ESPN is officially a joke - ESPN refusing to drug test at X Games Oslo.

Reminds me of the Entourage episode where Turtle is walking around withe clean urine cause the gang convinced him there would be drug testing at an Xbox tournament.

Turtle: All right. Let's get this over with. Where do I take the piss test?

X-Box Girl: The what?

Turtle: The drug test. I drank three bottles of water in the car for this, so could we just get this over with, please?

X-Box Girl: This is X-box, loser... not the Olympics. We don't give drug tests. If we did, we'd be out of business, idiot.

Its the X Games on ESPN. There is probably even a disclaimer saying it is for entertainment purposes only.

Party at Rojo's wrote:

Do any networks pay for drug testing? What drugs are you taking that would lead you to believe the network should pay?

Agreed.

It's a no brainer from a financial standpoint assuming the public doesn't get outraged.

By your logic of "don't spend money on stuff that can only cause you negative publicity" then the NFL, IAAF, USATF, etc out to just get rid of drug testing. ESPN owns the X Games. They are a $10 billion company. They should pay for the testing. There are Olympic events in the X Games.

I don't know much about these other legitimate sports, but if someone put on a track meet that allowed people to run who were blood doping or hopped up on amphetamines and bronchiodilators, no one in track would consider that a legitimate meet and whatever time you ran would not be considered a legitimate time.

As far as weed goes, if these people are seriously competing, why would they would compete high? It seems like it would only hurt performance.

No entity can possibly be code compliant if your sport leaders extort athletes to cover up doping

--Travis Tygart about WADA not declaring IAAF noncompliant

http://bigstory.ap.org/article/1e7a25c8efa84ba297b80c66699eacb8/tygart-puzzled-refusal-declare-iaaf-noncompliant

What good is testing if you're just going to use it as a revenue source for leaders to take bribes to cover up the results?

While there may be some decent or even really good athletes at the X Games . . .who cares, it's the X Games. I don't care if some skateborder is smoking weed, doing crack, on EPO, or taking roids. I just don't care.

espn is a joke wrote:

ESPN is a joke now. They have pro wrestling shows as well as "e-sports." Shell of what it used to be. John Skipper has run it into the ground.

not to mention sportscenter and talk shows all day long, even when sports are happening, even when its the sports espn covers like baseball, hockey, basketball, etc.

Here comes the Ocho wrote:

I don't know much about these other legitimate sports, but if someone put on a track meet that allowed people to run who were blood doping or hopped up on amphetamines and bronchiodilators, no one in track would consider that a legitimate meet and whatever time you ran would not be considered a legitimate time.

As far as weed goes, if these people are seriously competing, why would they would compete high? It seems like it would only hurt performance.

For the most part they wouldn't be high while competing, but you can be sure they'd be smoking the night before the competition, which would most certainly trigger an in-competition test. As to the comparison to drugs and a track meet, there's no drug that has a similar effect as blood doping etc. on technical sports like you see in the x games.

Cycling and running have been screaming from the rooftops about peds and it is destroying the sports.

NFL just busted some guys who they probably knew were on peds for a long time. They waited until a couple weeks AFTER the super bowl late on a Saturday to release the info. Everybody will have forgotten by Monday morning. When they start their suspension NEXT YEAR in the first 4 unimportant games, they may mention why they aren't playing but nobody will care.

In other words....

QUIT TEARING DOWN OUR SPORT WITH YOUR NONSTOP DRUG AGENDA!!!!!!!!!

The athletes at those games who would be potential Olympians would presumably already be in the testing pool and be getting tested OOC already.

I started to watch NFL again last year instead of IAAF events because it's cleaner, and that's saying a lot. Thanks to ARD, we now know the truth about distance running...the Russians, the Kenyans, now Aden and probably the Ethiopians, Nike bribing the Kenyan officials, Salazar and Rupp, the cooked former president of the IAAF and probably the crooked present president IAAF and his underling. And that's probably just the short list.

More Kenyans have tested positive in just the last 3 years than all the Jamaicans in history or all the American sprinters in history, or East Germany for that matter....and that's just the tip of the iceberg because Kenya is threatened with an Olympic ban for not doing enough testing! For every North America sprinter that has tested positive in the last 5-10 years, there are 100 distance runners with suspicious doping profiles.

Quite frankly, distance running (probably endurance "sports" in general) is the biggest pile of trash in the history of sports, a far bigger piece of trash than the former Eastern Block (which apparently ever ended in the case of the Russians). That whole pile of trash should be kicked out of track and field...permanently.

