Off Topic Thread 3.0

Dave_The_Sheep wrote: »

She was dirty as well though, wasn't she? (I haven't been following it much so I'm not sure)

Correct. I think it's harsh on her but they can't make an exception regardless of her worthy actions. All Russian track and field athletes are banned and she is one of them as well as being a confirmed drugs cheat previously which has led to her not being permitted to compete as a neutral athlete.

The IOC should hang their heads in shame. This Olympics will be remembered as a grotesque mess and it's in danger of doing irreparable damage to the Olympics as an overall entity.

They can now sit proudly alongside FIFA as kingpins of shambolic sporting officialdom.

thomond2006 wrote: »

Another mass shooting at a Florida nightclub (5:20am there now).

That country is seriously FUBAR. When will they do something about the availability of firearms, and especially assault weapons? It's just downright insane that people can own military grade weaponry and downright stupid to think that it won't lead to incidents like these.

Buer wrote: »

Correct. I think it's harsh on her but they can't make an exception regardless of her worthy actions. All Russian track and field athletes are banned and she is one of them as well as being a confirmed drugs cheat previously which has led to her not being permitted to compete as a neutral athlete.

The IOC should hang their heads in shame. This Olympics will be remembered as a grotesque mess and it's in danger of doing irreparable damage to the Olympics as an overall entity.

The exception is to allow her to compete as a neutral rather than a Russian athlete.

She's not banned from competing because of a drugs test. She got caught, was banned and has served her time. What the IOC have said is that she may not participate under a neutral flag something which the IAAF have approved for her in competitions run by them and which she already did in the European Championships.

The key point is that she doesn't live in Russia and has been subject to anti-doping testing in another country (the USA). This is an opportunity they offered to all Russian athletes i.e., if they could prove that they had been subject to a 'valid' anti-doping program then they could compete. Only one other competitor (also based abroad) satisfied this criteria IIRC.

There is such a thing as a 'neutral flag' country in the Olympics. It was originally designed for use by athletes who are from countries that have no properly functioning administration e.g. Somalia. The IOC don't think that it would be right for her to represent someone other than Russia. While there is some logic there it's part of a pretty craven response to the Russian doping scandal and doping in general.

The only response that I can think of to this by the general public is to boycott olympic sponsors.

Buer wrote: »

They can now sit proudly alongside FIFA as kingpins of shambolic sporting officialdom.

Actually, I think that the UCI might still be in the lead here.

Zzippy wrote: »

Nah, with McQuaid gone the UCI is much more transparent now. Also, there was no suggestion of McQuad illegally using UCI money to enrich himself, or accepting bribes. In terms of sheer brazenness and scale, FIFA is way out there. Not for nothng the FBI and other agencies are investigating it.

Yeah, you're right. The corruption of FIFA encompassed more areas. I was just thinking about in respect to doping where at its height it's unlikely that many completed the TdF without doping. McQuaid's removal has helped I think but cycling is still elbow deep in doping. There's still an incredibly (using that word advisedly) enormous job to be done to clean up the sport.

thomond2006 wrote: »

So you're not willing to do everything to protect your family?

- That's the kind of spin we're talking about.

It's not really spin, it's just part of their culture. There's nothing actually wrong with the guns themselves, save perhaps some of the assault rifles, the problem is the neglect of so many vulnerable people in their society as well as an inability to adequately provide healthcare. It's irresponsible to allow those two issues to be combined with the widespread availability of firearms but I personally doubt even a strict federal ban on gun ownership would fix the problem they have. We have almost non-existent gun ownership in Ireland and Britain but private gun ownership is prevalent in Europe without the same problem in most countries.

I think there's actually a far closer correlation between gini coefficiency and violent crime than availability of weapons. I think the real answer is to fix the cause rather than the symptom (although i think they should definitely restrict heavily ownership in the interim).

Zzippy wrote: »

At it's peak yes, cycling was undoubtedly the dirtiest sport in terms of PEDs, and in order to succeed you pretty much had to be on EPO. I think football has swept a huge amount of that under the carpet - the Fuentes affair in Spain, for example. Cycling has done a lot since Armstrong to clean up, and now has the most stringent testing regime of any sport AFAIK. Of course, with micro-dosing some cyclists will still take the risk, but the huge number and regularity of testing, as well as freezing of samples and retrospective testing, is a big deterrent now. Something a lot of sports could emulate.

Lies, damned lies and statistics but if you look at the average speeds for completing the TdF it really doesn't look like we've returned to pre-epo performance levels. There's not a single year pre-epo that was as fast as this years tour, or last years, or the year before either or....

