Two women -- one who tested positive for marijuana and one who was banned for skipping a drug test shortly after an abortion -- have been barred from competing at the Tokyo Olympic games next month. A third, hammer thrower Gwendolyn Berry, caught plenty of flak for showing her distaste for the national anthem.
Sha'Carri Richardson won a decisive victory in the 100-meter dash, blazing down the track with red hair flying and in false eyelashes, during the Olympic trials in Oregon. She admitted to smoking marijuana and was given a one-month ban. She was disqualified for the 100-meter run, her signature event, for Tokyo. There's hope she'll run in a relay.
The kicker is that private marijuana use is legal in Oregon, but it's banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the US Anti-Doping Agency because it "poses a health risk to athletes, has the potential to enhance performance and violates the spirit of sport."
The hurdler Brianna McNeal was already banned from her sport for five years after failing to show up for a drug test in 2020. She said that she was in bed, recovering from an abortion that she had two days earlier, and did not hear anti-doping officials arrive at her home in California. Discrepancies in documentation to prove she had an abortion led to her ban.
She had appealed her suspension to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, which upheld the ban, backdated to August 2020. That means there'll be no Tokyo Olympics -- and no Paris Olympics in 2024.
On Instagram, McNeal posted that she had sat through hearings for her case “and listened to white European men tell me how my experience doesn’t match with their perspective.” To be frank, it doesn't match ours either.
But McNeal will always have Rio, where she won the Olympic gold medal for the 100-meter hurdles.
Finally, there's the case of hammer thrower Gwendolyn Berry. She planned on using her participation at the Olympics to shine a light on injustices in America.
She happened to be on the podium at the Olympic track and field trials when the U.S. Anthem was played. "I feel like it was a setup, and they did it on purpose," Berry said, according to ESPN. "I was pissed, to be honest.''
Berry turned away from the flag and placed a T-shirt over her head. It had the words "Activist Athlete" printed on it.
Now, we all know athletes who are opinionated, and we all know some who are hotheaded. Still, her actions drew the ire of, among others, a red-blooded, one-eyed Republican congressman from Texas, Dan Crenshaw. A former SEAL, Crenshaw lost most of his eyesight when he was wounded in Afghanistan. “She should be removed from the team," Crenshaw said on Fox & Friends.
Berry responded, "Ya'all are obsessed with me," and, "I never said I hated the country." Berry did find support in the White House.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather see all three of these ladies kicking butt in Tokyo than having their butts kicked at home.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/02/sport/shacarri-richardson-positive-test-olympics-spt-intl/index.html?fbclid=IwAR08_L9rmtFZqxcErDMR6tSgjKLpAQSnd6T21XBNL93PsBmEOlGP37hvLDY
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/more-sports/hurdler-brianna-mcneal-loses-appeal-of-five-year-ban-will-miss-tokyo-olympics/ar-AALHAYu?fbclid=IwAR39Er_CqcwgRWbRE5RaI84MwLoaiUVzFMKedQad6MSUwlOcQFwVIFHmxsI
https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/560440-us-olympian-turns-away-from-flag-i-feel-like-it-was-a-setup?fbclid=IwAR38G2EI8z9ncE41CULH_SBfAPz599pO1CkjLjz6WI_rIGE7GiEwoCretxM
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