6 ms·

Russian flag and national anthem banned from 2020 Olympics

89 points by stambros 7y ago

Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
Russian here. I applaud this decision. We have a case when our government officially sanctioned a doping tampering program and has tasked carrying it out the very same organization that exists to prevent the use of doping. Putin is a criminal and has a distorted worldview, that he is above all rules, that all the world is as corrupt as he and his cronies are, that everything can be bought, and if something goes wrong it's only because of it's a 'plot' of his enemies. The cronies he appointed to all government posts too think they are above all laws and rules, so, naturally, our sport officials are doing what they always do: lie, cheat, bribe. It's nice that for once this behavior has blown into their faces. ALso, one more thing about olympics: russian olympic athletes are decidedly NOT amateur athletes. They are all employed by the state, provided with very luxurious scholarships and generally earn 8-10x the median russian salary. Once they end their sports careers they usually join the corrupt russian government, by either becoming members of the parliament via rigged elections or by occupying various non-elected state posts.
- golergka 7y ago
  > 8-10x the median russian salary That's not awfully high and probably less than most of HN readers can earn in a first world country. Completely agree with everything else though. Just pointing out the obvious.
  - Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
    Well, it's more than mid-level developers in top Russian tech companies like Yandex are paid, and it's also way more than the income of any non-famous US athlete from non-mainstream sports (runners, rowers, etc).
    - user5994461 7y ago
      So what? Top athletes make money, it's not new. Olympics athletes are a few select tens of people. If you want a comparison, French athletes get 50k cash per medal if I remember the numbers right. Russia really want to win and show off internationally so no wonder they pay their top athletes.
      - bobthepanda 7y ago
        I mean, 50k cash for a medal you can only really get every four years is not a whole lot of money.
        user5994461 7y ago
        It's only the bonus for the podium, they get other allowances of course. Bear in mind that (winning) athletes usually get more than one medal. Think swimming for example freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, in different distances and in team relay. Lots of opportunities.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
        That's not 'medalists', it's everyone who gets on the national team. In any sport, even relatively obscure. Top athletes that receive medals on international competitions get way more, in prizes, premiums, gifts like expensive cars/apartments/etc from federal and regional authorities. So unless Western amateur athlete has some luxurious ad contract, he/she won't be even close to Russian 'amateurs'.
    - golergka 7y ago
      Yandex famously underpays compared to the market. I'd that 10x median (300-350) is certainly doable for a senior developer in Moscow – not easy, but certainly not undheard of.
      - Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
        Senior developers are not 'mid-level' I was referencing to. Of course, it's not unheard, but I estimate that maybe 1-2% of Russian developers break 300k rub/month. In Moscow most devs are paid less than 200k
Ancalagon 7y ago
Unfortunate for the (clean) Russian athletes who won't be able to compete, although I imagine most of them still will be able to assuming their data wasn't tampered with. Its definitely a good move though.
- farisjarrah 7y ago
  The undoped ones will be able to compete, just not under an official Russian team
- jug 7y ago
  They’ll be able to compete on an individual basis under a neutral flag if they can prove they cannot have been part of this scandal.
iamstartup 7y ago
Strange. Why do sports interfere with politics? The IOC wants to punish Russia and not the atletes, Why don't they allow for or facilitate independent doping testing then and only rely on RUSADA? Doesn't the flag and anthem belong to the people? (I am getting down votes for having a different opinion, but the US flag doesn't belong just to the Whitehouse administration either, right?)
- drspacemonkey 7y ago
  > The IOC wants to punish Russia and not the atletes, Why don't they allow for or facilitate independent doping testing then. That's exactly what they're doing. The third sentence in the article: Russian athletes will be allowed to compete in major events only if they are not implicated in positive doping tests or if their data was not manipulated, according to the WADA ruling.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- redisman 7y ago
  > as punishment for state authorities tampering with a Moscow laboratory database It was a state run program.
