Banning Nations That Cheat

Good news! The International Olympic Committee has banned Russian athletes from competing in the Olympic Games in Rio and, perhaps beyond, in response to state sponsored, mass doping of Russian athletes. Well, it's not as if any live human didn't know about the cheating by Russia in international sports. They have been doing it since the start of the steroid craze in the early 60's. The old Soviet Union mass cheated by drugging athletes, Every member of the Soviet block had pumped athletes, and every nation that didn't complained, in vain, about the cheating.

I remember in the 60's how huge the East German swimmers were. They flexed and took on the appearance of male body builders. Naturally, those swimmers dominated all the stamina events in the games, as well as winning a majority of the sprints. As the performance enhancing steroids became widespread outside of the Soviet Union individual athletes started using them as well. But the communist nation block had a monopoly government directed cheating of entire teams. That is the distinction for those who claim, "well, everyone cheats". Many do, but governments can not be allowed to create a nation wide drug enhanced Olympic team.

Until the Russians were banned, no entire team, nor any national government has ever been punished for this kind of cheating. The banning of individual cheats has had no deterrent effect on cheating with drugs. Perhaps now, if the international sports regulatory agencies, are resolute and enforced strict bans on mass cheating it may turn the tide somewhat to making the sporting events cleaner competitions that reflect true ability rather than scientific ability to drug an athlete to victory. The Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and 68 Russian athletes attempted to overturn the suspension, implemented by the body that governs world athletics. But the Court of Arbitration for Sport (Cas) has ruled it can stand. Bravo! Give them medals for courage.

After the Rio Olympics, the IAAF (International Association of Athletics Federations) task force will work with Russia to establish a clean Russian program so that its federation and team can return to international competition. And, for the truly optimistic, perhaps international competitions will go after individual cheaters more resolutely. Ironically, it may be harder to catch individual cheats than a entire team cheats because the paper trail is long and wide when the cheating is conducted in mass by governments.

 As for the Russian outrage at the ban, they will get over it. It is not the first time the entire team did not compete in an Olympics (they skipped the 1984 Los Angeles games in protest against the U.S. boycott of the Moscow 1980 games). Despite the many problems of Rio as host this Olympics, the ban of national cheating makes the Rio Games far more significant to sport than anything that could happen during the Actual competitions.