And while we're talking about the Olympics, an answer on the Russia debacle...

Kinda left this one alone because it had to do with the Homophobe-lympics in Sochi, and I felt it might have infringed on the boycott I was asked to (and agreed to) do.

But word has come out that we may have another answer as to how Russia got to the top of the medal count in those farcical games:  A state-sponsored drug-testing evasion program...  And a documentary is being filmed on it by Bryan Fogel.

About a week ago, reports came out (this one on Gawker site Gizmodo) in the New York Times (paywall, but you are allowed ten free articles per month -- just be careful) stating that Russia had a systematic program of doping and drug-test evasion to inflate it's medal count and win as many medals as possible for Vladimir Putin and his goals of world domination and LGBT dehumanization (and if any idiot wants to claim the latter was not part of the equation -- especially after the USOC tweaked Putin on it with some of the delegation decisions -- I'd like to have a word with you).

According to the article:

• At least 15 medal-winning athletes were involved, including a number of the largest-scale Russian superstars of the Sochi Games.
• Fourteen members of the cross-country skiing team were involved.  Russia won five medals in the event, including a gold medal at 50 kilometers and three silvers (one in the same event, one in a 4x10km relay, and a team sprint event) and a bronze (they swept the 50km event).
• "Two veteran bobsledders who won two golds" are also implicated in the article.  It would appear that the article speaks of Russian double-gold medal winners Alexandr Zubkov and Alexey Voyovoda, who won gold medals in both the two-man event (together) and the four-man event (with Dmitry Trunenkov and Alexey Negodaylo).  Russia swept the gold medals in men's bobsled.
• If we do not implicate the other two bobsledders, this would leave at least a half a dozen unknown medalists among the 33 medals and 15 golds won by the Russians in Sochi.  Two of the three men who swept the 50 km cross-country event were also in the relay (and one of them was in the team sprint), so that would make eight. (Ten if you include the other two of the four-man bobsled.)
• The article proclaims a sophisticated, dark-of-night plot that exchanged dirty samples collected from Russian athletes (up to about 100 of them, it is estimated!) with earlier-collected clean samples.  The group carrying this out also knew how to tamper the collection bottles and not have the tampering be detected.
• One bit of American propaganda I have to call out here:  "None of the athletes were caught doping. More important, Russia won the most medals of the Games, easily surpassing its main rival, the United States, and undermining the integrity of one of the world’s most prestigious sporting events."  Now, that might well be true -- and I might well have covered it with far more precision and depth had the whole LGBT thing not turned me off to the entire competition, but the only difference between Russia and the United States is that, at least to what we know of, the USA doesn't do this at the GOVERNMENTAL level.  This was Vladimir Putin making a statement here.

And the statement continued once the World Anti-Doping Association put the entire Russian sports program on notice:

• The insider, a Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, fled for his life to Los Angeles.  The only WADA accusation he denies is extorting money from athletes.  Rodchenkov received the Order of Friendship for his work, a prestigious medal given in Russia for advancing the Russian Federation in the eyes of it's people.
• Two anti-doping cohorts of Dr. Rodchenkov died within weeks of each other after the report was released.
• In fact, Rodchenkov claims that WADA is wrong on the other way in one important respect.  The WADA report, centering on track and field and resulting in Russian track's expulsion from the Olympic Games, stated hundreds of samples were destroyed.  Rodchenkov claims THOUSANDS from pretty much every meaningful Olympic sport.  The decision to finalize the ban for Russian track and field will be made within the next few weeks.

You really need to read this extensive article, if you can.  The allegations here would basically implode the entire Olympic movement -- not only in Russia, but worldwide.

CANCEL THE RIO GAMES.  They are not clean, and cannot be cleanly run.  Period.

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