#world anti doping agency

[figureskatingfanblog]

Per the CAS, WADA is requesting a full four year suspension for Kamila Valieva starting on December 25th, 2021, and including any competitions thereafter.

[videoblogbyjacobo]

World Anti Doping Agency- An Essential Anti Doping Code

It is essentially immoral and harmful to the entire spirit of sport to employ doping products or procedures to improve performance. Drug abuse can be dangerous to an athlete's health and to the performance of other athletes. Using drugs to enhance performance or not, it seriously undermines the integrity, image, and worth of sport. A dedication to maintaining a clean field of play is essential for achieving integrity and fairness in sport. By managing a thorough anti-doping programme that places equal emphasis on education/prevention and testing, with subsequent sanctions for those who break the rules, the IWF seeks to uphold the integrity of weightlifting. #sports #doping #antidoping #rules #games #WADA Watch video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pYDzTJ-YiY

[bopinion]

2024 / 16

Aperçu of the Week

"You can't knock on opportunity's door and not be ready."

(Peter Gene Hernandez, better known as Bruno Mars and my sons favorite soundtrack while he's cooking)

Bad News of the Week

Sport actually has nothing to do with politics. Because the competition is carried out by individuals who (can) stand outside of systems. Nevertheless, sport is often instrumentalized by politics by stylizing successful athletes as symbolic figures for the strength of a system. I can still remember the Olympic Games in the 70s and 80s very well, in which the athletes of the USA and the Soviet Union competed against each other in many ways as a priority. And Rocky IV, of course.

It is fitting that sports organizations have always been suspected of being corrupt - often rightly so, see FIFA. It is therefore clear that it is almost always not the athletes who are the problem, but the officials. Do you need proof? How about China and doping? Because there was a big boom this week, as a journalistic investigative team from ARD (the BBC of Germany) found out.

At a national swimming competition in China at the beginning of 2021, 23 swimmers tested positive in the mandatory doping tests - which means negative in this context. This was then covered up. With the knowledge of WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency). The agency did not consider it worth investigating the banned substance trimetazidine, for which the Russian figure skating prodigy Kamila Valiyeva was banned for four years in the same year. The Chinese swimmers, however, were not. In the following Summer Olympics in Tokyo, three of them won gold and two silver.

We can see that China today is what the Soviet Union (and to some extent the GDR) used to be - a regime that abuses even its top performers to score points at international level. The staff looking after athletes (including doctors who have long since thrown the Hippocratic Oath overboard) still have more say than the athletes themselves. An institution that was set up to prevent malpractice can also be corrupt. At the major sporting events this summer, first the European Men's Football Championships and then the Olympic Games in Paris, spectators will not know whether they are cheering on a fake. And the athletes themselves won't know whether the competition was fair at all.

Good News of the Week

At last, US weapons are back in Ukraine. For months, the Republican “Freedom caucus” in the House of Representatives had been standing on the brakes. And Ukraine lost. Because, as is generally the case in the NATO context, all other members cannot compensate for the loss of by far the most capable partner country. It is therefore a great relief that the rationalists in the USA have regained the upper hand. And are now giving the badly shaken Ukraine hope again.

The following still applies: if Putin can subjugate Ukraine or impose a dictated peace on it, he will not sit back contentedly in his armchair in the Kremlin and enjoy the day of victory. He will continue in his quest to bring the Soviet Union back from the dead. Even if the Baltic states are members of NATO, they would be his next victims (not to mention Moldova, for example). Because apparently he could simply allow himself to do this without being stopped. The democracy of the whole of Europe is being defended in Ukraine, that must not be forgotten. So my heartfelt thanks to the US Congress.

A positive side effect of all this is that the same financial package, which Joe Biden will undoubtedly sign as soon as possible, contains even more. Namely 26 billion US dollars for the suffering population in Gaza - in your face, Benjamin Netanyahu! And 8 billion for Taiwan and the Indo-Pacific region - in your face, Xi Jinping! The USA are back on the world stage where they belong. I would not have thought it, but I must now pay tribute to a member of the Republican establishment. So thank you, Speaker of the House James Michael “Mike” Johnson. Hopefully I'll get over it...

