You know, I’m pretty tired of hearing about Olympic scandals. I mean, so and so did drugs, what’s his name did dope, and what’s her name wasn’t legal age to compete. It’s hard to blame these athletes really, considering that the fireworks were faked for the broadcast, as was one of opening songs. I mean, there’s corruption all across the board.
But you know, I think the penalties for the people caught doping are pretty loose. Sure, you might lose your medal after the fact, but some of them probably get away with it. It sounds pretty harsh, but I almost think that if you’re caught doping, you’re entire country should be disqualified at the Olympics that year. It would be sort of like when they send the entire squad on a 20 km run because some guy lipped off in the military.
That will seem completely unfair to a lot of people, but I bet it will only happen once more, and then never again. Imagine being the guy that caused four years of hard work to go down the tube for everyone from your country? It’s one thing to cheat and get yourself kicked out, but getting all your peers kicked out would be more motivation for people to participate straight-up.
The benefits of winning a gold medal are individual especially in other countries like China, USA, Australia where the winners get sponsorships and sometimes cash from national companies (e.g. China) or straight up cash from their government. In a sense, you are punishing a collective group for the actions of an individual. I agree in collective punishment in situations such as a relay team being disqualified and having to give back medals because one of the team got caught doing drugs, but don’t believe the country is at fault.
There is an American basketball player that is playing for Russia in the Olympics because she plays on a Russian club team (http://bit.ly/42pxGZ)and was able to get a passport even though she had no Russian or Soviet heritage. Should Russia be punished if she is caught doing drugs?
Remember the Canadian rower that failed a drug test at the Worlds because she took the wrong cough syrup. If this happened at the Olympics should Canada have to leave as well?
How is it motivation for a person competing in Trampoline (yeah, somehow that’s an Olympic sport since Sydney) in their spare time, getting caught for doing marijuana, and then having their whole country go home as well? If I’m one of the athletes, I’m upset at that person, but what am I going to do and how can I guarantee that Sue in BMX racing, who didn’t read the label of her health supplements, won’t cause my country to be disqualified next time.
Although an athlete may be competing for a country, their association with that country may be quite minor or the amount of investment put into the sport minimal and I don’t know if having your country (or the passport you happen to carry because of your great-grandparents), is that much of a deterent.
To me, it is like disqualifying everyone at the same university because Bob cheated on the LSAT. I don’t know Bob, why should I have to rewrite the LSAT because of him?
Marion Jones is in jail right now because of her drug use and lying to congress about it waiting for a presidential pardon. There are societal and social consequences for drug use, beyond just giving your medal back or letting down your country.
I’m sure it happens anyway, but officially collective punishments as you mentioned are actually against the law/rules/regulations in the Danish defense. I think the reasoning is that it’s a random and oppressive form of (mob) justice. It creates nothing but self-censorship a la what every self-righteous Westerner is saying is going on in China as a whole.
I agree that doping penalties should be hard. One current problem seems to be that (in part because the potential penalties are quite hard, such as x years of exclusion from all competition) the cases have turned into huge productions that take years to resolve.
I’ll meet you part of the way: Doping busts should have consequences for the athlete’s immediate organization(s). If an athlete is busted, then all the participants in her sport/area from her nation should be tested, as well as all of her colleagues from her professional sports career or all of the athletes who have the same coach, trainer, manager as her.
By the way the opening ceremony fireworks weren’t corrupt or faked. The footprint shaped fireworks really happened across Beijing. The only thing that was CGI’ed was the sequence that appeared to be shot from above. The authorities decided that it was unsafe to shoot massive amount of firework at an actual helicopter (go figure) so that part was CGI’ed (I heard somewhere that they even did it a little poorly on purpose to make it clear that it was CGI). The media had been told about this in advance. In some countries the TV presenters talked about it, in other countries they didn’t.
So how are they not fake them? There was a CGI shot of fireworks put into the media to give the impression that there were big overhead fireworks, right? I mean, if it’s too dangerous and can’t be done in real life, then why fake it at all?
You can’t. But the organizations representing you and sending you to the Olympics can be a bit more pro-active and make sure nobody is doping before hand. I mean, can’t they do drug screenings prior to the big event? I think the organizations need to take more of a vested invest in trying to clean up the debacle the Olympics have become, especially with regards to cheating. Sending players to the Olympics that are doping reflects badly on the individuals, the teams and organizers, and at the end, even the country that they represent.
Obviously my solution is a bit extreme, and I’m not entirely serious. If you have better ideas, feel free to drop them below.
How were the fireworks not fake? Because they were real, that’s how. 🙂
The fireworks actually did happen. Many footprint-shaped clusters of fireworks went up and exploded in the air above Beijing. They were filmed from the stadium and other ground locations. But the ground angle didn’t show off the full effect (of a giant walking across the city, leaving large footprints behind), so they supplemented the actual video footage with an “artist’s rendition” of how it would look from the sky.
Hey, ok, we’re going to have to agree to disagree 🙂 I just don’t think they needed to do that. I mean, that’s a slippery slope, and there’s nothing but trouble at the end of that road.
@duanestorey where is the money to come from for this drug testing. Maybe Canada could afford it but Jamaica could not. I know that there has been significant testing by some athletes since arriving in Beijing.
If the IOC could set up a fund that developing countries could use for drug testing that would be great. But many of the developing countries have limited funds as it is to send athletes away. Maybe some sort of Marshall plan could be set up in which a pool of money is created from some of the wealthier nations to fund drug testing in the developing countries.
I am for year-round testing, blood testing and even genetic testing. Baselines need to be created of athletes to test against in the future. It needs to be a concerted effort. No one major has been caught this Olympics. No idea what that means
@duanestorey The shock and dismay of media trickery hits everyone differently and at different times. I still remember an evening some time back in the 1980s when Shubidua, one of Denmark’s most popular bands at the time, played a brand new song on live primetime TV (back when the country had just 1 channel!) and the drummer dropped one of his drumsticks, and the music kept on playing! In the ensuing articles in the papers etc. it came out that playback was a common practice for TV shows and small performances where there wasn’t enough time to rehearse and do sound checks in the venue itself.
Respectfully I’d say that it’s a few decades too late to be a puritan about TV entertainment being 100% “real” with no special effects applied.
– Did she really sing that? No it was playback.
– Well, was it at least that little girl who did the recording? No, it was somebody else.
– Wow, that looked super ill, is he really dying? No, that was just an effect achieved through extreme dieting and a lot of makeup.
– Do those guys really have that amazing aura around them? No, they’re being backlit by a lamp you can’t see in the shot.
– Did that old guy at the Olympics really lift off and then run around the stadium in a slow motion-y, yet somehow super fast kind of way? No, he was hanging from wires… same thing with all the dudes on that small sphere, by the way.
Yeah, I know, my sarcastic wit isn’t my most winning personality trait. 🙂
No worries, although I never think it’s too late to be a puritan.
To eliminate scandals, boost competition, and make it more interesting, a possible solution would be to simply allow any drug or enhancement possible, and truly see what the human body is capable of.
Kidding, but not really =)
I hear this morning four horses tested positive for a banned substance. HORSES!
Think it’s a fan-freaking-tastic idea! Would love to see the ramifications of disqualifying an entire country. Don’t know that it would stop doping but the convoluted means & lengths that people will go to would turn into a spectator sport of it’s own.