Russian Figure Skater Kamila Valieva Tests Positive for TMZ

[Herdfan]

I'm not a fan of figure skating and my wife likes to joke I will only watch it with her for the falls.

But this was too much. Way too much. Just felt for the poor girl and hope she can get away from her situation.

Edit: Seems not everyone has gotten their medals. Team USA wants them before they leave.

U.S. figure skaters lose appeal to get medals

Arbitrators have rejected a last-ditch request by American figure skaters to have their silver medals awarded before the end of the Olympics.

www.espn.com

I say let them have them. They have already been robbed of their medal ceremony, so let them have their medals. If something happens in the future, I am sure they will be happy to exchange them for another color.

Edit 2: And they lost.

U.S. figure skaters lose appeal to get medals

Arbitrators have rejected a last-ditch request by American figure skaters to have their silver medals awarded before the end of the Olympics.

www.espn.com

The USOC should have duplicates made for them.

 

[Clix Pix]

That really sucks! This whole figure skating situation has been a real travesty and so, so unfair to every skater in this year's Olympics.

 

[SuperMatt]

The IOC is punishing all the athletes for the misdeeds of the Russian skating apparatus and the IOC’s own severe corruption and incompetence.

Fire every leader and board member of the IOC. They need a complete rebuild.

 

[Clix Pix]

Today's Washington Post has a good article with specific recommendations.....whether or not any of them are ever implemented remains to be seen.

 

[yaxomoxay]

You had to know this was coming

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe there is a fundamental technical difference between the two cases.

The American athlete was banned in one type of race in track and field, not the Olympics. Also, what prompted her being out in the Olympics event was her qualifying race. Therefore she qualified but the failed test voided the qualification itself.

The Russian athlete qualified, and her qualification was not in jeopardy. The IOC simply allowed to do her thing. In my opinion she should’ve not been allowed, but I think the technical difference is quite important.

 

[SuperMatt]

Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe there is a fundamental technical difference between the two cases.

The American athlete was banned in one type of race in track and field, not the Olympics. Also, what prompted her being out in the Olympics event was her qualifying race. Therefore she qualified but the failed test voided the qualification itself.

The Russian athlete qualified, and her qualification was not in jeopardy. The IOC simply allowed to do her thing. In my opinion she should’ve not been allowed, but I think the technical difference is quite important.

The American anti-doping agency disqualified an American for using marijuana, which hasn’t actually been shown to enhance performance, but is banned just in case.

Russia has proven that their own anti-doping agency is a sham, so do you think they even tested any of their athletes during qualifiers? The fact that their flag isn’t allowed to be flown at the olympics should tell you the answer. And their athlete had a positive test administered by the IOC for a known performance-boosting substance.

America followed the rules, resulting in the loss of one of their best athletes. Russia said “F you” to the rules and was rewarded by the IOC allowing their superstar skater to compete anyway.

So yes, there are some VERY fundamental differences here.

Russia should be banned for the next 2 olympics, period. And marijuana should not be on the banned list.

 

[yaxomoxay]

The American anti-doping agency disqualified an American for using marijuana, which hasn’t actually been shown to enhance performance, but is banned just in case.

Russia has proven that their own anti-doping agency is a sham, so do you think they even tested any of their athletes during qualifiers? The fact that their flag isn’t allowed to be flown at the olympics should tell you the answer. And their athlete had a positive test administered by the IOC for a known performance-boosting substance.

America followed the rules, resulting in the loss of one of their best athletes. Russia said “F you” to the rules and was rewarded by the IOC allowing their superstar skater to compete anyway.

So yes, there are some VERY fundamental differences here.

Russia should be banned for the next 2 olympics, period. And marijuana should not be on the banned list.

Thanks for the clarifications, I don’t really follow.

By the way you describe it - and I have no reason to not believe you - the problem is the total lack of international standards as relying to the single country’s system might not be the best way to do it.

 

[SuperMatt]

Thanks for the clarifications, I don’t really follow.

By the way you describe it - and I have no reason to not believe you - the problem is the total lack of international standards as relying to the single country’s system might not be the best way to do it.

The fact is, the IOC knows Russia cheats, but just slaps them on the wrist. Then when the IOC catches an athlete cheating, they let them compete anyway. Meanwhile, most countries (including America) take the rules seriously and are willing to ban their own star athletes from competing.

If Russia can ignore all anti-doping rules and still compete, and try to sneak past an occasional IOC test, why doesn’t everybody do it?