Personal happy moment of the week

My son was in trouble with a teacher. A misunderstanding - that had developed into a solid crisis due to a certain stubbornness on both sides - was now threatening to cost him his participation in a project that is important to him. I took his side and was called in for a “clarifying discussion”. This was then canceled because the teacher (probably looking for reinforcement and arguments) consulted with other teachers. And “received very positive feedback on his behavior”. Disciplinary measures were not taken “because he is so committed and keeps the group together.” So a serious accusation suddenly turned into high praise.

I couldn't care less...

...that a Belgian court acquitted a driver who was driving with a blood alcohol level of 2.1. Because he suffers from the extremely rare “home-brew syndrome”: the body produces alcohol itself, which leads to the usual symptoms such as reduced responsiveness etc. Anyone who is a danger to themselves and, above all, to others on the road should not be allowed to drive - for whatever reason. After all, the disability of no blind person is their own fault. But no court in the world would allow him to drive.

It's fine with me...

...that for the first time in the history of the USA a criminal trial is taking place against a (former) president. I don't care whether or not you can plead guilty to election interference by falsifying business records because of hush money payments to a porn star. I just wish that a proven notorious liar and cheat, who is also a sexist, racist, homophobe and incidentally “unfit for office”, would finally have to take responsibility for his actions in court.

As I write this...

...April lives up to its name: first you can go swimming and two days later it's snowing. Candles are set up in the vineyards to warm the tender buds. And the hedgehog that has been hibernating on the terrace under our barbecue probably thinks it has woken up too early. Allergy sufferers are happy about the abrupt end of the pollen season. But everyone misses spring.

Post Scriptum

Everyone gets their life from their mother. She is the primary caregiver that all humans have in their first perceptions. That's why I've never understood why so many men simply devalue this in the course of their lives - and grant women fewer rights than themselves. Poverty, discrimination and a lack of equal rights cost lives, according to the latest UN World Population Report.

Not only is there no progress towards equality, there is actually a decline. The rights of “women, girls and gender-diverse people are being pushed back more and more,” says Dr. Natalia Kanem (head of the United Nations Population Fund). Lack of representation and limited self-determination force one in four women under a male-dominated yoke. And sexual violence is a problem in almost every country in the world. No man can want that. Not for his mother, not for his sister, not for his daughter. And not for his wife either. Shame on you!

[galerymod]

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is an ineffective and inept organisation that is unable and unwilling to fulfil its obligations consistently across the various jurisdictions in which it operates.

We support the establishment of a new world anti-doping agency by clean athletes in the Netherlands, independent of governmental and political activities.

The agency would be neutral, according to the latest standards of anti-doping, with independent laboratories that are changed every year. It would be funded proportionally by the sports industry, without any say in the matter, and would represent those who no longer trust WADA.

WADA has a history of acting in a manner that is not in the best interests of athletes. Given that we do not see the point in listing all of WADA's misdemeanours and do not believe that the existing system can be reformed, we will not list any more facts here.

Everything has already been exposed in the numerous misdemeanours that have been reported in the world press.

mod

We would like to point out that we ourselves were athletes who trained for the Olympics and reject any attempt at manipulation through doping.

Well, we didn't make it due to external circumstances, but we would never have accepted the highest performance under dopping for ourselves if we had been given the choice.

If everything is as open to question as it already is, then perhaps it would be best to release everything you can dop without limits.

Then good night sport!

[linusjf]

Marion Jones: No reason

Marion Jones (Photo credit: Wikipedia) “You forget that sometimes people are out there to get you — they don’t even have a reason. ” —Marion Jones.

[xtruss]

Hegemony Is Challenged From Olympic To Global Competition

— Ai Jun | August 11, 2024

Illustration: Liu Rui/Global Times

The Olympics is supposed to be a competition that transcends borders and cultures, and stands for equality and fairness. Although we could witness touching moments of friendship that rise above wins, losses and national boundaries, it is becoming increasingly clear that major power rivalries are encroaching upon the Games, largely driven by the anxieties of once-dominant countries.

