rings – mackaycartoons

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)

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Thursday June 30, 2016

June 29, 2016 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 30, 2016

Stephen Colbert: Rio Olympics Are ‘Massive Catastrophe’

With the Summer Olympics in complete disarray, Stephen Colbert examined the mess in Rio: “I am pumped for the Rio games. They are less than two months away … or never,” Colbert said.

July 27, 2012

Just yesterday, Rio’s acting governor warned ‘The Olympics could be a big failure,’ which is actually an improvement because until yesterday, it looked like a massive catastrophe,” Colbert said.

“The Olympics are in real trouble: Many of the venues are still unfinished, possibly because over $10 billion dollars in construction contracts went to just five firms, all of which are already under investigation for price fixing and kickbacks, and this has already led to top executives being jailed or charged. Though on the plus side for those executives, the prisons won’t be completed until 2036.”

Colbert also pointed to Brazil’s ballooning violent crime rate and a police force strapped by budget shortfalls as reasons why this year’s Olympics could be a nightmare.

“But corruption and crime aren’t the only thing plaguing the Olympics: There is also actual plague,” Colbert said. “Because fear over the Zika virus, which can cause birth defects, has led some athletes to stay home, and others to take special precautions like freezing their sperm.”

Colbert then added some more reasons why the Rio Olympics might be doomed, from a heavily polluted Guanabara Bay, the site of some racing events, to the jaguar that was killed at an Olympics torch ceremony. “I believe that species of jaguar was the Spotted South American Metaphor,” Colbert said. (Source: Rolling Stone)

Friday August 3, 2012

August 3, 2012 by Graeme MacKay

By Graeme MacKay, Editorial Cartoonist, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 3, 2012

Women claim Canada’s second Olympic silver in rowing

The night before they went for gold, the Canadian women’s eight met and made a solemn pledge.

Others might measure their success by a different standard. But as long as they maintained their trust in each other, as long as they performed as a team, and as long as they expended every last joule of energy in their beings, they would be satisfied with their race.

On Thursday, they met every one of their goals. The silver medals that hung around their necks was just a happy by-product of all that.

“I had so much trust in the work we’ve done,” said Richmond’s Darcy Marquardt, one of the boat’s leaders and a medalist, finally, in her third Olympics. “We’ve been so consistent day after day in training and racing this season. We laid it all on the line today and that’s an Olympic silver. We can’t be upset with that.”

Which was both an honest and realistic assessment of their race.

As much as the Canadian crew did everything in their power at Lake Dorney, they ran into a monster boat in the gold-medal crew from the United States. The Americans, who were the defending Olympic champions, were last defeated in international competition in 2005 and returned six of the nine crew members from Beijing.

They also looked every inch the favourite at the Eton College rowing basin.

In a wire-to-wire win, the Americans beat back an early challenge from the Dutch and a late challenge from the Canadians but never seemed particularly concerned about either boat. The Canadians made a bit of a move over the final 500 metres but still finished almost a second and a half behind the Americans. (Source: National Post)