Crikey. They've banned the lot of 'em

I remember when Rangers FC, held the second biggest sports meeting, in Britain. It was second, only to the AAA Championships. It was paid for, by Rangers, and advertisers, as far as I know. It was all amateur, and held on one day. The crowd were usually lucky, and had good weather. It didn't cost millions, and was enjoyed by large crowds of people, who weren't rich.

Cherrytree59 none of the Team GB are professionals and certainly don't get paid lots of money. If they are lucky they will be sponsored by a business and get their money that way. The Paralympions are the same. I know this to be fact. Adam Peaty, for example, who has deservedly won a Gold in his swimming event, has worked hard to get where he is, supported by his family and certainly doesn't get paid for doing it. So please check your facts before making such sweeping statements.

Thank you Petra, I did think it unfair to claim young athletes in their first Olympics are proved drugged cheats , they are not.

anniebach I understand what your saying and have total sympathy with innocent athletes, but this has to stop, this is a war on illegal drug taking in sport, and as in all wars innocent people suffer.
Like you I'm a cynic where business and money are concerned and I think by the next olympics this will all be forgotten.

It is unfair to call the Russian athletes in this Olympics drug cheats, have they failed drug tests ? are they responsible for what may have happened in the past?

The Olympics is once every four years. Soaps are on 52 weeks of the year!
Don't watch soaps, although I can understand people who want to escape real life by doing so.
I love nearly all sports but as a disabled person I am really looking forward to the Paralympics

Lot of issues here. If Paralympians were forced to take performance enhancing drugs, that cavalier disregard for their health is appalling.
Given the total fudge the International Olympic Committee made of the drug cheats revelations with regard to the Olympics, this is exactly the right move by the IPC.
There is also the question of the validity of previous Championships as well as the Olympics.
One of my young Facebook friends, Rhys, was third to two Russians at the 2014 European Para -Athletic Championships. He will be competing in Rio, hopefully this time on a level playing field.

AB ditto !

I would like to go back to a time when it was just Amateurs
No well paid professionals
No big business or giant sponsorship.

I have soaps to avoid fifty two weeks of the year

Snap, Lilyflower!!!!

My DH and I have been discussing this constantly. We are appalled at the drugs and the cheating and that taxpayers' money is used to train athletes so that the winner is often the one whose country has the longest pockets. Those, like us, who have no interest in sport are made to pay for it and a summer's worth of sport pushes everything else off the T.V. Schedules and the news agenda.

Olympics! Grrr!

Not fair on the athletes who haven't entered the previous Olympics , they have not been proved to be drug cheats, they are paying a political price

They should have banned all the Russian athletes. It is unfair for the rest to compete against proved cheats and bad for sport in general.

Was it not London who benefitted from the tourists ?

We were living in London when the Olympics were 'won' for 2012. From that time on everyone who lived in a London Borough had to pay a levy on our Council Tax to help fund the games. We were not asked if we wanted to pay and, as far as I know, it was only the London Boroughs that had to pay.

Don't forget the world and European athletics championships as well. They all cost money to put on.

Totally agree! The whole thing needs to be slimmed down totally. It's just a farce when you know that some countries are cheating.
OK I'm not personally mad about it anyway but I'm delighted they have banned ALL the Russian Para.team & it is a great pity the current games did not do the same. If any Russian athlete wins no-one will believe they did it without drugs now anyway.
So much money when all you need is a running track- a swimming pool & a simple arena. It would be good to see it slimmed right back to the original games. Beach Volley ball? Synchronised swimming? Please!!

I feel so sorry that the paralympians have been banned ,and not a blanket ban on the Entire Russian team

Tudorrose: I believe it was the Lebanese that refused to travel with the Israelis.

This is from the Guardian:
'Israeli athletes were blocked from boarding a bus packed with Lebanese athletes in Rio de Janeiro on Friday'.

Totally agree with you Lupin and you're not a kill joy at all. Countries including our own virtually beggar themselves to put on the best games ever, no matter what the fall out is. Money that could be much much better spent. I'd stop them tomorrow!!

I don't trust any of it now, whatever the sport. It's all a humungous scandal. This business of missed drugs tests and how the rules apply to some and not others beats me.
I watched some of the ladies cycling yesterday and saw the horrific accident to a leading Dutch cyclist. Apparently the route was visibly dangerous and yet no-one stopped it. The cyclists rode it anyway in pursuit of glory. I wondered then about the financial toll on Brazil, where so much money spent could be better used. In 2012 the UK had to fork out in the teeth of a terrible financial crisis. What are we all thinking of? I feel a right killjoy, but common sense, sport and money seem to go together in the worst way.

I think the whole Olympic jamboree is a complete waste of money to the point of being immoral. Having been to Rio and seen for myself the abject poverty that a good proportion of the population live in, together with the inevitable violence, drugs and worse, that go hand in hand with despair and hopelessness, I just cannot for one moment even remotely understand how a government could spend God knows what on athletics, while some of their own citizens haven't even got clean running water - putting 'games' before basic needs, is a complete disgrace.

He had nothing to say when asked question by Panorama , ignored the reporter , but did issue a statement the following day claiming the allegations were not true !

Where is Seb Coe, I mean Lord Coe? It's a bit like 'Where's Wally'. He usually has plenty to say. I'm sure he isn't hiding.

I despair of the true Olympian spirit ever being revived when I read that the Lebanese & Israeli athletes refused to travel to the arena in the same bus!