Even top US scholars admit this. "In this Olympics, as in most other races in the world today, there are two - and only two - superpowers: China and the United States," wrote Graham Allison from the Harvard Kennedy School in The National Interest. He added that China's rise, from essentially nowhere to become the leading rival of the US in the Olympics, mirrors its rise in virtually every other dimension to become the defining geopolitical rival in the 21st century.

He made a point. Zheng Qinwen claimed China's first tennis singles gold medal in Olympic history; Pan Zhanle set a new world record as he stormed to victory in the men's 100-meter freestyle final; and the China swim team made history by ending the US dominance of the 4x100m medley relay to take gold. For some time, Western countries, especially the US, have displayed that they are on top in athleticism, technology and national strength in these sports. However, this is no longer the case.

Western countries, especially the US, are unwilling to see China's rise in sports, as well as in other aspects. This has led to an absurd scene in Olympic history: The US media continuously questions the integrity of Chinese swim athletes, despite them being proven clean after undergoing 200 drug tests in just 10 days. Meanwhile, they ignore the visibly purple faces of the US swim team. Why don't they question if US approach to competing in the Olympics is clean and justified?

Just as how the US suppresses China's leading high-tech company, Huawei, it is also doing the same in sports by weaponizing drug testing to hinder China's rise in swimming.

On one hand, there is no credible explanation as to why the faces of the US swim team turned so unbelievably purple. It is even more mysterious when the US Embassy in China posted color-adjusted photos to celebrate the team's success at the Paris Olympics.

On the other hand, even though the Chinese swim team underwent the most frequent testing, there is still skepticism about the cleanliness of their results. Some US media outlets have shown a certain hysteria, as if there must be loopholes in China's achievements, and they believe that they have not yet interfered with Chinese athletes strongly enough. This is the reality that Chinese athletes face in competitive sports, much like the challenges China faces during its rise.

Fortunately, in various competitions, the Paris Games have shown China's overall rapid rise in sports. Chinese athletes show that solid strength is the core and foundation of everything. In events invented and dominated by Europeans and Americans, under rules set by Westerners, and with deliberate stumbling blocks made by the US, Chinese young people steadily advance from adversity to success through their own efforts.

They distinguish themselves from previous generations by shedding traditional restraints, confidently embracing their achievements and courageously confronting injustice and prejudice.

Pan said, "to those who look down on us, we've taken them all down." Chinese butterfly queen Zhang Yufei asked, "Why are Chinese athletes questioned when they swim so fast? Why didn't anyone dare to question Phelps when he won?"

Today, their voices have been heard. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) has issued a stern rebuke to the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), exposing a scheme that allowed US athletes who had committed doping violations to compete without sanctions for years.

The Paris Games comes to an end, but the game surrounding the global doping control mechanism may have only just begun. It is time for the US to clarify if it has utilized its national power to protect athletes who use drugs yet pretend to be innocent in global competition. We will see in future events whether testing frequencies will be fair across all countries, and if the double standards and shameless practices of USADA will be seriously addressed, especially in the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028.

The fairness of international competitive sports is under scrutiny, with rules allowing only a few countries to dominate increasingly challenged. This trend extends beyond sports to broader global competition. While more struggles are ahead, the confident, honest and open-minded Chinese youth who reject hegemony and prove themselves through their strength offer a hopeful perspective.

— The Author is a Reporter with the Global Times.

[athis333]

In 2021, on the eve of the Tokyo Olympics, 23 top Chinese swimmers tested positive for the drug trimetazidine. In its proper clinical setting, the medication is used to treat angina. But for an athlete or a coach willing to cheat, it is a performance-enhancing drug, boosting the heart muscle’s functioning. Nonprescription use of trimetazidine, or TMZ is prohibited at all times, not just during competition; the default sanction for an athlete’s violation is a four-year ban.