- user5994461 7y ago
  The Olympics are a political event, not a sport event.
  - dbtc 7y ago
    No, it's also a sport event.
    - user5994461 7y ago
      Just like a sponsored article is an ad, but it's also an article. The cover is pretty good :D
mc32 7y ago
It’s rather interesting the whistleblower is married to one of the affected athletes. They reached the decision that whistleblowing was the best option. I believe they now live in the US due to fear of reprisal from back home.
- elmo2you 7y ago
  That's one perspective. Another one is that the person who is hailed a whistleblower in the USA (Rodchenkov), may himself have quite a (highly questionable, if not blatantly criminal) history of active involvement in doping activities, and may have fled Russia because the net was already closing up around him. This story could of course be all just a smear campaign against the man. However, it's rather hard to tell, since verifiable info appears hard to come by. Still, I'd rather not blindly believe the man on his own word, considering what is known about him. I also did read somewhere (but was unable to verify) that the RUSADA data that has been tempered with (the reason for this WADA ruling), allegedly may have been modified from a US based IP address, with a user account of a close associate of Rodchenkov (Migachev, who also fled to the USA). Again, this could be all a smear campaign or damage control. Still, I'd rather not judge either way, before knowing the actual validity of these allegations. Lately, the USA sure does not have a very clean slate themselves, where it comes to their involvement/corruption of supposedly independent international organizations, aiming to pursue blatently anti-Russian political policies.
  - thebooktocome 7y ago
    WADA is not an American organization. How does Canada figure into your conspiracy theory (literally, your theory about a conspiracy)?
    - elmo2you 7y ago
      1st: I do not claim a conspiracy. I just am rather sceptical when it comes to believing anyone with a potentially (if not likely) sketchy history, who all of a sudden grows a moral conscience that he or she apparently didn't require before. Especially if that somehow nicely aligns with the political agenda of powerful people in a country they seek refuge, from either prosecution or persecution elsewhere. 2nd: WADA might be situated in Canada, but that will not prevent the US from trying to influence (or even infiltrate) the organization. Either way, WADA has already received its share of criticism. I don't know enough to judge if that's information warfare against WADA, or if the organization has indeed become a US puppet as some do claim. 3rd: anyone who has been following this whole thing for a while, should also have noticed that some professional athletes from other countries appear to be getting an easier treatment than Russian ones. Could just be framing in the media, but could also be a real thing. I could honestly not tell. Still, when it comes to counting actual verified accounts of deliberate misinformation, I think that the US media is currently a lot more high on propaganda than Russian media (though neither are innocent, obviously).
kasperni 7y ago
Icarus is a really good documentary about the Russian doping program. In won the Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature in 2018.
d1ffuz0r 7y ago
Great, I hope we'll recover Sportakiada to counter this. Asia, Middle East, Latin America will get fair treatment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakiad_of_the_Peoples_of_the_USSR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakiad_of_the_Peoples_of_t...
bitL 7y ago
I am all for bans for crooked behavior, just please do it evenly - how about famous asthmatic Norwegians, Carl Lewis vs Ben Johnson doping cases or Team Sky in cycling? It just makes the whole decision politically-colored instead of pure science/fairness-based. I find it weird when other national agencies do some ugly workarounds as well but nobody bothers... Funny that even F1 driver Kvyat who lived since his childhood in Italy might be banned... It resembles 1980/1984 Olympics-level idiocy.
- avmich 7y ago
  Could you provide here some links about similar behavior of other national agencies?
  - bitL 7y ago
    Norway is a glaring example, their winter Olympians consumed huge amount of anti-asthma medication. "Eyebrows were also raised when the Norwegian TV channel NRK published the list of asthma drugs its country’s doctors were taking to this Winter Olympics, which amounted to 10 times more than Finland’s."
- fred_is_fred 7y ago
  The Olympics has F1 now?
  - bitL 7y ago
    F1 has an agreement with WADA. WADA != IOC. https://old.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/e88dtr/does_the_russia_wada_ban_affect_daniil_kvyat/ https://old.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/e88dtr/does_the_r...

