The Athletics thread

[Adam]

It's pathetic, and I don't understand why CAS' verdict basically contains lots of stuff about how concerned they are about the IAAF regulation yet they haven't decided it means it shouldn't be brought in. I find the whole thing absurd.

Athletics is a right state.

[Bobfoc]

Semenya isn't even the only person this applies to, but she gets all the backlash because she's the most famous.

[Mx. Canadian Destroyer]

What an absolutely garbage ruling.

[Lineker]

Breakdancing has moved a step closer to being in the 2024 Olympics after its inclusion was approved by International Olympic Committee (IOC) members.

[MDK]

If horsedancing is in the olympics then breakdancing should be considered.

Fuck it, I would suggest professional wrestling too. Have it judged on style, story, moves and excitement, why not? Its no different from rhythmic gymnastics.

[Colly]

Think of the matches! 

[Chris2K]

Too late for the 2020 Olympics though where the scores would be through the roof in the Tokyo Dome.

[9 to 5]

57 minutes ago, MDK said:

If horsedancing is in the olympics then breakdancing should be considered.

Fuck it, I would suggest professional wrestling too. Have it judged on style, story, moves and excitement, why not? Its no different from rhythmic gymnastics.

Would you do it as a duo, and fours for tag matches?

[MDK]

8 minutes ago, 9 to 5 said:

Would you do it as a duo, and fours for tag matches?

I dunno. Maybe make it freestyle so its up to the performers to decide what their best match might be. So if you have two workers that compliment eachother you'd do a singles match, but if you have two great tag teams you'd do a tag match. I've not really thought it through. I would limit it to normal matches, no hardcore or TLC or anything like that. Would be quite interesting, I reckon.

[Gazz]

Do all the wrestlers from 'Parts Unknown' get to choose what country they want to represent?

[Lineker]

KJT is set to win the gold medal in the World Championships heptathlon tonight.

[Adam]

KJT did it, brilliant achievement. She has just been at the top of her game in every event and deserves it.

It's great to follow an athlete's career from being a rookie prospect, through to a contender and then a champion. You really feel the journey they've been on and it means that much more. I still remember her at London 2012 as a teenager with everyone saying "one day she could be like Jess". Today she has fulfilled that hope and become the successor to one of our greatest ever Olympians.

The battle between KJT and Thiam next summer in Tokyo will be awesome to watch.

[Bobfoc]

Eliud Kipchoge just ran the first sub-two hour Marathon.

[MDK]

I was chatting with a work colleague the other day about where the limits are for certain athletics. How much quicker can someone really do it realistically? Same with 100m and the like. There must be a barrier where the human body just cannot break.

Great achievement even if it isn't classed as a WR.

[Baddar]

I read that it worked out as 100m every 17 seconds or so for the entire 26 miles. Not sure how accurate that is but fucking hell. 

[Liam]

1 hour ago, Baddar said:

I read that it worked out as 100m every 17 seconds or so for the entire 26 miles. Not sure how accurate that is but fucking hell. 

Yep, what I read as well. Ridiculous pace. You can knock the conditions being geared towards the sub-2, but can't knock having that ability personally. A WR in all but name.

[Bobfoc]

Athletes have always been selective about conditions when it comes to record attempts, especially in road races. Paula Radcliffe was given male pacemakers when she broke the world record at the London Marathon and it was accepted as an official time. Regardless of the circumstances, running that quickly is a remarkable feat.

I'll be interested to see what happens in the future. Kenenisa Bekele was just two seconds outside Kipchoge's official world record a couple of weeks ago, and Birhanu Legese was only seven seconds slower than that in the same race. I wonder how quickly they could go under similar conditions. As great as Mo Farah has been on the track, he has a huge amount of ground to make up if he wants to be competitive in this event.

[MDK]

1 hour ago, Bobfoc said:

he has a huge amount of ground to make up if he wants to be competitive in this event.

Pun detected 

[Lineker]

Quote

Athletes will not be allowed to take a knee or protest against human rights abuses on the podium of Tokyo 2020 or the Beijing 2022 Olympics after two-thirds of competitors polled by the IOC said they supported a ban remaining in place.