The testing that ensnared so many members of China’s swim team was conducted under the auspices of the national anti-doping agency, known as CHINADA. Each country in international competition has its own such agency—America’s is USADA, which I serve—and they all operate under the umbrella of the World Anti-Doping Agency. WADA is the ultimate authority, responsible for ensuring that national agencies enforce the rules. Yet shortly before the 2021 Games got under way, CHINADA vacated the 23 violations, giving a cock-and-bull story about accidental contamination in the kitchen where the athletes’ meals were prepared. And WADA simply accepted CHINADA’s obviously suspect ruling.

WADA failed even to publish its decision. The world was alerted only last month by whistleblowers who pushed evidence of the scandal to the media. Prompted by the revelations to respond, WADA issued a statement citing its prior conclusion “that it was not in a position to disprove the possibility that contamination was the source of TMZ” and “that, given the specific circumstances of the asserted contamination, the athletes would be held to have no fault or negligence.”

WADA’s failure of oversight and lack of transparency are corroding fair competition—and that has come to haunt clean athletes around the world. If WADA had properly upheld its mission, China would likely have lost 13 of its top swimmers chosen for the Olympic team at Tokyo. Instead, China won six medals, three of them gold, in the pool.

USADA has the job of ensuring that American swimmers abide by the rules and compete clean; as a result of WADA’s inaction, several of them potentially lost podium places in Tokyo that they deserved. Worse, the world body’s enforcement failures have made national anti-doping agencies such as CHINADA hostage to bad regimes, turning the agencies and the athletes they oversee into pawns in a cynical geopolitical game of prestige and power.

What we are seeing is a reinvention of the bad old days of the Cold War, when East Germany tried fraudulently to demonstrate the superiority of state socialism by systematically doping its athletes. Back then, no international anti-doping movement existed, and East Germany’s cheating went suspected but largely undetected until years later. By then, it was too late for justice; the harms done—both to the athletes’ health and to the credibility of the competition in that era—were permanent. Today, we have the World Anti-Doping Agency to police international sports—but enforcement works only if the watchdog itself is unbiased, conflict-free, and effective. At the Paris Games this summer, clean competition is very much in doubt.

[gothalokhabar]

विश्व एन्टी डोपिङ एजेन्सीको नेतृत्व पुनः दोहोरियो

विश्व एन्टी डोपिङ एजेन्सीको नेतृत्व पुनः दोहोरियो

मोन्ट्रियल,  ३ मङ्सिर । विश्व एन्टी डोपिङ एजेन्सी (वाडा) ले शुक्रबार अध्यक्ष विटोल्ड बान्का र उपाध्यक्ष याङ याङको पुनः दोस्रो तीन वर्षको कार्यकालका लागि निर्वाचित भएको पुष्टि गरेको छ । वाडाको कार्यकारी समिति र फाउन्डेसन बोर्डले नोभेम्बर १७ र१८ मा एजेन्सीको मुख्यालय, मोन्ट्रियल, क्यानडामा भेला भएको र यसको शीर्ष नेतृत्वको पुनः चयन  गरेको बताएको छ ।   सो भेलामा नेतृत्व चयनका अतिरिक्त अन्य थुप्रै…

[race-week]

Al I've seen apparently George got test if he was DOPING or not ?? ( Just a video though ) did he pass of not using any kind of substance or no? also is that mandatory?? that's the first time I've seen it

Yes Formula one follows the WADA (World Anti Doping Agency) list of prohibited substances and as such the drivers in Formula one and F2/F3 have to undergo random drug testing.

i.e. they have to pee in a cup with an FIA official present.

This isn’t a case of them suspecting anything and following it up, it’s a random test and they usually happen at random points throughout the weekend.

Verstappen for instance was woken up at 7am on practice day in Hungary to give a urine sample, and in the past Rosberg was tested when he was on holiday in Ibiza in 2009.

Generally the testing now mostly just takes place within race weekends but theoretically they can be required to provide a sample outside of a race weekend.

