[OFF TOPIC] Russia-Ukraine War

[Canada4thewin 90]

21 hours ago, OlympicIRL said:

It still works. You need to click the “Source” button at the top left of your message and copy the embed link there.

 

 

Wow what a statement.  

[hckošice 14,846]

Well, Simon never was the brightest crayon in the box, So I can imagine he has hard time to understand why RUS athletes are rejected by the majority of International federations.

 

Interesting that when everyone was blaming RUS athletes for being doped etc... without proves, Fourcades were the first to call for banning all Russians, now when retired and giving interviews to pro-Russian medias it is fine for them to see Russian athletes making Putin´s propaganda

 

Anyway, I know I am in the minority here in this case, so whatever...

 

 

[Dunadan 1,103]

I can't see the "next in comments" part but all these statements saying it's unfair seem similar though: no suggestion on how the thing should have been handled (no sanctions at all? what about those athletes at the Z-rallies? and in the military, which is common for Russian olympians? what if "Western" sports organizers decided to not accept Russian army officers participating in their competitions in these months, fair, unfair, acceptable?) and no mention of the previous situation of Russian sport - like if at the IOC they woke up one morning and banned Russians.  

[LDOG 2,418]

2 hours ago, Dunadan said:

I can't see the "next in comments" part but all these statements saying it's unfair seem similar though: no suggestion on how the thing should have been handled (no sanctions at all? what about those athletes at the Z-rallies? and in the military, which is common for Russian olympians? what if "Western" sports organizers decided to not accept Russian army officers participating in their competitions in these months, fair, unfair, acceptable?) and no mention of the previous situation of Russian sport - like if at the IOC they woke up one morning and banned Russians.  

1) in a dictatorship everyone is a hostage, we can never be certain about the motivation of those athletes to appear at rallies. Maybe they genuinely support Putin, maybe they were told "come or you'll be homeless by tomorrow morning". Who knows. 

  

2) a military athlete that is busy competing elsewhere is one that isn't in the battlefield. Isn't that good? 

[dcro 10,210]

Let's not forget how Putin conveniently waited for the Olympics to be over before he launched the attack. He knew exactly what he was doing. He fully expected Russian athletes to get a blanket ban, one way or another, and doesn't mind to use them as collateral right now.

 

Also, in this short time we have witnessed Ukrainian athletes both missing events and/or competing poorly / well below their level of excellence. To allow Russian athletes to compete would have been nothing more than an international travesty.

And finally the sanctions make it pretty well impossible for Russian athletes to actively compete around the globe right anyways, so in the end it's not like the IOC/IF are pulling most of the strings here.

[Dunadan 1,103]

1 hour ago, LDOG said:

1) in a dictatorship everyone is a hostage, we can never be certain about the motivation of those athletes to appear at rallies. Maybe they genuinely support Putin, maybe they were told "come or you'll be homeless by tomorrow morning". Who knows. 

  

2) a military athlete that is busy competing elsewhere is one that isn't in the battlefield. Isn't that good? 

1) can be used as an excuse for doing anything. Even outside of dictatorships- a poor guy gets told what to do or else no job tomorrow, to dope or he'll be out of the team and so on

 

2) not sure if serious...of course military athletes are not used in the battlefield unless in case of extreme necessity or as morale booster, their job is to represent and publicize the army (or whatever else) on a big stage, the point was not giving them a platform to do so.

[Grassmarket 3,433]

Unfortunately Russian sporting authorities have done nothing over the last decade to earn the benefit of any doubts, so I have no objection to a four-year Olympic cycle of prayer & reflection.

[bestmen 2,822]

horrible discovery ,water is moving the mines implanted on the black sea and could hit Bulgarian or Turkish ships  at any time 
 

[LDOG 2,418]

2 hours ago, Dunadan said:

1) can be used as an excuse for doing anything. Even outside of dictatorships- a poor guy gets told what to do or else no job tomorrow, to dope or he'll be out of the team and so on

 

2) not sure if serious...of course military athletes are not used in the battlefield unless in case of extreme necessity or as morale booster, their job is to represent and publicize the army (or whatever else) on a 

In a dictatorship you can be jailed or get blacklisted and never be able to find a job again for simple disent to an order like that, it's not comparable to getting fired by a company or from a state job in a democratic country. 

Btw systematic (and mandatory) state-sponsored doping has also been characteristic of dictatorships historically. In a democratic country if someone (eg. The coach) attempts to force an athlete to dope, the latter can always denounce the situation while having some degree of expectation that justice will be done.

 

And I believe "publicizing the army" if you mean in an open way is on the border of breaking the regulations regarding political manifestation that many international sport competitions have. In theory shouldn't be allowed per se independent of this situation.

[Dunadan 1,103]

10 hours ago, LDOG said:

In a dictatorship you can be jailed or get blacklisted and never be able to find a job again for simple disent to an order like that, it's not comparable to getting fired by a company or from a state job in a democratic country

Don't agree, or better would agree if we were comparing two extremes, a very developed and rich democracy to a North Korea - which I don't think is the case. Anyway what do you suggest: no sanctions at all that could affect athletes? No sanctions that affect athletes only if they come from dictatorships?

10 hours ago, LDOG said:

And I believe "publicizing the army" if you mean in an open way is on the border of breaking the regulations regarding political manifestation that many international sport competitions have. In theory shouldn't be allowed per se independent of this situation.

Their job is to give good exposure to the Army (Navy, Air Force, whatever) - they do it all the time and is well within regulations. They compete for the Army sport club (probably not very noticeable unless for media mentions by only watching competitions for NTs/federations), wear their sports uniform, or military uniform (Italians in equestrian is a case of this), thank their club in interviews + all the times that they are used for soft internal propaganda (media and social media exposure, public ceremonies, etc... what pro athletes do with their sponsors, in this case the sponsor is also a public and military employer, directly tied to the government). If this happens with Italians and Russia is such a brutal dictatorship, I guess it's several times bigger there and in a more nationalistic way.