The International Olympic Committee had come under sustained pressure to relax Rule 50, which stops athletes from demonstrating on the podium, the field of play or at opening and closing ceremonies, after the global anti-racism protests last year.

However, the IOC will keep the ban after a survey of 3,547 athletes from 185 countries found 70% believed the field of play and official ceremonies were not an appropriate place for protest: 67% supported a ban on podium protests.

Kirsty Coventry, the IOC Athletes Commission chair, declined to say what would happen to a modern-day Tommie Smith and John Carlos, the American sprinters who raised their fists in a black power salute at the Mexico Games in 1968, but said lawyers were working on a proportionate response.

“I’m a not a lawyer so that is a little bit out of my realm,” she said. “We’re asking the Legal Affairs Commission commission to come up with a proportionate range of different sanctions so that everyone knows, going into going into a Games, what they can and cannot do.”

Athletes could still share their views at press conferences, but in the IOC Athletes’ Commission document athletes are reminded that freedom of speech “is not absolute” and “may be limited” under certain restrictions, which it said covers the Olympic Games.

Coventry did, however, promise there would be “increased opportunities for athletes expression during the Games”, such as including having a “moment of solidarity against discrimination” at the opening ceremony, which 48% of survey respondents rated as “important”.

The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee has said it will not punish athletes for demonstrations such as kneeling or raising a fist.

The IOC president, Thomas Bach, promised the Olympic village would be safe for athletes. “In recent months, 340 major events have been staged with 40,000 athletes and none of these events have been a virus spreader and none of these events had the benefit of the vaccine,” he said. “The Olympic village will be a pretty safe place for everyone.”

 

[Szumi]

No it'se where to put it, so settled on this. Medina Spirit, the horse who won the Kentucky Derby, tested positive for illegal drugs after the race. 

Spoiler

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- Hall of Fame trainer Bob Baffert said Sunday that his barn has been told Kentucky Derby winner Medina Spirit failed a postrace drug test, the latest doping scandal for horse racing and arguably the sport's premier trainer.

Flanked by his attorney Craig Robertson in a news conference at Churchill Downs on Sunday, Baffert said Medina Spirit was found to have 21 picograms of the steroid betamethasone, double the legal threshold in Kentucky racing, in a postrace sample.

That is the same drug that was found in the system of Gamine, another Baffert-trained horse who finished third in the Kentucky Oaks last September.

Baffert denied any wrongdoing and said he did not know how Medina Spirit could have tested positive. He said Medina Spirit has never been treated with betamethasone and called it "a complete injustice."

"I got the biggest gut punch in racing, for something I didn't do," said Baffert, who vowed to be transparent with racing investigators. Baffert said his camp received the word of the positive test from Kentucky officials Saturday. Baffert said Medina Spirit has not yet been officially disqualified from the Kentucky Derby, though that still could happen after other tests and processes are completed.

"This shouldn't have happened," Baffert said. "There's a problem somewhere. It didn't come from us. ... He ran a gallant race."

Medina Spirit won the Kentucky Derby on May 1 by a half-length over Mandaloun, giving Baffert his record-setting seventh victory in the race that starts the Triple Crown season.

"If the findings are upheld, Medina Spirit's results in the Kentucky Derby will be invalidated and Mandaloun will be declared the winner," Churchill Downs said in a statement.

Medina Spirit still is expected to race in the Preakness, the Triple Crown's second jewel, on Saturday.

Additionally, Baffert has been suspended from entering any horses at Churchill Downs Racetrack, effective immediately.

Last month, Baffert won an appeals case before the Arkansas Racing Commission, which had suspended him for 15 days for a pair of positive drug tests involving two of his horses that won at Oaklawn Park on May 2, 2020. The horses tested positive for lidocaine, a painkiller, which Baffert said they were exposed to inadvertently.

"There's problems in racing," Baffert said. "But it's not Bob Baffert."

The New York Times said in November 2020 that Baffert-trained horses have failed at least 29 drug tests in his four-decade career.

"I'm worried about our sport," Baffert said. "Our sport, we've taken a lot of hits as a sport. These are pretty serious accusations here, but we're going to get to the bottom of it and find out. We know we didn't do it."