I didn’t watch one minute of this olympics because I think it was absurd to allow them in China (Peng Shuai, Uyghur oppression, etc.). And then we all get a great reminder of how corrupt and biased the IOC is with this Russian doping scandal.

I love the idea of the olympics, but the reality of the olympics is corrupt money grabbing.

And finally, the timing of the positive test for Ms. Richardson was early enough that they COULD have brought her to the olympics as a wildcard or alternate, as her 30 day suspension was done by the time of the olympics. But they didn’t want to displace athletes who stayed clean, so they had her stay home. She accepted it, but I can see why she’s not happy when (white) Russian athletes are given a pass by their own country, and then by the IOC.

 

[lizkat]

I did watch some of the Beijing Olympics and admit that because of China's record (and propaganda) with respect to treatment of the Uighurs and their language and culture,

I felt uncomfortable over shelling out for a month's worth of a streaming platform with DVR options just to let me manage to watch desired performances when I could make time.​

​

But I bought in and have watched anyway and not least because I personally would have been just as uncomfortable with a certain level of hypocrisy in boycotting Olympics-watching in 2022. Like plenty other Americans, I have spent a lot of time pondering how the USA can consider itself such a paragon of human rights when half the country's in an uproar over teaching uncensored American history,,, hello?​

​

We can't even acknowledge the depths of our own ongoing systemic racism. It's still in our everyday language: we blithely use the word "blackballed" to signify "unacceptability" and "whitewashed" to signify "providing the appearance of rightness". Americans didn't invent those terms but we may never finally ditch them, and we have embraced them along with their inherently racist underpinnings: black bad white right. We should at least acknowledge how deeply embedded that view has been in our history, while we work to level our playing fields.​

Anyway I thought that President Biden (at the urging of both GOP and Dem lawmakers) took the right approach in imposing diplomatic distance by not sending an official US delegation but in letting the Team USA athletes compete.

So it was left to friends, family and any other Americans or spectators of other nations to figure out how to deal yet again with an Olympics built on impossible ideals and predictable feet of clay. The overall record of corruption at the Olympics (certainly including selection of host sites) is sickening, even though there have been so many periodic attempts to straighten it up and make it fly right.

Also it became crystal clear during the Beijing Olympics --to at least a lot of current and former figure skaters-- that the removal, in the early 1990s, of the Court of Arbitration of Sport from directly beneath the wing of the IOC (to operate independently under the ICAS instead) may or may not have jacked up confidence in its impartiality, but certainly lost some vital connection to the minds and hearts of athletes. The brouhaha over what means "irreparable damage" in the question of allowing or prohibiting Kamila Valieva to skate will not go away any time soon, considering all that ensued.

It's good that there's more pressure now to raise the age bar for Olympic competition or maybe all international competition. It won't help young boys escape the dangerous grind to discover how to manage a quint jump, but it may reduce the factory-farm aspects of female figure skating, since basically takes a prepubescent body for females to land quad jumps consistently. It's clear that at least Russia lately treats its female skaters as though they are just part of an endless assembly line of little-girl dolls. Oops, this one's broken: behold Valieva. And maybe this one too: behold the hissy fit of the all too aware (if inartistic) quad-jumping machine and silver medalist Trusova.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Just a point. Whitewash is not positive, and it has nothing to do with race. Same goes for blackballed.

My understanding is that most - but not all - of the black color bad vs white color good (not related to race obviously) is due to darkness (black cat at night) and stains.

Personally I do agree that they are very imprecise terms but claiming that they’re rooted in racism simply because they contain white or black is… quite a reach.

 

[Clix Pix]

I felt kind of sorry for Trusova, because she probably had worked her heart out to land those jumps and has every right to be proud of herself for that. Quite an athletic feat, albeit not artistic. Unfortunately she should have been encouraged to work equally hard on her artistic elements in both her earlier short program and the final one. Undoubtedly once she hit that fifth quad she thought she had gold in the bag, given the situation with Valieva or in spite of it, but reality came to bite her, didn't it? Throwing an unsportsmanlike hissy fit was certainly inappropriate but actually understandable given the tense situation there already -- no surprise that long-suppressed emotions came bursting out and she just could not stop them. That whole scene was absolutely bizarre watching it. I didn't see it as it was actually occurring -- saw videos later -- but it must have totally gobsmacking to those who were there in person or those who were watching on television at home and saw everything as it all unfolded, from Kamila's disastrous final skate to the backstage drama in the aptly named "Kiss-and-Cry" area.

