The ugly Olympic stories

Gonz

Gonz

molṑn labé
Staff member
ATHENS (Reuters) - Iran's world judo champion Arash Miresmaeili refused to compete against an Israeli Sunday, triggering a fresh crisis at the Olympic Games where race, creed or color are barred from interfering in sport.

The International Judo Federation (IJF) failed to agree how to deal with the politically explosive issue at an emergency meeting and said it would hold further talks Monday.

The burning issue was whether any penalty would hit Miresmaeili alone or the entire Iranian team, as the intrusion of the Middle East's bitter politics threatened to fly in the face of the Olympic ideal.

But in Tehran, the Iranian National Olympic Committee said in a statement: "This is a general policy of our country to refrain from competing against athletes of the Zionist regime and Arash Miresmaeili has observed this policy."

Iran has refused to recognize Israel's right to exist since Islamic fundamentalists toppled the Shah in 1979.
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Reuters
Ban the team since they are just following offical orders.
 
Two Greek sporting legends were last night suspended from the Athens Olympics amid suspicion they faked a motorcycle accident to cover up a missed drugs test.
Sprinters Kostas Kederis and Ekaterini Thanou were removed temporarily by the Greek Olympic Committee amid growing anger their behaviour had brought scandal to the sporting showpiece.
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Guardian
 
Gonz said:
Ban the team since they are just following offical orders.
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Even better, set it up so their first competition in any event is against an Israeli. They forfeit every one and you don't have to kick 'em out.
 
This doesn't fully belong here but the American team is so outstanding and acting so childish it needs to be here.
ATHENS, Greece (AP) - In an upset as historic as it was inevitable, Tim Duncan, Allen Iverson and the rest of the U.S. basketball team lost 92-73 to Puerto Rico on Sunday, only the third Olympic loss ever for America and its first since adding pros.

It was by far the most lopsided defeat for a U.S. men's team.

Puerto Rico, which had lost to the Americans five times in the past 13 months, led for more than 33 minutes of the 40-minute game. They were ahead by 22 at halftime and gamely held off a fourth-quarter comeback for one of the biggest sports achievements in the territory's history.

"We're a small island with a big heart," guard Elias Ayuso said.

The loss was a blow to the Americans' confidence, but it did little to hurt their gold medal chances. They need only to finish in the top four of their six-team group to reach the quarterfinals.

Still, the defeat will go a long way toward giving the competition hope that it's someone else's turn to move to the top of a sport that's been dominated by one country for nearly three-quarters of a century.

As Carlos Arroyo left the court with just over a minute left, he defiantly pulled at the words "Puerto Rico" on his jersey. He led his team with 24 points.

"That was him telling his island of 4 million people he was very proud to beat the big colossal from the north," Puerto Rico coach Julio Toro said.
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ATHENS (AFP) - IOC (news - web sites) officials, worried by the television images being flashed around the world of athletes competing in near empty stadiums, have told the Athens Games organisers to give tickets away for free if necessary.


AFP Photo



On Saturday, the first full day of competition, weightlifter Nurcan Taylan became the first Turkish woman to win an Olympic gold medal but her feat was achieved in a near empty stadium.


On Sunday, tennis superstars Venus Williams (news - web sites) and Andy Roddick, used to playing to packed courts, began their Olympic quest to vacant stands.


Organising officals tried to play down the crisis, saying that they knew at the beginning of the Games some events would be badly attended because they were not popular sports in Greece.


"As we move on it will be much, much higher," said spokesman Michalis Zacharatos. "We are very pleased with our ticket sales."


But the International Olympic Committee (news - web sites) knows its brand image is damaged by the sight of near empty stadiums.


At the 1988 Seoul Olympics, the then IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch told the Korean organisers to fix the situation and within 24 hours the main stadium was packed every day as school children and soldiers out of uniform were shipped in.


Four years ago in Sydney, free tickets were given away at the start of the Games after IOC complaints that there were not enough people in the stands.


"It is very important for the IOC that when people throughout the world watch the Games on television, they see filled stands. It reinforces the claim that the Olympics is the world's biggest sporting festival.


"Hugh blocks of vacant seats suggests the opposite and the IOC is very concious of its image," said an international marketing expert here for the Games.


In a bid to increase sales, 35 new ticket offices have been opened, making it easier for the public to buy them.


So far 2.9 million tickets have been sold out of a target of five million.


In Sydney, 9.5 million tickets were sold.


On Sunday, IOC officials, at a meeting with Greek organisers, suggested ways that the spectator numbers could be increased, including giving tickets away to volunteers.


Athletics begins next week and the IOC wants a packed stadium for the most televised event of the Games.