And you want to talk about the X-games? People who live in glass houses....

Who cares?

It's the X games. It's arguable that some of these events aren't sports. They're mostly young people messing around in the snow and having fun doing cool stuff. Who cares if Johnny Snowboarder smokes pot? Or Jenny Snowmobiler uses some stimulant to help her do a backflip on her snowmobile? It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Rojo is an alarmist.

Maybe you should focus on real stories. Like, what will Meb wear next Tuesday on his long run? Or which heptathlete drinks nyquil to get amped for meets?

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

Think before you post Rojo.

...

What kind of bubble do you live in where you can't see this?

Rojo is living in the bubble where he's going to act like LetsRun.com has the talent or structure of deadspin (whose fractured ESPN image he used on the homepage), without having the talent or structure of deadspin

For example, nobody at deadspin would call ESPN's cutting of Grantland 'regrettable', even though deadspin has the best coverage of Grantland/ESPN on the web. Sure, someone can miss some of Grantland's product, or having its writers in one place (most of its writers are still writing, just not at ESPN). Grantland was run by an arrogant, misogynist a$$hole who pissed everyone off while surrounding himself with writing and producing talent greater than his own. While having a huge budget that produced the occasional good piece (from great writers - K Goldsberry, J Abrams, the Boston Globe movie critic guy - who had cut their teeth at another organization, not from Simmons or his editorial staff), Simmons constantly complained that he wasn't getting enough resources. His people were paid more than at any comparable website. His podcast was junk and total bro-s**+ sprinkled with him giving BJ's to Kobe or some other bball alleged rapist star. He was actively trying to piss his employer - who was paying out the ass for his huge and well-paid staff of bros - off on a semi-regular basis. To be honest, he was also trying to piss off ESPN's biggest client on a semi-regular whiny ranting basis. Bill Simmons decided he was part of the 'hold power accountable' crowd (a convenient bandwagon hopper), so he started sniffing blood and making fun of Roger Goodell while people like OTL actually did the work

If Rojo has a legitimate problem with ESPN - their reporters hucking pizza chains, the fact that ESPN's business is dependent upon the success of the leagues they cover, their utter lack of ability to actually cover social issues, such as race, with any skill - his problems have already been covered in far greater depth and detail on deadspin. For example, is there a problem with an organization being huge business partners with the clients it's supposed to be covering journalistically? Hahahaha of course there is. And hahahaha this has already been covered many, many times by deadspin

pop_pop!_v2.2.1 wrote:

Think before you post Rojo.

Someone at Disney/ESPN figured out the IOC's scam and did it for themselves at 0.01% of the cost. The kicker is they get a free ride off the IOC.

Why in the world would they test? It costs money and they have no intention of ever testing anyone positive as it only damages the brand.

What kind of bubble do you live in where you can't see this?

He lives in the bubble called humanity, civilization, America and distance running, which depends upon morals, cooperation, idealism and values, discernment and beauty, community and love and intelligently designing our society to discourage bad behavior.

and who are you?

A reckless runner who gives bad running advice and even more irrelevant commentary on society. Do you realize, you are a traitor in the running community and in America? You're freeloading off the sacrifices and good work of countless good people and generations.

The Entertainment and Sports Programming Network is putting on a show and they have made a business decision not to test the participants.

It's up to a governing body to ratify any performances.

This is an exhibition.

flabby wrote:

Who cares?

It's the X games. It's arguable that some of these events aren't sports. They're mostly young people messing around in the snow and having fun doing cool stuff. Who cares if Johnny Snowboarder smokes pot? Or Jenny Snowmobiler uses some stimulant to help her do a backflip on her snowmobile? It doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.

Rojo is an alarmist.

Maybe you should focus on real stories. Like, what will Meb wear next Tuesday on his long run? Or which heptathlete drinks nyquil to get amped for meets?

This^

The "who cares" arguments are interesting. This is a site based on an interest for running around a track, and occasionally only partway around a track, or along a road, or around a trail on a hillside, and every so often deals with jumping over bars or into sandpits ..... And you drug testing shouldn't matter for other sports because those sports are so insoncequential?

That about takes the cake.

On the issue of ESPN; how much does NBC pay toward drug testing at the summer OG?

I don't think it matters. The X-Games are all skill based events. Meaning, it doesn't matter how much PEDs you take, if you can't do backflips and kickflips, you will lose. It would be like a distance runner loading up on PEDs and then playing basketball... They'd run up and down the court missing every shot.