Nadia Comaneci married American gymnast Bart Conner and now lives in Oklahoma.
Yes, AIN is the team consisting of athletes from Russia and Belarus that petitioned to be exempt from the ban, and were successful.
What does AIN stand for?
“Athlètes Individuels Neutres”.
They were not on a boat in the procession, and won’t be listed in the country medal standings. There are 17 from BLR, and only 15 from RUS.
Individual Neutral Athletes at the 2024 Summer Olympics - Wikipedia
Thank you.
I finally got a moment to dig into my Peacock subscription to see what’s on. I checked out some judo, boxing, men’s street skate, surfing and now mountain biking thanks to a recommendation here.
I’ve been blown away at how well the commentators are doing. They aren’t really explaining anything in a dumbed down way. They’re doing very professional and knowledgeable commentating. I’m lost but impressed!
Thankfully NBC provides some primer videos for each sport. “Your new favorite sport” is what they’re called.
Anyone know why the crowd on the beach in Tahiti are wearing medical masks? It’s not just one country it’s all spectators on land (not people watching from boats). Is Tahiti having a covid surge?
Ha, right.
Here’s me…
Damn, that was perfect! 6.5
Damn, that was perfect! 9.0
I don’t miss the Russians and their poor sportsmanship. Two incidents I remember; perhaps there are others. First they made a Great Big Noisy Fuss at the last Summer Olympics, about the results of rhythmic gymnastics. Then at the last Winter Olympics, women’s figure skating was a whole thing. For the ROC, that is: Russian Olympic Committee, or as it was called on another forum, Rocs and Roc-ettes.
So one Roc-ette was DQed for allegedly doping, but the others were clear. Final results were ROC got gold and silver and Japan got bronze. And as soon as that was announced, things got kinda weird. The bronze-medal winner was sobbing in her coach’s arms, but I believe out of relief, not because she was dissatisfied with bronze. Meanwhile, the Roc-ette who got silver had a complete Veruca Salt meltdown, wailing and ranting, and most of the ROC crew were trying to talk her down. And during all this, the gold-medal winner was just sitting there alone, with a “This is it?” expression.
Veruca kept weeping throughout the medal ceremony, wiping away smeared mascara. Not great optics, but. I believe it’s not just her, it’s the whole culture that produced her and others. Win at any cost, anything less than perfect/the best is unacceptable, the journey is not the point if it doesn’t lead to gold. Ugh. And compare this to other national teams that are one for all, all for one, or those two high-jumpers (?) in 2021 who agreed to share a medal, because they trained together and were friends. It’s not the Olympics, or sports; it’s one country’s messed-up priorities.
There’s been a marked increase in positive test results, so the beginning of a surge is suspected.
I am glad of that as well. To me, our appealing, and our not taking significant action to demonstrate contrition just makes us look “weasely”.
I’m can accept that our players may not have been direct participants in the cheating, they must have unwittingly benefited from the cheating-obtained information. So regardless of how well they ultimately perform, medal-wise, IMHO there’s going to be an asterisk beside their medals
I’m watching that now. I’ll be darned if I can figure out what 9 has to do with it.
Toronto Star article with more info on the spying by Canadian soccer. Says that Priestman says that the men’s team does it, as do other teams. Also suggests it may have begun with John Herdman, the previous coach of the women’s team, and later the men’s team.
Also the point that a worker on the women’s team had refused to participate in the spying and Priestman reported the worker to HR.
Federal government has cut its funding to Soccer Canada by the amount equal to the salaries of Priestman and the other two suspended coaches.
They should add the cost of a drone. Do we know if the team bought one, or leased?
I compare this to baseball’s “sign stealing” (catchers make finger signs to signal to the pitcher what type of pitch to throw, and coaches and managers have their own hand/arm signals). According to an unwritten rule, sign stealing is illegal - but every team does it, and sh*t flies every time anyone gets caught.
In soccer - is there any written rule saying you can’t spy on another team? Could a spectator walk into a practice and take notes/photos etc.? The main illegality for the Canadians was operating an unauthorized drone in the Olympic area.
I believe it’s a general sportsmanship thing. Not to mention there have been accusations against Canada for exactly this behavior in the recent past.
FIFA judges said Priestman and her two assistants “were each found responsible for offensive behavior and violation of the principles of fair play.”
According to the Star report, which is referring to the Court of Arbitration reasons, it’s not just a “good sportsman” unwritten rule:
It sounds like it was tied to the French law, but FIFA then appears to have made it a standard rule of conduct, at least for these Olympics.
The Star appears to have the reasons for the decision; the Court of Arbitration has not yet posted them on their website, having released its decision to the parties due to the urgency of the matter.
And Priestman seems to have said one thing in private, and something completely differently in public.
From the Star:
But when the team is caught with its hand in the cookie jar:
“On behalf of our entire team, I first and foremost want to apologize to the players and staff at New Zealand Football and to the players on Team Canada. This does not represent the values that our team stands for,” Priestman said.
Spying doesn’t represent your team values? or was it getting caught that goes against your values?
At this point they can only advance on merit. The benefit derived from spying was taken away, and then they made it out of group through talent. Which makes you wonder just how much the coach was helping anyway.
It’s a nice result. The cheaters are out and, I hope, will be out for the rest of the lives, but the players earned their way through.
Imagine making it to the Olympics then abandoning your dreams in less than a minute in a competiton because your opponent was about to annihilate you.
There has been some transgender mania happening around this case if you aren’t aware.
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If this conversation heads towards that disucssion, perhaps a separate thread would be a good idea.
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Imane Khelif is a cisgender woman. She was born female, was registered as a girl at birth, is legally a woman, & continues to identify as a woman.