Sepp Blatter is a fucknut.

I am fairly sure that bowls used to be included. I know its still part of the Commonwealth games.

I remember in 96 at Atlanta when Michelle Smith came from no where to win all those swimming golds, and the big American favourites bitched about her publically and cried about it in interviews, and openly suggested she was on drugs.

She probably was, but still, it was good to see them crying about it.

Ratings.

I know it's about interest, but bullshit.

The pentathalon, is a very interesting sport. You've got to be good in 5 very different events.

I guess it's just "too long" for todays ADD society.

We beat your Canadia asses in the rowing :cool:

:|

You are a full scale fucking idiot, aren't you?

If you look most events are over in 5 minutes. Enough time for the TV to do a short piece about the home competitor and then to finish.

And yet some evnets have survived like the Walk

Did you watch that race?
Was that a good race or what??

Back and forth, shit.

What ECG said is pretty accurate, people couldn't stand some unknown Irish woman winning all the golds and upstaging the Yanks in their own back yard so they immediately played the drugs card

Canada was supposed to win it.. they even talked openly about winning. I hate that type of shit. Still pissed they lost, but not as much as I'd be if they were humbler (humbler??) before the race.

Was fuckin great!

And good to see the Canadians graceful in defeat too.

Also, Pinsent has to go for the 5th now to tie it up with Redgrave...And i reckon he will do it:y:

She was hailed very well in Canada. What's happened to her?

She didn't fail a test, so what can you say? Her problems with the testing procedure, the whole tampering issue, came much later.

The pouts on the faces of the American swimmers, and watching them cry in the pools afterwards was gold.

Yup, such ungraceful bastards, unlike the Canadians today

won three gold medals at the 1996 Olympics; accused of using performance-enhancing drugs but passed all tests until she was suspended for 4 years by FINA in 1998 for tampering with a urine sample

http://www.infoplease.com/ipsa/A0109654.html

I'm sorry, I guess when you make completely pointless posts its OK because you hate the United States.

I don't hate the United States, I just hated the attitude of the competitors that year in Atlanta. Watching them cry because someone upstaged them in their own country was fucking beautiful.

Pretty hilarious of the US team to accuse someone else of being on the drugs, too.

Yeah she got done because a urine sample she produced for a random home visit test seemed to have whiskey poured into it. The alcohol found in it was enough to kill a person, or something.

She maintains her innocence. The whole unsavoury business soured her image in Ireland and basically she can't be held up as an Olympic heroine any longer, even though she didn't test positive for drugs at the Games.

Her husband was banned from weight-lifting, I think, for banned substances, and he became her coach. That was another controversy.

Even taking into account what came later, it still wasn't fair play for the American team and media to accuse her of drug taking at the Games.

I'm waiting for the track and field really, rowing and swimming are all good but I like the good old track and field. Is Michael Johnson in the BBC studio this year? The guy is amazing and always talks a great deal of sense.

Wait a minute, the modern pentathlon has been dropped?

LOL, poured whiskey in her piss sample. :rofl:

... but you know what. Being that she's Irish, I dougt the amout they found in it was truly enough to kill her. Non Irish people, sure, but not her.

They seriously need to drop Tennis. There are too many tennis events during the year with cash prizes for the "stars" to be bothered about.

So says Moonax. I do remember (I think) reading that it was. But, well I just don't follow these things very closely.

Think about it though.
Swimming, Shooting, Horse Back Riding, Fencing and then Running all in the same day.

That's quite the feat right thurrrrrr

Yeah but wasn't it like hailed as the event for the complete athlete? Yet they drop it and leave some of the other crap on?

You're singing to the choir my good man.

Even though, for example, Canada has won medals in trampoline and syncro diving, I think they're bogus olympic events, especially when things like pentathalon are dropped.

I think that they went back and looked at the 1986 100 metres and all but one of the competitors failed a drugs test at some point in their career.

Seriosuly though - who the hell watchs Greco-Roman wrestling.

Rhythmic gymanstics is also pretty stupid.

Canada should lobby for seal clubbing to be made an Olympic event.

LOL

That's why we actually have some respect for Canadians. They present themselves as respectful athletes.

Donovan Bailey was an absolute legend here after Atlanta. Still is.

As for Michelle Smith, I'm sure her husband was a swimmer too. Dutch bloke.

He was a weight-lifter, as far as I can remember.