What is kind of funny is in cases like Ocon’s in Monza 2021, he couldn’t ‘provide a sample’ and as such was just followed around the paddock by a member of the medical team until he could.

So yeah they test for drugs and other substances because they have to, but there’s never really been a case of a driver using performance enhancing drugs (except for in the really early days of the sport) although previously two drivers have received bans for testing positive for prohibited substances (Franck Montagny and Tomas Enge)

You’d only really find out if Russell didn’t pass the drug test, they don’t announce the results of them. So no news is good news

[bright-and-burning]

i was pretty sure in-competition vs out-of-competition drug testing had different rules from following track and field doping scandals. and i was right! and then i accidentally dug a little too deep into doping regulations so. here's some fun info on anti-doping & motorsports (& how allowed doing drugs is) below the cut (you could perhaps call this a ~primer~ if you wanted)

i'm going off of the FIA's anti-doping regulations (appendix a to the international sporting code, this is from 2017 but it gets the gist across (and doesn't require a download). i checked it against the 2021 version and nothing i referenced changed significantly; click on the "appendix a" link here to download the 2021 version) and the world anti-doping code international standard prohibited list (link is to the 2024 list but i don't think things have changed very much over the years).

the appendix was only added to the international sporting code in 2010, so i can't speak to anything before then.

the FIA link is 69 pages long and also not an easy read BUT from what i can tell their testing works the same as any other international sport's (so if you're looking for a simpler read on the general process than the FIA's code, check out this wiki page on biological passports and the world anti-doping agency (WADA)'s pretty simple anti-doping process page here).

substances

the important part (to me, at least) is article 4: prohibited list and international standards. this is the bit that says what drugs you can and can't do.

it essentially boils down to "the WADA list applies. and also a few other things."

the few others things here are specifically alcohol and beta-blockers. alcohol for drunk driving reasons, beta-blockers because they lower heart rates and reduce tremors (they're banned in many sports that require high accuracy, like motorsports but also archery and golf).

the WADA list is broken down into two main parts: substances & methods prohibited at all times, and substances & methods prohibited in-competition

substances prohibited at all times

these are things like anabolic agents, peptide hormones, growth factors, beta-2 agonists, hormone and metabolic modulators, and diuretics and masking agents (you can explore more in depth here if you're interested).

basically, what i typically think of when i think of doping. the stereotype of bodybuilders taking steroids, you know. not the fun stuff.

substances prohibited in-competition

these are probably what people are more interested in hearing about (especially fic writers). these are stimulants, narcotics, cannabinoids, and glucocorticoids. i will admit to never having heard of glucocorticoids by that name before this (they are steroids used to treat asthma, inflammation, allergies, etc).

these include things like cocaine, adderall and other stimulants commonly used to treat adhd, ecstasy, weed, heroin, oxycodone, and so on.

once again see here for more info; if you're looking for something specific, go to the index and use what page it points you to as a guide. ecstasy, for example, is not listed by name as ecstasy on page 14 (stimulants prohibited in-competition but not out of competition), but if you look in the index, the ecstasy listing points you towards page 14 (where it's referred to by its 'chemical' name), marking it as a stimulant only prohibited in-competition. you might have to google your drug of choice to find other names for it.

in-competition, by the way, is defined as "the period commencing just before midnight (at 11:59 p.m.) on the day before a competition in which the Athlete is scheduled to participate until the end of the competition and the sample collection process." ie 11:59pm the night before right up to after you pee in the cup. assuming competition includes free practice, this period would be wednesday at 11:59pm to sunday after the race.

obviously you can get a therapeutic use exemption, where your doctor says "yeah they need this banned substance for this reason." it's more complicated than that, and there's a lot of paperwork and different agencies' approval involved, but that's the gist of it. this is, for example, how simone biles is allowed to take adhd medication despite those being prohibited in-competition.

the testing method itself isn't explicitly identified in the 2021 code, but it mentions blood and urine testing as options in a footnote. the 2017 code treats urine testing as the automatic option (and lays out the specifics of how that should occur quite explicitly), and blood testing as an alternative or optional addition.

