RIO DE JANEIRO -- At an ordinary Olympics, one at which the sky wasn't expected to be falling on a daily basis, the biggest story might be ... well, the sky actually falling. At least that's the way the sky looked most of this Wednesday, a deep, charcoal gray with winds and rain heavy enough that the world's smartest sailers out on Guanabara Bay were being tossed about like grade-schoolers.
The second-biggest story, then, might be the fall of the Russian Bear.
I mean, the Russians do have four golds, but Hungary and Australia have five. Japan's got six. The United States' 11 and China's 10 are beginning an eminently predictable pull away from the pack.
Remember when that wasn't so predictable?
Yeah, that was before the Russians were busted -- no, whistle-blown by one of their own -- for the ultimate systematic doping scheme during the most recent Winter Games in Sochi. That happened in May, when Grigory Rodchenkov, former director of Russia’s antidoping laboratory, told The New York Times how dozens of athletes, including 15 medal-winners, participated in an elaborate program that included the nation's intelligence service secretly replacing tainted urine samples with clean samples that had been collected months earlier.
Imagine a hand, like the classic 'Thing' from the Addams Family, reaching out of a hole in the wall to exchange samples in a Sochi bathroom, and you get the picture:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTEVBcmPzk4
Pretty devious stuff. And here's the, uh, thing: For all the relentless, latest-tech testing that had been done by the World Anti-Doping Agency on all the athletes of Sochi, barely a fraction of those who'd be implicated by Rodchenkov's damning evidence had been found out by WADA. Dozens of others had escaped until his interviews.
Thomas Bach, the International Olympic Committee president, called this revelation a “shocking new dimension in doping” with an “unprecedented level of criminality,” and he was only clearing his throat. The IOC, upon gaining support for Rodchenkov's evidence with more from WADA, seriously deliberated about banning Russia altogether from these Games. No athletes. No flag in the Opening Ceremony. Nothing. And Bach talked about this in the face of Vladimir Putin blustering about how all this was "politically motivated" and "intended to embarrass" his country.
It was the most powerful proof yet that Bach, the 62-year-old former German Olympic fencer who was elected to run the IOC in May 2013, wasn't going to be anything like his predecessors.
After the Times report was published and Bach had his say, even Putin backed off, firing a few lieutenants in some classic scapegoating, and the Russian Ministry of Sport publicly acknowledged 'mistakes were made.'
So Bach had his mea culpa, he'd backed off one of the planet's most feared leaders, and now he needed to produce a punishment that would both set a precedent and satisfy all.
Which, of course, was impossible.
So when he wound up ruling that any and all Russian athletes aiming to participate in Rio would have to prove that they individually never cheated, that they were basically presumed guilty rather than innocent, eyeballs rolled on both sides of the issue. The 271 athletes who were approved felt it was unfair to assume their guilt but were glad to show up. The athletes and delegations from other countries felt it was too lenient. And in the ruling that stirred the most emotion, seven additional athletes were last-minute entries because they had already served their punishments for doping. That wasn't from the IOC but from the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Yeah, yuck.
If an Olympian doesn't miss an Olympics, how is he or she being punished?
Well, the Brazilians came up with an answer, jeering the Russians anytime they're announced and cheering for their opponents. It's happened all over these Games, even in sports that generally don't draw a whole lot of vocal emotion.
The most visible example so far came, of all places, in the women's 100-meter breaststroke two nights ago at the Aquatics Stadium: Lilly King of the United States had harsh public words beforehand for Russia's Yulia Efimova, one of those seven admitted late, proclaiming that she was a cheater and never should have been allowed to participate.
First, here is King's finger-wag that went viral, this right before the race, mocking how Efimova had waved her finger at King after winning the semifinal:
Lilly King doesn't hold back.
Monday’s 100m breaststroke final is about. To go. Down. https://t.co/BWGaUNiTHM https://t.co/YknNeqjv6H
— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) August 8, 2016
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