89 points by stambros 7y ago

Russian here. I applaud this decision. We have a case when our government officially sanctioned a doping tampering program and has tasked carrying it out the very same organization that exists to prevent the use of doping. Putin is a criminal and has a distorted worldview, that he is above all rules, that all the world is as corrupt as he and his cronies are, that everything can be bought, and if something goes wrong it's only because of it's a 'plot' of his enemies. The cronies he appointed to all government posts too think they are above all laws and rules, so, naturally, our sport officials are doing what they always do: lie, cheat, bribe. It's nice that for once this behavior has blown into their faces. ALso, one more thing about olympics: russian olympic athletes are decidedly NOT amateur athletes. They are all employed by the state, provided with very luxurious scholarships and generally earn 8-10x the median russian salary. Once they end their sports careers they usually join the corrupt russian government, by either becoming members of the parliament via rigged elections or by occupying various non-elected state posts.

golergka 7y ago
> 8-10x the median russian salary That's not awfully high and probably less than most of HN readers can earn in a first world country. Completely agree with everything else though. Just pointing out the obvious.
- Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
  Well, it's more than mid-level developers in top Russian tech companies like Yandex are paid, and it's also way more than the income of any non-famous US athlete from non-mainstream sports (runners, rowers, etc).
  - user5994461 7y ago
    So what? Top athletes make money, it's not new. Olympics athletes are a few select tens of people. If you want a comparison, French athletes get 50k cash per medal if I remember the numbers right. Russia really want to win and show off internationally so no wonder they pay their top athletes.
    - bobthepanda 7y ago
      I mean, 50k cash for a medal you can only really get every four years is not a whole lot of money.
      - user5994461 7y ago
        It's only the bonus for the podium, they get other allowances of course. Bear in mind that (winning) athletes usually get more than one medal. Think swimming for example freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly, in different distances and in team relay. Lots of opportunities.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
      That's not 'medalists', it's everyone who gets on the national team. In any sport, even relatively obscure. Top athletes that receive medals on international competitions get way more, in prizes, premiums, gifts like expensive cars/apartments/etc from federal and regional authorities. So unless Western amateur athlete has some luxurious ad contract, he/she won't be even close to Russian 'amateurs'.
  - golergka 7y ago
    Yandex famously underpays compared to the market. I'd that 10x median (300-350) is certainly doable for a senior developer in Moscow – not easy, but certainly not undheard of.
    - Andrew_nenakhov 7y ago
      Senior developers are not 'mid-level' I was referencing to. Of course, it's not unheard, but I estimate that maybe 1-2% of Russian developers break 300k rub/month. In Moscow most devs are paid less than 200k

Ancalagon 7y ago

Unfortunate for the (clean) Russian athletes who won't be able to compete, although I imagine most of them still will be able to assuming their data wasn't tampered with. Its definitely a good move though.

farisjarrah 7y ago
The undoped ones will be able to compete, just not under an official Russian team
jug 7y ago
They’ll be able to compete on an individual basis under a neutral flag if they can prove they cannot have been part of this scandal.

iamstartup 7y ago

Strange. Why do sports interfere with politics? The IOC wants to punish Russia and not the atletes, Why don't they allow for or facilitate independent doping testing then and only rely on RUSADA? Doesn't the flag and anthem belong to the people? (I am getting down votes for having a different opinion, but the US flag doesn't belong just to the Whitehouse administration either, right?)

drspacemonkey 7y ago
> The IOC wants to punish Russia and not the atletes, Why don't they allow for or facilitate independent doping testing then. That's exactly what they're doing. The third sentence in the article: Russian athletes will be allowed to compete in major events only if they are not implicated in positive doping tests or if their data was not manipulated, according to the WADA ruling.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
redisman 7y ago
> as punishment for state authorities tampering with a Moscow laboratory database It was a state run program.
user5994461 7y ago
The Olympics are a political event, not a sport event.
- dbtc 7y ago
  No, it's also a sport event.
  - user5994461 7y ago
    Just like a sponsored article is an ad, but it's also an article. The cover is pretty good :D

mc32 7y ago

It’s rather interesting the whistleblower is married to one of the affected athletes. They reached the decision that whistleblowing was the best option. I believe they now live in the US due to fear of reprisal from back home.

