletes cheating: T minus 3, 2, 1... I've had a radical idea for a while, for Russia to split in two on the Urals line. It's too big to develop in any meaningful fashion within reasonable constraints of time. Having a European-Asian confederation with separate leadership (two different governments) and shared resources pool would allow the Eastern part develop much quicker, and since the European part is much richer, Russia Asia would benefit enormously. It may have little effect on the athletic performance per se, but it would foster a higher standard of living for both sides, thus allowing for our competitive sports training to run better due to increase in facilities available. It would not happen, however, for as long as Russia is being ruled by a corrupt mob boss with a penchant for all things shiny and self-image issues. Makes for a decent alternative history, though.
Good on the IOC. With that being said, this decision does put the stature of the olympic games at risk in certain sports. Does a gold medal in figure skating/biathlon/speed skating mean that the winner is the best in the world if no Russian athletes were present at the competition? Or are competitions like the World Figure Skating Championship going to become more prestigious in those sports than the Olympic games?
To counter your question with another question: did the Tour de France lose its status? I'd say not, despite severe and longstanding doping scandals. I don't think it's about prestige, or about objectively being the best. People don't watch the Tour or the Olympics because they want to see who's the best, they watch it because they want to see an incredible performance or an exciting race.
HAH. About. Fucking. Time. If you haven't seen the documentary Icarus it's enthralling, and a bit enraging at times. This kind of doping has been going on for years and years, and Russia should have been banned a long time ago. Think Marion Jones but a much more sophisticated system. This isn't just Russia, but it doesn't feel like going out on a limb to say they are the most institutionalized doping nation right now, though it wouldn't surprise me to find other nations with rampant usage of P.E.Ds...Tuesday’s penalty was in line with what had been advocated by two key whistle-blowers whose accounts upended Russia’s standing in global sports over the last several years and were cited in Mr. Schmid’s report: Grigory Rodchenkov, the chemist who spent 10 years as Russia’s antidoping lab chief and was key to carrying out the cheating schemes in Sochi; and Vitaly Stepanov, a former employee of Russia’s antidoping agency who married a runner for Russia’s national team and was the first to speak publicly about the nation’s institutionalized cheating.