The Olympic Games

Comment: A shambles

Distrust ruled the Aquatics Stadium in Rio: swimmer will be booed, to each other, some refuse to accept the handshake. To blame for the Dilemma of the yaw rate in the Anti-Doping fight, says Joscha Weber.

Opponents in and next to the pool: Lilly King (l) and Yulia Efimova

On the Podium of the cold war. The U.S. women’s Lilly King Katie Meili to sit to the press conference alongside her Russian colleague, Yulia Efimova and recognize none look. No small talk, not even the usual handshake of mutual congratulation. Ice age in the interior of the swimming stadium.

DW sports editor Joscha Weber: “The Sport has lost itself in its own set of rules-thicket”

“I don’t think that athletes who have been caught, are allowed to compete again. But I respect that my opinion doesn’t matter,” says Lilly King, snippy and everyone in the room is clear, to whom this tip applies to: Yuliya Efimova. The lock in her still-young career is already a 16-month doping (steroids) served and has been tested at the beginning of the year, again a positive (Seveso information). The world swimming Association FINA blocked the 24-Year-old from Grozny, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) wanted to exclude from the Games in Rio, but the International court of arbitration for sport (CAS) overturned the IOC rule, according to which all Russian Rio-candidates who had ever committed a doping violation, should be excluded from the Games. A shambles.

Poison for the Olympic mood

The Sport has lost itself in its own set of rules thicket. No-one seems to know a way out. And during the world equestrian festival of sport – it’s a shame. The whole helplessness of the only so-called “Olympic Family” manifests itself currently in the Olympic swimming stadium. Yulia Efimova will be in front of your betting booed by the audience. You get at the end, however, more than 100 meters breaststroke silver and is still destroyed on the ground. Crying, she runs through the cabin hallways, and holes up in the cabin. After the award ceremony, you must have the mandatory press conference. “It was very hard to swim today,” she says, and fights back the tears. “It is a great pity, if policy is destroying the Sport. Maybe certain forces are trying to Russia to harm and abuse the Sport.”

Yuliya Efimova has already given two positive doping tests, but must start in Rio

Of course the conspiracy theories. The state doping system in Russia is well documented. But Jefimowas case shows, sports, politicians, the Sport and the athletes. It is everywhere mistrust. And that is poison for the atmosphere in these Games. The Australian Olympic champion Mack Horton, with a view to the Chinese Sun Yang pointedly said that he had “no time for Doping swindler”. Yang’s fresh style baked Olympic champion over 200 metres and was also booed by the audience. The reason is that 2014 has been found for him, a forbidden Stimulant, and he received a ridiculous period of three months – in the competition-free time.

It is time for a uniform set of rules

Such strange decisions that have damaged the Sport to be sustainable. The IOC, the federations, and even some of the Anti-Doping agencies to act, sometimes arbitrarily, to push each other the responsibility to create a climate of distrust. Paul Biedermann brought it to the point: “It is not the Athlete who carries the blame, but the System.” He’s right. The world Anti-Doping-fight is like a lottery game. No one can say, what comes out at the end. In Olympia, almost all of the Russians are allowed to start at the Paralympics, not one. It is time for a uniform set of rules for a finally consistent and especially for a truly independent body that prosecutes offences for all types of sports Doping.

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