 

[lizkat]

Just a point. Whitewash is not positive, and it has nothing to do with race. Same goes for blackballed.

My understanding is that most - but not all - of the black color bad vs white color good (not related to race obviously) is due to darkness (black cat at night) and stains.

Personally I do agree that they are very imprecise terms but claiming that they’re rooted in racism simply because they contain white or black is… quite a reach.

Hmm.... first of all I didn't mean to derail this thread by that digression, but I'll try to answer your point.

I find the assertion that "blackball" and "whitewash" have racist connotations not so much a reach as an acknowledgment of longstanding, subconsciously racialized awareness of the "values" of black v white.​

​

"Whitelist" and "blacklist" are a couple of slightly more modern examples. Why did tech outfits decide to use them in offering us browser options for website pemission setting, etc.? Certainly not "to be racist" about it... but there were other options: Approved / restricted, etc.​

​

Of course the absolutes of black v white are not the only issues in language that hark back to official or authorized separation and grading of human skin colors, or to times of slavery in the USA. CNN ran a piece once that noted a few of such phrases and where they came from in our history. Some people chalk up concern about any of that to political correctness. I just think we can learn to choose today to use some of these phrases in a (noted) historical context and otherwise find words without so much baggage.​

And now back to the Beijing Olympics and the question of whether any of us should have watched them.... my own dilemma as usual is to remember to cancel my sub to the platform I was using before the next bill hits my card, since in general I'm not in need of an extra streaming platform; I don't usually watch "TV" per se and certainly don't want to end up surfing through all the channels those cable-cutter options offer. But again, I couldn't resist the figure skating.

 

[yaxomoxay]

Hmm.... first of all I didn't mean to derail this thread by that digression, but I'll try to answer your point.

I find the assertion that "blackball" and "whitewash" have racist connotations not so much a reach as an acknowledgment of longstanding, subconsciously racialized awareness of the "values" of black v white.​

​

"Whitelist" and "blacklist" are a couple of slightly more modern examples. Why did tech outfits decide to use them in offering us browser options for website pemission setting, etc.? Certainly not "to be racist" about it... but there were other options: Approved / restricted, etc.​

​

Of course the absolutes of black v white are not the only issues in language that hark back to official or authorized separation and grading of human skin colors, or to times of slavery in the USA. CNN ran a piece once that noted a few of such phrases and where they came from in our history. Some people chalk up concern about any of that to political correctness. I just think we can learn to choose today to use some of these phrases in a (noted) historical context and otherwise find words without so much baggage.​

And now back to the Beijing Olympics and the question of whether any of us should have watched them.... my own dilemma as usual is to remember to cancel my sub to the platform I was using before the next bill hits my card, since in general I'm not in need of an extra streaming platform; I don't usually watch "TV" per se and certainly don't want to end up surfing through all the channels those cable-cutter options offer. But again, I couldn't resist the figure skating.

Like you I don’t want to derail the thread, so I’ll say that I will agree to disagree on the language part and that in my opinion you’re reading too much into it (black is also the color of elegance. It’s also the color of authority for example; in my religion black is the color at the basis of the “uniform” worn. But most importantly I wear a button down black shirt virtually every day). Not a biggie.

To be honest I am not even sure why I replied to you earlier

 

[shadow puppet]

I'm still trying to process Valieva back in training in Russia only days following this incident. Nor am I buying Valieva (all on her own) took to social media to thank her coaches for all their support in Beijing.

Then there's the article about her coach who pretty much drops her skaters once they hit 17 and pulls from the 11 year old skaters waiting in her stable.

Every year, a new, younger Eteri girl emerges on the scene while others retire, at age 17, 16, or even 14. Skating fans call this the “Eteri Expiration Date.”

Tutberidze has come to be regarded as the world’s leading expert in creating figure skating champions. Her methods are no secret. The Eteri girls talk openly about not being able to drink water during competitions. They do their best to delay puberty by eating only “powdered nutrients” or by taking Lupron, a puberty blocker known to induce menopause. They are subjected to daily public weigh-ins and verbal and physical abuse. And they compete while injured, huffing “smelling salts” while wearing knee braces and collapsing in pain after programs.

Source: The Culture of Child Abuse That’s Poisoning Figure Skating

This shouldn't be normal. This is not right. I hope the Beijing incident proffers impetus for change.