different drugs stay in your system for different lengths of time. cocaine can show up on saliva & blood tests for up to two days, and on urine tests for up to three. weed's urine testing window can be as long as 30 days (depending on frequency of use). and so on. so risk levels vary!

sanctions stuff

you can get hit with sanctions for tampering with tests, evading tests, etc, but i'm gonna talk about specifically sanctions for testing positive because i feel like that's more interesting and relevant than going into sanctions for missing tests three times in twelve months (but if you are interested, read through the FIA's code).

they make special note of what they call "specified substances." these are substances that are "more like to have been consumed or used by an athlete for a purpose other than the enhancement of sport performance" aka fun drugs as opposed to performance enhancers. pretty much all of the in-competition banned ones are specified substances. notable exception here is cocaine. cocaine (and some other stimulants) are not specified substances. you can see which specific substances are specified here.

the definition of "specified substances" above is pretty much just used for sanctions reasons. it kind of helps determine who the burden of proof falls on.

nitty gritty sanctions stuff

the rest of this post gets into the nitty gritty of sanctions (feel free to skip this bit). motorsports has so few violations at the top level (like, to the point where anti-doping lab people are quoted as being genuinely amazed by how clean everyone is) that this kind of thing hasn't really played out (or at least, not since the FIA started working with WADA. or as far as i know). this is different from just about every other sport i've Ever paid any kind of attention to.

this part would honestly make a really solid flowchart. it makes for a pretty rough primer. it is so confusing, but hopefully i make it even a tiny bit more clear than the FIA's code.

there's quite a few cases here, and they're all kind of complicated:

if the violation involved a specified substance, the FIA has to prove it was intentional use to hit the violator with a four year "period of ineligibility," which i will refer to as a ban throughout for ease.

if the violation does not involve a specified substance, the athlete has to prove it wasn't an intentional use to avoid a four year ban.

the two cases above are what i see as the general cases. if a violation doesn't fall under any of the below cases, then it falls back into those. they're the "if not anything else, then these."

a violation for a substance only prohibited in-competition can be ruled not intentional if it is a specified substance and the athlete can prove that it was used out-of-competition, or if it is not a specified substance and the athlete can prove it was used out-of-competition in a context unrelated to performance.

aka (this is an extremely handwavey and flippant example for demonstration purposes only) if they test positive for ecstasy (specified substance), but they can prove they used it at the club for a good time, then it's not intentional. if they test positive for cocaine (not a specified substance), but they can prove they used it at the club and specifically for fun not for performance, then it's not intentional.

if intent isn't there, and none of the other options i go into below apply, you get a two year ban (as far as i can figure it out).

intentional use is specifically "meant to identify those athletes who cheat," basically doing it knowing it was a rule violation/carried a risk of being a rule violation and disregarding the risk (paraphrased from the FIA).

if the violation involves a substance of abuse as specified by WADA here, and the driver can establish that the use occurred out-of-competition and wasn't related to performance, then they get a three month ban. furthermore, if the driver completes an FIA-approved substance of abuse treatment program, then that ban will be reduced to one month.

if the violation involves a substance of abuse and it occurred in-competition, but the driver can prove it wasn't related to performance, then the violation'll be considered not intentional, and is therefore (as far as i can tell) subject to a two year ban.

if the driver can prove they bear no fault or negligence (literally Zero), then whatever ban they would've gotten will go away. this is REALLY hard though; the document states that it "will only apply in exceptional circumstances, for example, where a Driver could prove that, despite all due care, he or she was sabotaged by a competitor."

