tokyo 2020 olympics

Richardson will miss Olympic 100 after marijuana test

30 Comments
By EDDIE PELLS and PAT GRAHAM

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30 Comments
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ah.... the old #poor me gambit..... a lot of it about!

a rather fortunate outcome perhaps.... since she needs marijuana to cope with lifestuff (that every human has to cope with) and would therefore have needed to bring the stuff with her.... if caught, the penalty in Japan would have been worse than missing out on her race. gobsmacked really!

-7 ( +13 / -20 )

The disgusting and cruel Olympic ban of an athlete because of tiny traces of NON-performance-enhancing cannabis in the blood shows the ugly, stupid, hypocritical face of authoritarian officialdom that goes against the original Greek Olympic spirit celebrating the skill and prowess of the individual who has trained to compete in peaceful rivalry against other INDIVIDUALS ,not against other nations (that's the corrupt, bureaucratized, politicized, nationalistic version which has perverted the Olympic ideal of individual effort and teamwork. I was so looking forward to watching Sha'Carri Richardson run so now I've run out of patience: I'm done with the Tokyo Games.

-4 ( +12 / -16 )

@ reamer

the original Greek Olympic spirit celebrating the skill and prowess of the individual who has trained to compete in peaceful rivalry against other INDIVIDUALS

not exactly the halcyon times you envisage.....

"The prizes for the victors were olive leaf wreaths or crowns. The games became a political tool used by city-states to assert dominance over their rivals. Politicians would announce political alliances at the games, and in times of war, priests would offer sacrifices to the gods for victory. The games were also used to help spread Hellenistic culture throughout the Mediterranean. The Olympics also featured religious celebrations. The statue of Zeus at Olympia was counted as one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Sculptors and poets would congregate each olympiad to display their works of art to would-be patrons.

The ancient Olympics had fewer events than the modern games, and only freeborn Greek men were allowed to participate"

4 ( +8 / -4 )

 ...if caught, the penalty in Japan would have been worse than missing out on her race. gobsmacked really!

Maybe you weren't around 41 years ago when Beatle, Paul McCartney, was busted with half a pound of blow ("a heavy smoker", M'Lud) in Tokyo?  After a short sojourn in a jail, he was swiftly deported, but has gotten back to Japan many times since. As the stoner later explained,“We were about to fly to Japan and I knew I wouldn’t be able to get anything to smoke over there,” McCartney said in 2004. “This stuff was too good to flush down the toilet, so I thought I’d take it with me." In our wearisome world where some are more equal to others, it's too bad  Sha'Carri Richardson does not have the required celebrity power to override the pettiness of officialdom.

0 ( +6 / -6 )

@ jiji Xx

You are absolutely right to correct me and not let me get away with my nonsense about the "original spirit" of the benighted Greeks of old. I was just parroting the phony, fictional "Olympic spirit" pushed ad nauseam by modern offialdom to protest the hijacking of individual effort and athletic excellence by hypocritical officials with a nationalistic, political agenda: we have made some progress since the times of the ancient Greeks, but the "crooked timber" of humanity has not gotten any more straightened, as Sha'Carri Richardson herself admits.

-2 ( +1 / -3 )

Absurd. Although cannabis is NOT my relaxation of choice, it is harmless for nearly all who use it. Far less damaging than alcohol. Do they test for beer? For wine? Those have about the same (or more) effect on the athlete. If anything, cannabis would slow her down. Archaic rule. In much of the world, having/smoking a bit of cannabis is legal.

1 ( +10 / -9 )

A legal (in the US), non-performance enhancing drug.

Why aren't they testing for traces of alcohol, caffeine and nicotine?

Ridiculous.

0 ( +9 / -9 )

If she is 21 now, and if she is that good an athlete, she could likely afford to miss the COVID Games (imagine winning the 100 meters in front of nobody. Hardly something to remember), work on her skills for the next three years, and come back in 2024. She will only be 24 or so then, and if she has improved enough she should still be a contender.

-2 ( +2 / -4 )

The Canadians are shaking their head at the stupidity of these rules.

2 ( +12 / -10 )

Susan Elizabeth-Marsh TanabeToday  08:58 am JST

Absurd. Although cannabis is NOT my relaxation of choice, it is harmless for nearly all who use it. Far less damaging than alcohol. Do they test for beer? For wine? Those have about the same (or more) effect on the athlete. If anything, cannabis would slow her down

Exactly. Weed doesn't enhance your speed or performance by any means. It's time for her coach, team heads and the IOC to get with the times and recent findings, and throw away the scary stories, fairy tales and myths.

Cannabis is not an enhancement drug like steroids or the 'hard stuff'. It's 2021, folks.

And it's time for America to quit honoring Christopher Columbus too. Stop the lies.

-5 ( +4 / -9 )

Cool. Stay home and get stoned all you want.

