World Anti-Drug Agency Needs Some Performance Enhancement

W.A.D.A., which had been doing nada for about four years, was finally stoked into action only after the Russian whistle-blower took his story of state-run PED use to the media.  Apparently 200 emails with explicit inside information was not enough to rouse the world's number one agency to launch any kind of investigation.

President Putin and IOC President Bach at Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremony

The Russians skated through as host of the 2012 Winter Olympics, casually utilizing military counter-intelligence (FSB) agents to orchestrate the widespread switch-out of Russian athlete urine samples at every event.

Even better, the head of Russia's anti-drug program was tasked with engineering the cocktail of performance enhancing drugs administered to the Russian athletes.  Medal contenders received special consideration, of course, and lo and behold, Russian performance statistics were off the charts that year compared to the prior Olympics.

Smiles everyone, smiles!

Then they invaded Ukraine.

After far too long, Russia's reputation for institutionalized PED use finally caught up with them (again...), in large part due to a continuation of this with track and field athletes competing outside Russia.  They actually risked being totally banned from the summer Olympics, but, of course, that didn't happen.

BTW, two of the three Russian anti-drug directors, who could testify to the institutionalized drug program, somehow met with suspicious and untimely deaths.  The third, the cocktail designer referred to above, got while the gettin' was good and is cooperating.

Having shown what fine sportsmen they are (government included), the Russians are now scheduled to host the 2018 World Cup Soccer Tournament.  I'm sure everything will be on the up-and-up this time, because they've learned their lesson from all this lack of meaningful consequences.  This message is not lost on China and the rest of the world.

W.A.D.A. needs to grow a pair. 

If W.A.D.A. actually did its job right, with what Putin's puppets are doing to all their athletes, Russia would eventually be restricted from all international sports for a long time.

Of course, there's always dog shows....

If You Don't Play Nice, We Take the Ball and Go Elsewhere

In 2018 FIFA plans to hold the World Cup in Russia.

Hosting the World Cup Soccer Tournament yields a number of benefits, as well as considerable costs in preparing to do so.  Actual figures are all across the board.  One example is when the U.S. hosted in 1994 and just one (LA) of the many cities involved calculated the monetary value of the event at $623 million compared to the $182 million profit from the Super Bowl.**  Long term infrastructure benefits, establishment of whole soccer leagues, new tourist revenues, and the inherent advantage the home team always seems to have are a few of the indirect monetary paybacks.

There are other intangibles, most notably a rise in status, and world acceptance of the primacy of the country hosting the world's biggest sporting event. 

So, doesn't it seem like a total impropriety to have Russia host the 2018 World Cup, given:

• Russia's military take-over of Crimea immediately following its hosting of the 2012 Winter Olympics
• Russia's further military subversion and direct participation in destabilizing the Ukrainian republic, including extensive killing in the east
• Russia's being under European and U.S. sanctions for these latter two acts
• Russia's unrepentant role in helping shoot down a civilian airliner
• Rampant PED use in all the prior Olympics
• Russian government/intelligence service facilitation of such when it hosted the Olympics
• Russia's aid to Assad in Syria, participating in such events as the barrel bombing of civilians and overlooking the continued use of chemical weapons such as chlorine gas
• Russia's not-so-subtle military threat to the Baltic States as it steps up exercises on the Lithuania border 
• Russia's election interference in the U.S. that some equate with an act of war
• Russia's upcoming election interference in Europe/elsewhere and continued hacking despite the incredibly harsh punishment imposed by the Obama Administration (sanctioning four people and maybe five institutions that never leave the country anyways)

• And, of course, NO U.N. action on any of this (because they are too busy passing Resolutions against Israel for building condo's) 

Why is it "business as usual" on the economic and sports front between the free world and Russia???

By way of analogy, if some executive at your company is assaulting the administrative staff, stealing from the coffers, and putting viruses in your computer system, you don't make him Employee of the Month AND give him a Citizenship Award.

Do sanctions mean anything at all?

The world should not be such pushovers; let's hit 'em where it hurts

And actually achieve our goal