The Olympics -What olympic sporting event is your favourite?

I thought the inclusive nature of the event was actually pretty good (although I might opine that the drag queen with the blonde beard may have overplayed their part somewhat)

My major beef with the event as a whole was that it was somewhat protracted and disjointed and didn't show enough of Paris (we got a better tour of Paris in the introductory session of the BBC coverage)

As for being 'woke' - if anyone ever levels that term at me as means of criticism, (which has happened in the past) I let the 'accuser' know that I take it as a compliment instead.....

Opening was a bit too long, but they usually are.

Back to the original question; running and swimming. Love to watch Olympic runners. To me it’s the most true competition in the games. I don’t care who you are, where you live, you have the opportunity to run. It’s not like many others where you need equipment, leagues teammates etc. If you win, you are the best in the world, no doubt.

And I swam, even had the chance to compete in Indy trials when I was 17 so I still folllow that of course.

Unless you are Lasse Virén, Ben Johnson, Maria Koch or Flo Jo.....To name but a few.

As it happens my favourite events are the track and field sports too.
- and the hope is that nowadays the athletes are all clean doing them.

We're on page 4, and I've seen no mention yet of either of my two favorites: fencing and rowing. I used to coach foil fencing, and I rowed in high school (as well as ran cross country, which I continued in college).

Oops! I missed it - my bad!

Reprise for @flw

OK, I missed it. Foiled again 😗

Ahhh - I see what you did there!

I think pretty much everyone in that 100m final in 1988 was doping. Ben was just the unfortunate one who was caught, likely because something wasn't timed properly in the schedule.

I watched that race and was floating after he won, only to feel completely gutted when the news came out. I think the whole of Canada felt like shit when that happened.

That incident lead to something in Canada called the Dubin Inquiry, which was a federal public inquiry on doping in sport. That lead to some of the most stringent anti-doping rules in the world here in Canada. In fact when WADA was sending out initial drafts of the first World Anti-Doping Code, I was responsible for reviewing it and commenting on it for Archery Canada - the national sport governing body for archery in Canada. Some things didn't sit well with me, and in many ways those first versions of the code were softer than Canada's existing rules at the time. For example a ban for 2 years, when the rules here were for a full 4 years - a quadrennial, which is significant enough that you will miss at least 1 Olympic Games. With a 2 year ban, you can get caught either at the Games or right after, and still compete in the next Games.

I've been out of it for a number of years now, but WADA has implemented a lot of things over the years. People are always very focused on in-competition testing, but that really only catches the people who have mis-timed their doping regime. What is far more important is the out of competition testing, which is done randomly, without notice, and requires athletes to provide whereabouts information, so they can be found for testing. Not being where you are supposed to be is an infraction, and can lead to sanctions if it happens multiple times.

On top of that, there are biological passports - these are what makes doping much more difficult than it used to be. They look at long term trends in key biological markers, and changes in those are immediate red flags.

As with any doping infraction, it is based on strict liability - meaning if the substance is present in your body, you are automatically guilty of an offence. You can only lessen the penalty by providing evidence that the infraction was unintentional. Supplements are often the cause of, or are blamed for many infractions. To be honest when I was competing, and was subject to doping controls, I took zero supplements just to be sure.

The down side is that WADA and all the labs around the world are always playing catch-up. The whole Marion Jones (US track) and BALCO scandal of the early 2000's proved that very well. She had always tested clean, swore up and down that she never doped, but weas doping all along with substances that WADA didn't know about.

I'm certainly more confident now than I was in 1988 about athletes being clean with everything that is in place.