-3 ( +6 / -9 )

Hard to believe the fake outrage. Olympic athletes have been suspended before over this.

5 ( +8 / -3 )

regardless of the effects or not of cannabis..... it's the rules.... i don't say I agree with them, or not, but surely the woman-in-question must've been aware that it's against those rules, and that she might well be tested at the time of an Olympic trials event. we all do dumb stuff (well, I suppose I shouldn't speak for the rest of you, but I certainly have) but it's a shame she didn't err on the side of caution, ater all the striving she must have done to get where she is, athletically-speaking.

so easy to be misinterpreted here (or anywhere in print) but my comment above was largely in sarcastic mode.... I thing it's a great pity for her that she made the error of judgement, under the circumstances.

however, I stand by my #poor me comment.... rife lately, amongst the privileged, that they couldn't help themselves because of worry, stress, loss, or whatever.... as we all do....

0 ( +6 / -6 )

I always find it funny that people like to complain after the fact. Not before.

4 ( +6 / -2 )

On Friday, she went on TV and said she smoked marijuana as a way of coping with her mother's recent death.

“I was definitely triggered and blinded by emotions, blinded by badness, and hurting, and hiding hurt,” she told NBC. “I know I can't hide myself, so in some type of way, I was trying to hide my pain.”

What a lot of waffle, all she needed to say was that smoking pot relaxed her, none of this triggered and blinded dribble ....pffftttt

0 ( +4 / -4 )

Hard to believe the fake outrage. Olympic athletes have been suspended before over this.

There has been outrage in the past over similar suspensions, albeit not as swift and rampant.

Hopefully, it might be enough to push the powers that be to consider removing cannabis from the list of banned substances.

2 ( +4 / -2 )

It's rare for a doping case to actually involve dope! But not the cleverest move just before an Olympics.

4 ( +4 / -0 )

Hopefully, it might be enough to push the powers that be to consider removing cannabis from the list of banned substances.

The point is that she knew it was wrong. She has owned up and apologized. Stop making the issue about how marijuana is “harmless.” Whatever the rules are, they need to be followed by everyone. She has clearly understood the lesson here. Why can’t you?

4 ( +8 / -4 )

Euro DudeToday  10:28 am JST

Worst Olimpics in history??

The 1996 Ego-lympics in Atlanta still leave a bad taste in my brain. TV coverage of US athletes only, jingoism up the yinyang, chatterbox commentators who just wouldn't shut up, the arrogant 'only the Gold will do' attitude of the US Team, the Election Year hyping stench, and even the opening + closing ceremonies were nauseating to the max. And that stupid Macarena spectators did too on TV.

I hated it.

-1 ( +3 / -4 )

Susan Elizabeth-Marsh Tanabe

Absurd. Although cannabis is NOT my relaxation of choice, it is harmless for nearly all who use it. Far less damaging than alcohol. Do they test for beer? For wine?

Are beer/wine banned substances by the IOC, and are they illegal substances in Japan,?

-3 ( +2 / -5 )

Strangerland

The Canadians are shaking their head at the stupidity of these rules.

Not if they live in Japan, they're not.

1 ( +4 / -3 )

What a stupid rule get with the times IOC and international competition. A lot of other athletes are using performance enhancing drugs and getting away with it as they know how to cheat the system. Marijuana offers no advantage and in fact it could lead to loss of reaction time and decrease performance. I hope she somehow gets a chance to run.

1 ( +6 / -5 )

I really don’t think there’s a big deal here. She smoked marijuana in a state where it was legal after finding out about the death of her mother. She knew it was against the IOC rules, and she has accepted the one month penalty without complaint. End of story

0 ( +3 / -3 )

"Rules are rules" as they say, even if they are outdated.

However I don't know if there's any flexibility with interpretation. People’s circumstances should be taken into account when judging cases like this. Obviously she was not cheating, and that’s the key to this as far as I am concerned.

Personally, I would hate to see an athlete or anyone in any career have it ruined by such a naïve mistake. We are not robots.

-1 ( +2 / -3 )

Smoking pot masks muscle pain and is no different than using pseudoephedrine found in cold medicine which is banned. There was an Olympic Snowboarder Ross Rebagliati who won Gold at the 2018 Winter Olympics who had his Gold Medal taken away and banned from competing for smoking pot - this is no different. You cannot start bending rules for one person or else you must do it for All - and Mr. Rebagliati should have his Gold medal win reinstated if that is the case.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

I always find it funny that people like to complain after the fact. Not before.

People have been complaining about these rules since Ross Rebagliati lost his gold for smoking pot at the Olympics in the '90s.

I always find it funny these people who like to whine about something they say didn't happen, when they were just too lazy to look up whether or not it had.

1 ( +1 / -0 )

Not if they live in Japan, they're not.

The Canadians I know in Japan are.

-2 ( +0 / -2 )

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