This is actually the marijuana card, not the race card. Sha carri is going to keep pulling the weed card every chance she gets because its the only way she can be relevant now. The tragedy of the "what if" is a blessing in disguise. Look at Prefontaine.
No. Runners of color are often the ones who pay the price for all of the doping. Marion Jones v. Lance Armstrong. Did he go to jail? Sammy Sosa. Um hello. This skater being allowed to skate is a huge FU to the entire athletic community. Sha'Carri has a very valid point. She was rightfully banned and so should this Russian doper.
One Sha'Carri got screwed, and two this had nothing to do with race.
Russia and China own the IOC, WADA and other governing bodies. They know they need to treat those countries with kid gloves because they will cause financial damage if they don't. Whereas the Western nations will put up with the corruption and continue funding. If USATF had made a stink Sha'Carri probably would have been in Tokyo.
I would play the race card too if I was Sha'Carri. I'm glad she is doing it whether it is true or not. The old white men on the Olympic Committee deserve to have the reputations dragged through the mud so go ahead and brand them racist. As far as I can tell the Russians and Chinese basically have bought and paid for those officials.
Ah yes when all else fails - we go to race and we tap into "victimhood"
So let's just be clear about one thing here - Sha'Carri you were actually eligible to race - the 4x100m, except you weren't selected, the reasons for which we don't entirely know but I'm going to guess you don't really want disclosed.
Secondly it's almost 7 months on from the death of your mother that was catalyst for all of this and yet we never heard a name, we never heard who the "reporter" was or the publication that they worked for, we never were quite able to put our fingers on why, with the death of someone so important to you - someone so important that it drove you to smoke cannabis and miss the most important competition of your career why, in a world of instant connection, that this news was delivered by an unnamed reporter and not a family member. A story so important the President was asked about it and the extent of the facts and details we have still remain to this day at "mother died, informed by an unnamed reporter".
You know I thought to myself when I read this surely this woman can't be so incredibly stupid now to try and leverage this situation gives the facts we know and the absurdity of the story to begin with but I was wrong. Desperate people will almost do and say anything to finish the routine of mental gymnastics in their heads.
Perhaps a better comparison for Sha'Carri lies within her own sport or even the governing body that enforced her ban - USADA. Maybe look to the ban that Phelps served that was 3 times longer than hers - of course he wasn't "conveniently" stupid enough to smoke weed the night before his Olympic trials final back in 2009 - he did it 3 months after the Olympics in his off-season.
Just another tragic case of a selfish sociopath attempting to leverage a genuinely serious social cause for their own benefit. I wonder at what point, for example, the African American community actually just say "enough is enough your BS actually long term sets us backwards and hinders the progress we are trying to make - shut your d@mn mouth".
Sharri = 21 yo, adult, knowingly took a banned substance by her own admission, adverse result reported prior to games and sanction accepted.
Valieva = 15 yo, child. Either unaware of banned substance being administered, or aware but not fully culpable as a minor, adverse result reported during games - testing still incomplete and sanction undetermined.
One Sha'Carri got screwed, and two this had nothing to do with race.
Russia and China own the IOC, WADA and other governing bodies. They know they need to treat those countries with kid gloves because they will cause financial damage if they don't. Whereas the Western nations will put up with the corruption and continue funding. If USATF had made a stink Sha'Carri probably would have been in Tokyo.
Can you explain to us (me) how in any world, under any interpretation of any rules, Sha'Carri Richardson got "screwed". Seriously I would love to hear this.
The age difference doesn't help the russian in my mind. She may be less worthy of moral condemnation as a minor, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't ban her from competing.
If anything, her age makes a competition ban more appropriate. PEDs are PEDs, no matter your age, so the unfairness is there no matter what. And letting her compete after a positive test sets a dangerous precedent that encourages coaches to dope minors, even without their knowledge: if your athlete still gets to compete, there's no downside to pumping them full of chemicals.
As for Sha'Carri, her best argument isn't race, or a death in the family, it's that it's stupid to ban weed. It's not a performance enhancer, and I don't care if it's illegal.
So if we're going to make exceptions to the rules, I'd start with the stupidest rule (the ban on weed) and wouldn't consider individual circumstances. If you do, you leave yourself open to unproveable charges of bias, racial or otherwise. You also lose the ability to credibly argue "rules are rules" when a future case like Sha'Carri's comes up and you want to impose a ban that most people think is ridiculous.
It’s actually kind of wild. In a social climate where the media would have fawned over and adored a sassy black female hero, and where the media would have absolutely lapped up a mental health story like her struggles (see coverage of Simone Biles as proof), she still managed to fumble the bag. She continues to fumble it every day by making a media nuisance of herself.
I think the problem that SCR ran into was at one point your story can be so bad that it just implodes the greater narrative. Whether Biles issues were mental health or sports psychology at least it's real. You don't even have to be that terribly clever to see right through her story - despite a social climate you would think perfectly caters to it as you said.
She is not wrong. Age does not excuse the strict liability that having a ped in your system is cheating. The is no reason she should be skating right now. It is a complete disgrace.
It's sad to me that everything in this country is by default assumed to be racist by many in the year 2022. The differences between Sha'Carri and the skater are vast.
1) Sha'Carri admits to have taken her prohibited substance. The Russian denies it.
2) Sha'Carri is a legal adult at 21- the Russian is 15.
3) ONe is a PED. One isn't.
Look, I argued all summer long that Sha'Carri should have been in the Olympics. Marijuana positives are supposed to be like a misdemeanor, not something that causes you to miss the Olympics but technically according to the rules, she should be out.
And here technically according to the rules the skater should be in the competition as a) She's a minor and B) too much time passed between her sample collection date and testing date.
WADA document page 105-6 says wrote:
Reporting Times Reporting of “A” Sample results should occur in ADAMS within twenty (20) days of receipt of the Sample. The reporting time required for specific occasions (e.g. for Major Events, see Annex B) may be substantially less than twenty (20) days. The reporting time may be altered by agreement between the Laboratory and the Testing Authority. The Testing Authority should be informed of any delay in the reporting of “A” Sample results.
Now. Personally, I think it's absurd that minors are given a protected status as now countries will have free reign to dope teens (so maybe we should have an age 18 minimum for the Olympics.
But both cases appear to have been handled exactly the same. The technicality of the rules hurt Sha'Carri and helped the skater.
I learned about the 20 day thing from Roger Pielke:
In the case of Valieva, age was not the only factor CAS accounted for. Significant procedural irregularities were recognised.
Recognizing diminished capacity and a requirement for protection of minors is a world-wide universal principle. Applying this to Sport is not equivalent to providing "free reign to dope teens". There are consequences.
A young athlete who tests positive for a banned substance is still liable for sanction and heaped stigma.
Athletic competition by young persons exists in nearly every sport and countless thousands of prestige events. The Olympics is only one such event. Carrying the logic argued by RoJo here to its conclusion, all sport for those under 18 might be abolished.
In the case of Gymnastics and some other sports, peak performance years in teens. Removing youth participation would fundamentally change these.
When Nadia Comanice scored perfect at the 1976 Olympics, she was 14.
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