The U.S. Olympic Committee is not a government organization – it doesn’t receive direct federal funding – and it will make the call on whether to send a team to Pyeongchang. Any other Olympics, for that matter, too.
And yes, I know all about the U.S. boycott of the Moscow Games in 1980. President Jimmy Carter called for it after the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, but it still was the USOC that had the final say. …
Aliya Mustafina‘s family is directly affected by the ban – her husband, Aleksey Zaytsev, is an Olympic hopeful in bobsleigh and two of his teammates received doping bans just last week. …
Though I feel badly for all the innocent athletes, coaches and support officials in Russia, a penalty this severe was necessary if anti-doping is to be enforced.
IT HAS taken seven investigative reports and seven years. But at long last the International Olympic Committee (IOC) decided on December 5th to punish Russia for running a state-sponsored doping programme …
Russian athletes hoping to compete will have to do so carrying the Olympic flag and singing the Olympic anthem—if they can prove that they are clean. …
The decision is more embarrassing for Vitaly Mutko, Mr Putin’s deputy and the former minister for sport, who has been barred from the Olympics for life. Mr Mutko is also in charge of next year’s football World Cup, which Russia is hosting. …
That mini-documentary includes the moment her boyfriend Gustavo proposed at the Rio Olympics.
After placing 16th at Beijing 2008 and 11th at London 2012, Portugal’s Ana Rente has another date with the Olympics, in Rio 2016 this time, and joined by her boyfriend Gustavo Simoes who qualified for men’s artistic gymnastics!