Of course Olympic viewership is down: IOC knowingly lets doped athlete compete, killing credibility of Olympic Games

 If there is ever a time to write a snarky, jaded post about the Olympics, it is now.

The IOC is knowingly allowing an athlete who tested positive for a banned performance enhancing substance to compete at the Olympics without serving the required suspension.

The athlete is competing for the Russian Olympic Committee as Russia, the country, is essentially sanctioned from this Olympics as punishment for systematic doping. 

The athlete is a minor. It should be criminal to dope a minor.

The IOC’s actions sends a message contrary to the Olympic ideals.

This action sends the following messages:

“ that it is ok to dope if you are in a marquee sport competing for a powerful country.”

“ that all Olympic sports are dirty and are selectively punished.”

This has a lot to do with how weightlifting is being treated by the IOC. Letting this athlete compete invalidates all the criticisms  of weightlifting’s doping problems, as do we really know if weightlifting was any less clean than any other sport?

This has a lot to do with why Olympic viewership ratings are so low. The Olympics were supposed to be about seeing who the athlete with the best physical ability on the  day of the competition was.  Every time politics interferes with this test of mettle, the Olympics becomes less and less credible. The IOC either needs to follow its strict anti-doping guidelines, or it needs to let everyone dope to the same level in their respective gender class. 

The more you look at the politics of the Olympics the more it seems that the best athletes aren’t always the ones competing at the games, so why watch it.