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Wednesday January 19, 2022

January 19, 2022 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 19, 2022

Athletes to face rigorous tests at Beijing Games with COVID-19 and freedom of expression

August 12, 2021

The Beijing Olympic Committee is using stricter than usual testing for COVID-19, making it harder for Canadian athletes, especially those who have recently recovered from the virus, to pass tests upon arriving in China, CBC Sports has learned.

The cycle threshold (CT) value being used in China to detect an infection is 40, Dr. Mike Wilkinson, chief medical officer for the Canadian Olympic Committee, confirmed Monday. 

The higher the CT value, the less infectious a person with COVID-19 is.

Many places in Canada use a CT value of 35.

The NBA and NHL use 30. The NFL has set its threshold at 35.

“I think what Beijing is doing is that they’re doing everything they can to ensure they don’t have positives coming in,” Wilkinson said. (CBC News) 

Meanwhile, competitors at the Beijing Winter Olympics will face an “Orwellian surveillance state” in China and could put themselves in danger if they speak out in support of the Uyghur Muslims, human rights and athlete advocacy groups have said.

Posted in: International Tagged: 2022-02, athletes, Beijing, China, freedom of expression, Genocide, International, judging, olympics, oppression, skating, Sports, Uyghur, Winter

Saturday July 24, 2021

July 31, 2021 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 24, 2021

Athletes need a bigger slice of Olympic pie

Money makes the world go round, as they say, and Exhibit A must surely be the Tokyo Olympics.

March 16, 2020

Thousands of athletes from more than 200 countries are literally flying around the world during a pandemic for these Games because of the billions of dollars the broadcast rights are worth to the International Olympic Committee.

There are incredible challenges to hosting and competing in the delayed 2020 Games, which opened on Friday against the desire of the Japanese public, but it’s good business. Indeed, American broadcast giant NBC has already said it expects these Games to be its most profitable ever.

But with all this money sloshing around why does so little of it get to the athletes — a.k.a. the talent that makes the whole show possible?

London – July 27, 2012

The Olympics abandoned its ideals of amateur sport decades ago; we all know that. But these COVID Games — in empty stadiums, with no family and friends to share the experience, and no socializing among athletes to somehow make the world a better place through sport — have stripped away whatever pretence was left that the Olympics are more than a gargantuan money-making TV show.

It’s time the athletes — supported by fans — band together to demand a greater share of the Games revenues.

The athletes who spend years training and competing for these few weeks, made all the harder this time by the pandemic, deserve a fairer share of the financial rewards.

August 3, 2012

Officially, the IOC is a not-for-profit but this is not some shaky charity — it’s a multi-billion-dollar behemoth. It has more than $5 billion (U.S.) in assets, a reserve fund around $1 billion and its average annual revenues exceed $1.4 billion.

The IOC likes to say it spends 90 per cent of its Olympic revenues to “assist athletes and develop sport worldwide.” 

But the vast majority of that is spent on promoting the Olympic brand through a dizzying array of subsidiaries and affiliates, organizing future Games, and helping international sport federations and national Olympic committees. Not funding athletes. 

2016 Summer Olympic Games

The IOC spends a mere 4 per cent of its revenue directly on athletes through scholarships, grants and awards, according to a study by the Global Athlete advocacy group and Ryerson University’s Ted Rogers School of Management.

To put that in context, the players in the top professional baseball, basketball, football and hockey leagues get around 50 per cent of their league’s revenues.

It’s not directly comparable, of course, but it’s obvious the IOC should be directing a lot more of its extensive income to the athletes who make the Olympic show possible.

December 6, 2012

And if, as a consequence, the IOC had less money to spend on promoting itself, contributing to well-heeled middlemen and encouraging countries to take on appalling costs to host future Games, that wouldn’t be a bad thing.

Far from making life easy for athletes, the IOC has a rule that limits how much athletes can raise through their personal sponsors (should they be so lucky to have some) during the Games. It’s been relaxed recently, but not enough.

The truth is most Canadian Olympic athletes rely heavily on federal athlete assistance funding, side jobs, grants from the athlete charity CAN Fund, and the bank of mom and dad in order to train and compete at the level required for the Olympics. 

March 3, 2010

Nationally carded athletes report an average annual income of $28,000 — about minimum wage — leaving them with a deficit of $22,000, states a Sport Canada report.