elmo2you 7y ago
That's one perspective. Another one is that the person who is hailed a whistleblower in the USA (Rodchenkov), may himself have quite a (highly questionable, if not blatantly criminal) history of active involvement in doping activities, and may have fled Russia because the net was already closing up around him. This story could of course be all just a smear campaign against the man. However, it's rather hard to tell, since verifiable info appears hard to come by. Still, I'd rather not blindly believe the man on his own word, considering what is known about him. I also did read somewhere (but was unable to verify) that the RUSADA data that has been tempered with (the reason for this WADA ruling), allegedly may have been modified from a US based IP address, with a user account of a close associate of Rodchenkov (Migachev, who also fled to the USA). Again, this could be all a smear campaign or damage control. Still, I'd rather not judge either way, before knowing the actual validity of these allegations. Lately, the USA sure does not have a very clean slate themselves, where it comes to their involvement/corruption of supposedly independent international organizations, aiming to pursue blatently anti-Russian political policies.
- thebooktocome 7y ago
  WADA is not an American organization. How does Canada figure into your conspiracy theory (literally, your theory about a conspiracy)?
  - elmo2you 7y ago
    1st: I do not claim a conspiracy. I just am rather sceptical when it comes to believing anyone with a potentially (if not likely) sketchy history, who all of a sudden grows a moral conscience that he or she apparently didn't require before. Especially if that somehow nicely aligns with the political agenda of powerful people in a country they seek refuge, from either prosecution or persecution elsewhere. 2nd: WADA might be situated in Canada, but that will not prevent the US from trying to influence (or even infiltrate) the organization. Either way, WADA has already received its share of criticism. I don't know enough to judge if that's information warfare against WADA, or if the organization has indeed become a US puppet as some do claim. 3rd: anyone who has been following this whole thing for a while, should also have noticed that some professional athletes from other countries appear to be getting an easier treatment than Russian ones. Could just be framing in the media, but could also be a real thing. I could honestly not tell. Still, when it comes to counting actual verified accounts of deliberate misinformation, I think that the US media is currently a lot more high on propaganda than Russian media (though neither are innocent, obviously).

kasperni 7y ago

Icarus is a really good documentary about the Russian doping program. In won the Academy Awards for Best Documentary Feature in 2018.

d1ffuz0r 7y ago

Great, I hope we'll recover Sportakiada to counter this. Asia, Middle East, Latin America will get fair treatment. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakiad_of_the_Peoples_of_the_USSR https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakiad_of_the_Peoples_of_t...

bitL 7y ago

I am all for bans for crooked behavior, just please do it evenly - how about famous asthmatic Norwegians, Carl Lewis vs Ben Johnson doping cases or Team Sky in cycling? It just makes the whole decision politically-colored instead of pure science/fairness-based. I find it weird when other national agencies do some ugly workarounds as well but nobody bothers... Funny that even F1 driver Kvyat who lived since his childhood in Italy might be banned... It resembles 1980/1984 Olympics-level idiocy.

avmich 7y ago
Could you provide here some links about similar behavior of other national agencies?
- bitL 7y ago
  Norway is a glaring example, their winter Olympians consumed huge amount of anti-asthma medication. "Eyebrows were also raised when the Norwegian TV channel NRK published the list of asthma drugs its country’s doctors were taking to this Winter Olympics, which amounted to 10 times more than Finland’s."
fred_is_fred 7y ago
The Olympics has F1 now?
- bitL 7y ago
  F1 has an agreement with WADA. WADA != IOC. https://old.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/e88dtr/does_the_russia_wada_ban_affect_daniil_kvyat/ https://old.reddit.com/r/formula1/comments/e88dtr/does_the_r...