No Paralympics this year
The Sunday Nation’s front page gloats on Thailand’s record medal haul at the Paralympics in Rio. In reality there are no Para-Olympics this year, only “games” for some of the world’s handicapped athletes.
There were no Olympic Track and Field events either, just “games”. Led by an anti-Russian Ukranian/Canadian lawyer, WADA, World Anti Doping Association demanded that the IOC ban all Russians from competing in Rio, due to alleged State sponsored doping. International Olympic Committees showed a smidgeon of courage and allowed the Russian non-track and field athletes to compete, but not the handicapped, nor track and field… not even the ones who’d never doped.
Hacked emails revealed that WADA illegally allowed US athletes to take banned substances. Not meldonium, that boosts the cardiovascular system (Shaparova banned for 2 years on that one), but drugs and hormonal substances. Who are these “lucky people”? The masculine Serena and Venus Williams, gymnast Simona Biles, who won four golden medals in Rio, basketball player Elena Delle Donne and a wide range of other athletes.
Oxycodone, hydromorphone, prednisolone, methylprednisolone, methylphenidate (a psychostimulant), hydrocortisone and amphetamines (designer drugs) – appear among others on a list of banned substances American athletes took and tested positive for! They were caught in August, just before the Rio Olympics. Everyone in WADA knew about it, as did the weak, biased Olympic Committees who were informed that these “banned” substances were taken for “medical conditions”.
There is neither truth, nor honesty, nor even the tiniest excuse for the behaviour of WADA, the IOC and the Paralympic committee, who played politics, and in my opinion, nullified the entire Olympic concept in Rio. Let’s hope Tokyo 2020 fares better.
Thomas Turk