They’re spending more to live, train, travel and compete than they make from sport. The Olympics relies on athletes and their families being willing to do this year in and year out.

They put on the show and yet the lion’s share of the money never gets near their pockets. It’s long past time that changed.

Calls for a fairer distribution of Olympic dollars are long-standing. And, thankfully, an increasing number of groups are starting the work of organizing athletes from around the globe in dozens of sports to push for change.

Athens – September 1, 2004

The International Swimmers’ Alliance is working to increase athlete influence over the sport and improve the financial situation of its athletes. 

The Athletics Association is looking to become a unifying and vocal voice for elite track and field athletes. Global Athlete wants to help drive a healthier power balance between athletes and sport leaders.

They’re all nascent movements and it will be an uphill battle. But it’s the right battle to take on.

The IOC makes more money. Broadcasters like NBC make more money. It’s time athletes got a bigger share.

Earlier this week, IOC president Thomas Bach updated the Olympic motto. It’s now Faster, Higher, Stronger — Together. The change, he said, was about adapting “to our times.”

Well, the Olympic funding model needs an update, too.

If we’re really in this together, the athletes who will entertain and inspire us over the next two weeks with all those faster, higher, stronger achievements should reap more of the rewards. (The Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Posted in: International Tagged: 2021-27, athletes, Games, International, IOC, olympics, pig, piggy bank, Sports, wealth

Friday August 28, 2020

September 4, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 28, 2020

As Young Black Athletes Call for Racial Awakening, Some N.F.L. Retirees Declare Fealty to ‘Winner’ Trump

On one of the most consequential nights in recent sports history — when a player-led boycott forced the N.B.A. to postpone playoff games — the Republican National Convention offered pro-Trump testimonials from a retired Notre Dame coach and a former N.F.L. player facing insider-trading charges.

Sketches from the 2020 RNC

“It is a pleasure, a blessing, and an honor for me to explain why I believe that President Trump is a consistent winner,” said Lou Holtz, 83, who coached college and pro teams during a successful four-decade career.

“I am here as a servant to god, a servant to the people of our nation, and a servant to our president,” said the former Minnesota Vikings safety Jack Brewer, 41.

Mr. Trump has plenty of support among athletes, especially white ones, across a range of sports. And he has hobnobbed with many Black sports figures, most from previous generations, like Mike Tyson, Herschel Walker and Jim Brown. Some, like Mr. Walker, have appeared at the Republican National Convention, and delivered a message that the party wants to project — that the president is not racist.

June 3, 2020

But members of the current generation of Black athletes in the N.B.A. and in other sports leagues have not personalized their protest in the same way — their movement is a broader call for social justice — and they certainly do not view themselves as Mr. Trump’s “servant.”

And the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black father who was partially paralyzed after a white officer fired seven shots into his back on Sunday in Kenosha, Wis., has revived the sense of urgency stirred by the killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor by the police.

Many see the Trump era less as an exceptional moment in American history than as the resurgence of chronic patterns of oppression, discrimination and racial violence.

But the president’s gleeful culture-war attack on the former N.F.L. quarterback Colin Kaepernick — who took a knee during the national anthem four years ago Wednesday to protest racism and police shootings — and his response to the current uprising over systemic racism seems to have steeled the determination of Black athletes across many sports.

June 15, 2019

By late Wednesday, the N.B.A. stoppage had spread to the W.N.B.A., Major League Soccer and Major League Baseball. Games between the Cincinnati Reds and Milwaukee Brewers, the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres, and the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants were called off just before they were scheduled to start.

“For me, I think no matter what, I wasn’t going to play tonight,” said Mookie Betts, the star Dodgers outfielder, who is Black.

The N.B.A. players are withholding their labor, it is not clear for how long, to promote an as-yet undefined campaign for systemic change that includes, but also transcends, ousting the current president.

“BOYCOTTED, NOT *POSTPONED,” the Lakers star LeBron James, who supports Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic nominee, wrote on his Instagram feed late Wednesday.