By contrast, there are quite a few years where we know that epo was used where the average speed is lower than this years tour and last years and the year before that...

As I said at the start, lies, damned lies and statistics..., there are very good reasons not to look at average speed on the tour as you're not comparing like with like however when you look at all of the numbers I find it impossible to accept that we might be looking at a clean era in cycling. It's just not believable.

The marginal gains nonsense that we're hearing is in fact nonsense. With a couple of exceptions these are things that have been done before no matter what the protagonists claim.

I think that cycling is still the sport with the greatest levels of doping but soccer probably the greatest levels of corruption.

Murica...

A country where kinder eggs are banned because they are "dangerous"

Like the comedian who quipped

"I went in to Walmart and asked for 2 kinder eggs"

The girl replied "we don't sell them sir because they are dangerous"

"Grand, I'll just take these 2 AK47's please"

Felix Jones is God wrote: »

I'm not saying it isn't done in football, but it would be almost impossible to hide it due to the huge numbers of people at any 1 club... athletes work 1 on 1 or in small groups, cyclists have close knit teams....football clubs have squads of 40 players. Players come and go over the season and during the season....the chance of there being any systematic doping are virtually nil.
That's not to say players aren't....but they would be doing it on their own imo.
Rugby, I don't know, I've yet to see any figures to show that there is an issue, the fact that muscle mass is more important than in footie would mean it's more likely to be abused...but haven't seen anything as of yet.
I still think the 3 sports i mentioned would probably be the leaders still

But we know for a fact that systematic doping has happened in football in the past. I for one don't see what on earth Fuentes was doing with those Spanish players if not helping them to do exactly that. He is the man who oversaw doping in cycling and we know he has worked with clubs throughout Spain (Real Sociedad were paying him £280,000 a year as a consultant... Their president also said they spent the same amount of medicines which were not declared on the accounts, I don't think that's for calpol!). I would personally say it's almost a certainty that it's a problem that exists in multiple team sports including soccer.

Swan Curry wrote: »

how dare they not unquestionably support the people that have spent the entire primary patronising and insulting them #uniteblue

the dnc establishment are doing more to increase the likelihood of a trump victory than he ever could

The whole Bernie Sanders thing is quite interesting. Obviously a lot of people here in Ireland would look at him and think "yeah, that guy makes a lot of sense". And more and more people in the US seem to be thinking the same way. The problem is that someone like Sanders would not just mobilise those people, he would also mobilise the Republicans as well. The number of people who genuinely believe he is an out and out Socialist who wants to make the US like Venezuala is staggering. And like with gun ownership there is no talking to some about it. It's just a totally different culture. Imagine what a campaign against him would be like.

Personally I'd take Sanders over Clinton, but you have to look at it from an American politics perspective. Are they really ready for someone like Sanders? How successful could he really be with the way Congress is set-up if he were to be elected? And at the end of the day the Democrats are far more likely to win over the swing vote (and the inevitable Republican protest vote) with Hilary than with Sanders.

I understand the frustration that Sanders supporters feel, but I think the DNC made the right call. But now they need to get all Democrats behind Hilary, so they have a campaign aimed at doing so. They don't have to support them unquestioningly, but they can have their issues and try and get them dealt with while also not sabotaging the Hilary campaign. It's done now. We can only go one way, and that's forward.

thomond2006 wrote: »

Am I correct to think Sanders as President would try to close the tax loopholes that allow many multinationals to domicile in Ireland?

The more and more I see of this Presidental Campaign, the more I think Trump might win.

Not sure on that one tbh. But it sounds like something he'd do. He wouldn't be at all an extreme candidate here in Ireland. Most of what he seems to stand for seems to be the norm here, i.e. affordable health care and education, regulation on big business to ensure it doesn't take the piss etc. When you see him getting slammed for saying that people shouldn't have to depend on welfare when working full-time you have to wonder what kind of warped view of the world some have over there.

I don't think Trump will win tbh. There's far too many Republicans who are steadfastly against him. If the Democrats can get the Sanders base on board then they should be laughing. Someone like Trump simply won't get swing votes and won't be able to get voters to cross the aisle for him. Plus the thoughts of having him for President should mobilise a lot of Democrats who might not otherwise have bothered.

What is interesting though is that extreme candidates (Sanders would be extreme in the US) on both sides have received a lot of backing from the general public, with the traditional candidates coming in for a lot of hostility. Like in the UK and here to a lesser extent, the disconnect between the public and the politicians seems to be a very big issue in a lot of Western politics at the moment.