I stand corrected on Modern Pentathlon. There were claims that it was going to be dropped. I double checked and its still included.

Although the rules of drugs perhaps show why MLB players will never go to the Olympics.


www.theage.com.au

IOC says no sports will be axed
Lausanne, Switzerland
May 18, 2004


Baseball, softball and modern pentathlon were assured yesterday they will remain on the Olympic program at least through the 2008 Beijing Games.

The International Olympic Committee said that, barring serious ethical violations or failure to uphold anti-doping rules, no sports will be dropped before the games of 2012.

The decision, announced by IOC president Jacques Rogge at the opening of a three-day executive board meeting, gives endangered sports more breathing space as they try to preserve their Olympic status.

Rogge said the IOC will review all the sports after this summer's Athens Olympics and decide on the program for 2012 at its session in Singapore in July 2005. Meantime, the current list of 28 Olympic sports will stay unchanged for Beijing, he said.

Baseball, softball and modern pentathlon had been recommended for exclusion by an IOC panel in 2002. At a meeting in Mexico City, the IOC decided to put off a decision until after Athens, but Rogge said at the time the three sports could still be dropped for Beijing.

Today's news came as a big relief to leaders of the three sports bodies.

''I wish they had done this two years ago,'' said Don Porter, the American president of the international softball federation. ''We've been on pins and needles ever since. This gives us more time to develop our sport.''

Klaus Schormann, head of the international modern pentathlon union, said, ''I feel much better. There was always a doubt in the back of our mind, but IOC members have always supported our sport.''

Said Aldo Notari, the Italian head of the International Baseball Federation: ''I was always optimistic, but there was always the fear that something bad could happen. We'll be sleeping better for the next few nights.''

Rogge cited a rule in the IOC charter stating that no sports can be added to an Olympics less than seven years before the games. It had been unclear whether the rule also applied to the removal of sports.

Rogge said sports could only be eliminated for Beijing in the case of serious ethical breaches or failure to sign the World Anti-Doping Code.

Soccer and cycling are the only summer sports yet to sign the code, which sets out uniform drug-testing rules and sanctions, but have promised to do so before the Athens Games in August.

Removal of a sport would require a vote of the full IOC membership, Rogge said.

The last sport dropped from the Summer Olympics was polo in 1936.

Baseball has been a medal sport since 1992.

Softball, a women-only event, was added in 1996. Modern pentathlon, a five-sport discipline created by modern Olympics founder Pierre de Coubertin, was introduced in 1912.

In 2002, a panel appointed by Rogge proposed that the three sports be dropped because of lack of global popularity, high venue costs and, in the case of baseball, the absence of top major league players.

Unlike basketball and hockey, baseball does not send its top US-based professionals to the Olympics. The Olympics are played during the major league season, and commissioner Bud Selig said it is impossible to stop the season to allow players to join Olympic teams.

''If the best players don't go to Beijing, then comes the danger,'' Notari said. ''Major League Baseball understands the problem and is working together with us.''

Interesting to note there that FIFA haven't signed up to the IOC rules on drugs testing. You wouldn't have guys like Stam and Davids getting 3 months bans for Nandrolone if they did. You have to think that FIFA are perhaps worried about what would happen if there was stricter drugs testing.

Same for cycling.

Whats in the modern pentathalon again? I looked at it once and it just looked like 5 rediculously different events, like swimming, shooting, wiping your ass, typing, and checkers or something.

From a business sense you would want people representing a country from your team at Beijing. Tapping into the Chinese market can lead to a bit of extra cash.

Leave Davids alone :love:

apparantly the Chinease are set on winning the most medals in 2008

He is a drugs cheat and he beats his wife and kid. Great guy.

Also utterly overrated, due to sponsorship. Roy Keane slapped his bag any time they stepped out on the same pitch.

Yeah, they're not doing too bad this year either. I like it when the smaller countries get medals though. You know those countries where only twenty people live.

The was the point about Ferdinand. Although man U bitched about how hars the penalty was - the fact of the matter is that if he had been in any other sport he would have been banned for 2 years.

Cycling? Funny how lance Armstrong didn't make it to Athens and that the race was wide open for most of the race. Draw your own conclusions...

Football has different rules though. I'd have no problem with Ferdinand having a 2 year ban if that was the standard. A Man City player no showed a test a month earlier and got off with a fine.

In athletics, you can't go anywhere if you are picked for a random test. An IAAF official is on your shoulder until you pass urine.