Even before the Milwaukee Bucks players announced their boycott of Wednesday’s playoff game, Black athletes and their coaches had been offering yearning expressions of anguish as resonant as anything uttered at either political convention. (New York Times) 

 

Posted in: Canada, USA Tagged: 2020-28, athletes, Black Lives Matter, BLM, Fred vanVleet, giannis antetokounmpo, Herschel Walker, Jack Brewer, Lebron James, NBA, Nikki Haley, RNC, Sports, USA, Vernon Jones

Friday February 9, 2018

February 8, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 9, 2018

What is OAR and why are Russia not in PyeongChang 2018?

RUSSIA will be represented at the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang but their flag will not fly and their athletes will have OAR – not RUS – after their names.

The Russian doping scandal first emerged from the McLaren Report, an independent report by Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren that identified more than 1,000 Russian competitors who had befitted from a state-sponsored cover-up of athletes who were using performance enhancing drugs.

The first part of the report, commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) was released in July 2016 but many sports still allowed Russians to compete at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

However, the second part of the report which was published later in 2016 triggered a massive number of International Olympic Committee (IOC) investigations into Russian athletes and the Russian Olympic Committee was immediately suspended from PyeongChang 2018, with major suspicion also raised over doping at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

The IOC ruled that Russian athletes with a consistent history of drug testing and no history of doping would still be allowed to compete, albeit without the Russian flag or under the auspices of the Russian nation.

Instead those athletes will be represented by the “Olympic Athlete from Russia” logo on their uniforms and the Olympic anthem will be used if they are to win any medals.

Initially, 500 Russian athletes were presented to the IOC for consideration, 111 of whom were immediately dismissed.

However, 169 athletes were eventually invited to compete under the OAR banner – but that number could still rise.

A specific investigation into the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games and allegations of doping during the olympiad handed lifetime bans to 43 Russian athletes.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) overturned 28 of those and partially upheld 11 more appeals.

But 13 of those 28 athletes have now applied to compete at PyeongChang 2018 – requests that have been turned down. (Source: Express.co.uk) 

February 7, 1998
February 7, 1998
February 21, 2002
February 21, 2002
February 10, 2006
February 10, 2006
February 23, 2006
February 23, 2006
February 9, 2018
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February 11, 2010
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February 6, 2014
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Posted in: International Tagged: athletes, doping, IOC, logo, olympics, paper bag, Pyeongchang, rings, shame, South Korea, Winter, world

Wednesday February 12, 2014

February 12, 2014 by Graeme MacKay

Wednesday February 12, 2014By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday February 12, 2014

Quebec carrying the Olympic ball for Canada in Sochi

SOCHI, RUSSIA – Every Winter Olympics, some Quebec journalists keep track of the medals won by athletes from La Belle Province compared to the rest of Canada. Usually it’s just for fun, but the truth of the matter is Quebec usually kicks ass at Winter Games, and is doing so again. Of the nine medals won by Canadians as of Tuesday, six were won by athletes from Quebec, compared to three from TROC — and that’s giving the team figure skating medal to The Rest Of Canada.

Medal drought days of Olympics past

There are certain teams within the Canadian team that are dominated by French Canadians — especially the short-track speed skating team and moguls. Tradition and geography come into play. Moguls skier Mikael Kingsbury, who won a silver medal behind another Quebecois, Alex Bilodeau, on Monday, grew up idolizing moguls skiers in his native province. For the 21-year-old Kingsbury, his hero was 1994 Olympic freestyle champion Jean-Luc Brassard.

“For me it was an inspiration, wanting to be like him,” said Kingsbury.

As for the geography, Kingsbury said: “We’re not from the west of Canada. We don’t have the big mountains, the nice powder snow. We have smaller mountains, ice-snow, so it’s harder conditions, so we work harder, the bumps are harder, and we learn faster.” (Source: Toronto Sun)

SOCIAL MEDIA

This cartoon made a bit of a splash on a French language Facebook Page called L’Expérience lol78.

 
 

Post by L’Expérience lol78.
Posted in: Canada, Quebec Tagged: athletes, Canada, Editorial Cartoon, olympics, own the podium, Quebec, Sports, Winter
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This website contains satirical commentaries of current events going back several decades. Some readers may not share this sense of humour nor the opinions expressed by the artist. To understand editorial cartoons it is important to understand their effectiveness as a counterweight to power. It is presumed readers approach satire with a broad minded foundation and healthy knowledge of objective facts of the subjects depicted.

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