Olympics attention shifts to track and field this week. And while fans may be tired of hearing about doping, it’s unavoidable seeing that more than a hundred Russian athletes are unable to compete in the Rio Olympics for using banned drugs.You know, he didn’t. And it illustrates where we are now, what’s happening at these games. Doping is front and center like never before because of what happened with Russia, the recent revelations of widespread state-sponsored doping in that country. Now, you may remember that right up to the start of the games, even once the games began, every Russian athlete had their doping records scrutinized, and they got the thumbs up or down whether they could compete in Rio or not. Track and field, of course, got hit the hardest. The whole Russian team except one athlete was banned.
And the environment is so toxic right now. You had swimmers last week openly going after other competitors and labeling them drug cheats and questioning whether they should be in Rio. American Lilly King, of course, was the most outspoken. She was against her Russian opponent Yulia Efimova. And King set the table for what happened to Gatlin last night when she said Gatlin shouldn’t be in Rio because of his past.