With Greek sprint star, defending 200 metres champion Kostadinos Kenteris, facing being thrown out of the Games after failing to turn up for a doping test, there are concerns thousands of Greeks will not bother to go to the athletics.
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Gonz said:
This doesn't fully belong here but the American team is so outstanding and acting so childish it needs to be here.
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There is no American team. There are American players, but they certainly are not a team. They don't stand a chance.
 
regarding the iranian guy: the moment i heard it, i KNEW you would post about it Gonz :D
i find it highly childish and morally wrong what he's doing as well; in events like this, SPORT is the most important thing, NOT political issues. sport should be above political issues as well: best example is Korea; during the opening ceremony, sporters of both south AND north walked together, as ONE country. 'nuff said.
 
Re: the empty seats.... the ticket prices are outrageous, the hotels are expensive and so are the flights. It takes a special kind of person (Rich) to attend.... not moi :(

At least Iran didn't pull out all the way for the inclusion of Israel in the Olympics. :shrug: or... the other alternative.
 
It's got a ways to go yet. Your other alternative isn't impossible, given the level of "preparation" managed by the Greeks in all other areas.
 
1.5 billion euro's spent on preperation; that oughta do something, at least make terrorists think twice before doing anything stupid.

and their preparation isn't bad; they organized one hell of an olympic games. but as with everything the greek do: they're always late and postpone everything to the last possible moment.
 
Shadowfax said:
1.5 billion euro's spent on preperation; that oughta do something, at least make terrorists think twice before doing anything stupid.
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doing anything stupid at the games themselves, sure... but while the cats are away...the mice shall play? With the eyes of the world in Athens...why not hit elsewhere?
 
Re: the Iran guy.

He should be kicked out of the games, put on a bus and sent home.
 
Nixy said:
pffft shoulda given the games to Toronto!
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You don't want it...believe me. This is Montreal's 30th anniversary of the games here....and we've just now finished paying for the Big-O (Olympic center). Believe me...you really really don't want that cash black-hole. :brush:
 
ATHENS (Reuters) - Five weightlifters were banned from the Olympics after failing drugs tests, officials said on Thursday, as doping scandals continued to dominate the first week of the Games.

Host nation Greece has already suffered a black eye over the antics of its two top sprinters who withdrew from the Games on Wednesday after a furor over missed dope tests.

In another rumbling controversy, Iran escaped sanction for the failure of its team flag-bearer, judo world champion Arash Miresmaeili, to fight Ehud Vaks last Sunday because of Tehran's political boycott of Israel.

A source in the sport's governing body said the International Judo Federation (IJF) had now accepted that Miresmaeili had a genuine medical reason for showing up too heavy to fight.

Weightlifters from Morocco, Moldova, Hungary, India and Turkey tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs and were expelled, distracting attention from arenas where exciting new standards were being set in swimming and gymnastics.

No issue has generated as much heat at the Athens Games as drug use, especially after the uproar over Costas Kenteris and Katerina Thanou threw Greeks into depression on the eve of what should have been a great triumph -- opening the country's first Olympics in 108 years last Friday.

The two sprinters, who missed a random drug test and wound up in hospital after a mystery motorcycle crash, withdrew from the Games Wednesday, maintaining their innocence even as many of their countrymen turned against them.

Their withdrawal spared the International Olympic Committee (IOC) the duty of expelling them and further embarrassing the host nation, the land where the Olympic Games began 2,700 years ago and where they were revived in 1896.
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Source
 
ah well, for some reason people still try to use doping, while they know there are going to be tests...

stupidity and lack of respect just can't be helped :shrug:
i wouldn't be too proud of setting a record while i've used doping, knowing the others didn't. plus, if you win a medal, there are even more intense doping tests, so you're never get away with it anyway.
 
They use different drugs, some of them are not detectable, or they just risk it and use newer ones that they think the laboratories will not detect.
 
There had to be another. I wonder if the Brits knew they had given over their sovereignty? What will this do to the UK/NI squabble?

EURO chief Romano Prodi last night hailed Britain’s haul of Olympic gold as a triumph — for the European Union.

And he warned our athletes will have to fly the EU flag as well as the Union Jack at Beijing in 2008.

That would mean 800m and 1500m champion Kelly Holmes and boxing sensation Amir Khan would be battling for Brussels as much as Britain.

Mr Prodi turned the Athens games into a political football, boasting that our bag of 30 medals helped the EU trounce America and China.
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The Sun
 
I wouldn''t worry too much. This guy is on his way out anyways, and has always been a leftist proponent of the EU over the individual nation.

I personally can't see Germany, Britain and France going for it.
 
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