Update: Entire Russian Team Will Not Be Banned From Rio Olympics

By Rick Maese

The Russian flag will be flying at the Summer Olympics, after all, as the International Olympic Committee decided Sunday that athletes from the nation mired in an ongoing drug scandal will be allowed to compete on the sporting world’s largest stage next month in Rio de Janeiro.

Less than two weeks before the start of the Rio Games, the International Olympic Committee ruled against barring Russia from the Summer Olympics but did approve measures that could reduce the number of Russian athletes participating. Members of the executive board met on a conference call Sunday and granted authority to the 28 individual federations that govern each sport to rule on which Russian athletes should be permitted to compete in their respective disciplines......To Read More...

My Take- It's long past the time when the Olympics became something more than what it was designed for - competition between amateur athletes.  And that started with the first Olympics when athletes represented their countries....not themselves.  From that point on it became political, and commercialism was soon to follow.   The corruption of the IOC and the athletes was perfectly predictable.   It's high time the Olympics was ignored.... and for that matter... it's high time the world started to realize professional sports are all kids games being played by grownups.

Just as with the Roman games - professional sports keep the masses uninformed, uninterested and blind to what's really going on in the world.  And the world's governments love it!  And so do the people!  That way they don't have to think or become aware!  As a result they don't have to do anything and they're not responsible for anything.   And knowing all there is to know about sports isn't thinking or being responsible.  Just like the Roman games - it's all a diversion from reality!

Seneca, Roman senator and philosopher, tells of a visit he once paid to the arena. He arrived in the middle of the day, during the mass execution of criminals, staged as an entertainment in the interval between the wild-beast show in the morning and the gladiatorial show of the afternoon:

All the previous fighting had been merciful by comparison. Now finesse is set aside, and we have pure unadulterated murder. The combatants have no protective covering; their entire bodies are exposed to the blows. No blow falls in vain. This is what lots of people prefer to the regular contests, and even to those which are put on by popular request. And it is obvious why. There is no helmet, no shield to repel the blade.  

Why have armour? Why bother with skill? All that just delays death. In the morning, men are thrown to lions and bears. At mid-day they are thrown to the spectators themselves. No sooner has a man killed, than they shout for him to kill another, or to be killed. The final victor is kept for some other slaughter. In the end, every fighter dies. And all this goes on while the arena is half empty. You may object that the victims committed robbery or were murderers. So what? Even if they deserved to suffer, what's your compulsion to watch their sufferings? 

'Kill him', they shout, 'Beat him, burn him'. Why is he too timid to fight? Why is he so frightened to kill? Why so reluctant to die? They have to whip him to make him accept his wounds.

By the way - while Rome was being destroyed - they still held the games.