2020, uh, 21, uh, who knows Tokyo Olympics thread

Nigeria's women's relay team disqualified on technical error, a cherished Olympic tradition. I wrote a story for my college paper about Dr. Pete Riehl, one of the U.S. Olympic team doctors at Munich. Rick DeMont lost a swimming gold medal because Riehl and other staff allowed him to take a banned asthma medication. Same Games where US coaches couldn't tell time and sprinters missed their starts.

 

And the silver medals in men's basketball ... ah, too late at night to get started.

 

Sha'Carri Richardson will not be in the relay pool for Tokyo.

No relay: Banned sprinter Richardson left off Olympic team

This whole thing has been very misunderstood by a lot of people from the get-go. So many folks have been pitching a fit that this is the USOPC doing some sort of racist war-on-drugs crusade when it's WADA that has banned marijuana, and they recently lowered the threshold for a positive test to something very obvious. Though the reasoning is mostly bullshit, I think these folks have to realize that just like any international organization, WADA is going to be as 'progressive' as its median members, at best, and when you consider that, in Japan, possession of marijuana nets you five years in jail, perhaps your rage is misplaced.

I mean, here's a world map in which the legal countries and jurisdictions are in blue and the illegal are in red. (Yellow is illegal but decriminalized, pink is illegal but rarely enforced)

 

If you didn't tell me what that map was for, I'd immediately guess "areas of the world facing long-term drought."

 

Right on. This is a problem whenever a fire sparks around the Olympics. General public doesn’t follow these sports, or the Olympics, closely, and the situations are usually more complex than NBA, NFL or MLB kerfuffles given the international aspects. You get people with a crap ton of Twitter followers spouting off on something they don’t know much about, and don’t bother to learn about, just to rile people up. And this happens on all sides. Nobody outside of track knew who Sha’Carri Richardson was a month ago, and none of them will bother to follow her career when she comes back later this season after the Olympics. She could win every race in 2022 and 2023, or lose every race, and people, if they remember her at all in 2024, will only talk about her in reference to 2021.

 

I'm betting there's a worry she might get the whole relay DQ'd off another test, so it's not worth it.

 

Also an Olympian: Jessica Springsteen.

Her dad is The Boss.

Born to ride: Springsteen's daughter to Tokyo

 

What if they gave an Olympics, and nobody came?

LOL

 

Usually I’m super indifferent to the Olympics. But I start two weeks of on-call duty the night of the opening ceremonies, so I need something to keep me entertained. Wrap em in Saran Wrap and let’s get the show on the road.

 

Springsteen: Man of the people.

Bruce Springsteen's daughter makes Olympic equestrian team

That is one damn good-looking horse.

 

It's a sad funny ending to find yourself pretending
A rich man in a poor man's shirt