Page 17 - ARUBA TODAY

A17
Tuesday 10 december 2019

AnAlysis:

RussiA plAyoff

scAndAl

mAkes 'fAiR' Bound

A thing

of the pAst

By EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer
The goal all along, or so the
Olympic leaders say, has
been fairness.
And also — that notion of
protecting the "innocent"
Russian athletes who must
be out there somewhere.
But what's clear to anyone
who has followed even a
second of the Russian dop-
ing saga, now in its fifth
year and showing no signs
of ending, "fair" went out
the window a while ago.
Gone with it are any viable
ways of deciphering who's
innocent and who's not
anymore.
The mission of protecting
those stated goals wasn't
subverted by the World
Anti-Doping Agency's de-
cision Monday to not issue
a blanket ban on the Rus-
sians for next year's Olym-
pics.
Rather, it died in the sum-
mer of 2016, when IOC
President Thomas Bach did
the same thing before the
Rio Olympics.
Back then, Bach intro- Bills offense comes up
duced the need for a bal-
ance between "collective
responsibility and individu- short in 24-17 loss to Ravens
al justice" among the Rus-
sians who cheated, orga-
nized the cheating or were
just caught in the middle of Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson (8) runs
the whole thing.
That turn of phrase is the with the ball during the first half of an NFL football game
underpinning of this entire against the Buffalo Bills in Orchard Park, N.Y., Sunday,
affair, a bumper-sticker slo- Dec. 8, 2019.
gan that will once again
be proved a misleading Associated Press
canard in the aftermath of Page 19
WADA's latest attempt at
punishment.

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