Camel Beauty Contest Scandal

Cheating in international sports has got to stop. We all know about the Russians and their nonstop cheating in international contests. They use drugs or bribery of judges to win contests. Everyone knows it, but then, we all expect a dictatorship as corrupt as the Russian one to cheat abroad. Cheating is the norm internally and in fact, some think it is a long held cultural in Russia right to cheat. It takes a culture a long time to disinfect the stains of communism. But now there is word of cheating by non Russians.

The biggest international camel beauty contest is now in the midst of a cheating scandal. That's right, rigged camel beauty contests are now a problem. It seems that at least 12 contestants in the 2017 Saudi Arabia beauty pageant have been disqualified because their owners injected their lips with Botox. I resist any urge to comment on the beauty or non beauty of Saudi women here, but relate to you that camels are considered very sexy things in the Mid East. Maybe its because the camel is uncovered while the Saudi woman is hiding among all those sheets of camouflage the men insist the ladies wear.

Camel looks are so important that at this contest the judges  hand out millions of dollars in cash prizes to the breeders of the most toothsome beasts. The camel teeth and fullness of the face are seen as the main standard of beauty. But the sexiest camels are supposed to be all natural ones, not Sylvester Stallone or Arnold Schwarzenneger chemically enhanced ones. "They (the camel breeders) use Botox for the lips, the nose, the upper lips, the lower lips and even the jaw,” Ali al-Mazrouei, the son of a leading Emirati camel breeder. “It makes the head more inflated so when the camel comes, it’s like, ‘Oh, look at how big that head is,’ ” he said. “It has big lips, a big nose.”

Forget the steroid infused humans at the Olympics! The Camel festival in Saudi Arabia where the cheating has been unmasked  involves up to 30,000 camels and has so far attracted at least 300,000 visitors, organizers said. Camels also compete in races, with total prize money for the festival of $57 million; of that, $31.8 million is set aside for the beauty pageant. Wow!  For $57 you can botox me.
Botox injections and collagen fillers alter a camel’s appearance for months.

By the time a buyer finds out they’ve been had, it is usually too late for action against the seller. The camel competitions may ban camels for years but owners can continue to enter other camels. Anyway, the cheaters have been unmasked, so the offending camels, enhanced lips and all have been sent away from the contest and into the desert. In camel land, all natural is in and Hollywood botox is out.