Conversely, it says that this no fault case wouldn't apply if: a) they consumed a mislabeled/contaminated vitamin or supplement (drivers are responsible for what they ingest), b) their personal trainer/physician gave it to them without explaining what it was (drivers are responsible for their choice of medical personnel), c) sabotage of their food or drink "by a spouse, coach or other person within the driver’s circle of associates (drivers are responsible for what they ingest and for the conduct of those persons to whom they entrust access to their food and drink)." In these scenarios, however, they could potentially use the no significant fault or negligence cases outlined directly below.

if the violation involves a specified substance (but not a substance of abuse), and the driver can prove no significant fault or negligence, then the consequences will be somewhere between a reprimand and a two year ban depending on how at fault they are.

if they can prove both no significant fault/negligence AND that the detected substance came from a contaminated product, then the consequences will be between somewhere between a reprimand and a two year ban depending on how at fault they are. (as an aside, i'm pretty sure this is the out that shelby houlihan tried to use when she tested positive for an anabolic steroid and blamed it on a pork burrito from a food truck).

to be able to use this out, the driver has to prove separately that a) the substance came from the contaminated product and b) they aren't significantly at fault.

these are, as far as i can tell, all of the potential violation cases the FIA's code has articles for. they align with other sports' regulatory bodies' rules, in my (limited) experience.

i hope this was at least a little interesting and informative! (it certainly was for me). thanks for reading :)

several disclaimers here: i make NO promises abt this being perfectly accurate bc it IS me interpreting the FIA's code. and this is nowhere near my area of expertise (i am not a doctor or a lawyer or anything else relevant to this. i am just a nerd with adhd and a whole lot of time). but i did my best ! and i think it's a solid stone's throw at accurate.

and also to be clear if they do coke in fic on thursday night or whatever for the plot or the vibes im still here for it. this is not me requiring pitch-perfect accuracy on doping violations in fic (and all of this info will probably drain out of my brain by saturday); it's (hopefully) a resource!

[figureskatingfanblog]

The hearing against Kamila Valieva will take place September 26 - 29.

[sistermclarens]

Had to look this up to satisfy my own curiosity re: Oscar competing with a broken rib. FIA is a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, which does ban some of the most common "heavy" pain meds from use during competition (pg 16 in the English version of the rules). Banned during competition basically means you can't have it in your system on the day of a competition, but you can take it before and after that time. Not sure how F1 classifies free practices, but almost certainly for qualifying you couldn't have any of these in your system.

I know nothing about pharmaceuticals but a bit of basic googling seems to indicate that morphine and oxycodone are reliably out of your system within 24 hrs to the point that they wouldn't show up on a drug test. Just making basic assumptions, the last time Oscar could have taken any pain medications is probably the Friday before a race and depending on the free practice rules possibly as early as Thursday morning.

Interestingly, while cocaine is expressly prohibited both in and out of competition, some of its anesthesia derivatives (lidocaine, etc) are not listed in the banned stimulants section (pg 14-15). So possibly they could give him a shot of local anesthesia before races. The big treatments I'm seeing come up repeatedly for broken ribs are rest, ice, and deep breathing (shallow breathing apparently can lead to pneumonia). None of these things can be accomplished in the car, obviously. All the ice bath pictures after Hungary are much more depressing in retrospect.

Of course some other significant complications of rib fractures are a punctured lung and severe internal bleeding. Presumably the McLaren medical staff were monitoring his condition very closely, but let's not pretend that they don't have a conflict of interest: they're paid by the company to get him back in the car asap, NOT to get him back to peak health. Oscar himself was likely advocating for whatever medical options would get him back in the car fastest, not the ones that would be the most beneficial overall. I've certainly done stupid things and caused myself severe injuries in the name of sport over the years, but none of them carried this kind of risk of death. But then again he risks death every time he gets in the car so 🤷‍♀️ both through nature and nurture adrenaline junkie always outweighs his self preservation instincts. Something something support his rights and his wrongs

[beardedmrbean]

The International Olympic Committee awarded the 2034 Winter Olympics to Salt Lake City on Wednesday but warned they could be stripped of the Games if US authorities maintain their feud with the World Anti-Doping Agency.

The success of Salt Lake City's bid was a foregone conclusion given the Utah city, which hosted the Games in 2002, was the only candidate.

But in a dramatic twist shortly before members approved the bid by 83 votes to six, Olympic chiefs said  the Games could be revoked if US lawmakers and the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) were not brought into line, especially over the case of 23 Chinese swimmers.

Outspoken USADA chief Travis Tygart accused the IOC of "stooping to threats".

John Coates, chairman of the IOC's legal commission, said the host city contract confirming Salt Lake's right to stage the Games had been altered to allow the IOC to take them away if US authorities did not respect the "supreme authority" of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA).

Speaking in Paris ahead of the opening of the Games on Friday, Coates said it was "a must, and I stress the word must" for the US authorities to respect WADA.

"The IOC has reinforced the current language of the Olympic host contract in order to protect the integrity of the international anti-doping system and to allow the IOC to terminate -- to terminate -- the Olympic host contract in cases where the supreme authority of the World Anti-Doping Agency.... is not fully respected or if the application of the World Anti-Doping code is hindered or undermined," Coates said.

The warning stunned seasoned observers of the IOC and sports politics.

USADA has been a vocal critic of WADA for much of the past decade.

Those tensions spiked this year after reports in April revealed that 23 Chinese swimmers had tested positive for a banned substance ahead of the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, but were subsequently cleared to compete at the Games.

Tygart has consistently accused WADA of covering up the cases, which China blamed on unintentional food contamination.

Eleven of the 23 Chinese swimmers are in Paris.

WADA has angrily rejected the criticism from USADA, threatening legal action against the body.

- 'Sport lapdog' -

Coates said both the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and the state of Utah had agreed to the reworded host city contract.

"We are committed to fostering WADA's authority as (it) is crucial for the opportunity to provide clean sport for athletes and give them confidence that they can be protected," USOPC chairman Gene Sykes said.

"Our view is that this is of paramount importance and we take their concerns very seriously."

Sarah Hirshland, chief executive of the USOPC, called the Games an "opportunity to bring organisations together to improve the entire anti-doping eco system in collaboration and unity with one another".

She said they had "happily and readily signed" the contract.

But in an angry statement, Tygart again condemned WADA's handling of the case of the Chinese swimmers and lashed out at the conditions of the agreement for Salt Lake to host in 2034.

"It is shocking to see the IOC itself stooping to threats in an apparent effort to silence those seeking answers to what are now known as facts," he said.

"It seems more apparent than ever that WADA violated the rules (over the Chinese swimmers) and needs accountability and reform to truly be the global watchdog that clean athletes need.

"Today's demonstration further showed that as it stands today, WADA is just a sport lapdog, and clean athletes have little chance."

[shineemoon]

Group SHINee member and actor Choi Minho (31) stepped forward as a model for the 2022 Qatar World Cup KADA (Korea Anti-Doping Agency) fair campaign. (Source: spotvnews)

[periodictabletournament]

"A noble gas so it does nothing and not even one of the cool noble gas people know about. Name 1 thing Argon does. You can't!" has got to be one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.

Does the person who wrote this know about how lightbulbs work? The stuff inside a lightbulb that isn't the wire has to be nonreactive, or your lightbulb explodes. And if you fill it with a vacuum, then it will implode instead if you just tap it. You know what is entirely unreactive, is cheap to produce, and is naturally as dense as air? Argon. But if the submitter is not happy with their "request" for one thing argon does being answered, well argon also barely conducts heat. This makes it useful for so many industrial applications. It also is used to date the ages of rocks and ice, as a preservative for many chemicals as well as types of wine, for detecting neutrinos which if you know anything about them you would know how impressive that is, and to create lasers. It is used to store important historical documents, like the American declaration of independence, or that same countries constitution, which regardless of how you feel about the country in question, it's still a job with a lot of significance. Liquid argon has been used to kill cancer, and has been banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency. I do understand if it wins against (is worse than) carbon this round, because it is carbon, but if it does well in the tournament because it is useless and unknown, even though as you can see earlier is has so many uses, and most people would agree that it is better known than many of the other competitors. So don't vote argon.

keep the comments to the elements not the other people participating in the polls please

some great points about the uses of argon though!