Good News And Bad News
Should I start with the bad news first or with the good news? I only have one good news and two bad news so far.
I've been posting about how transgender athletes are treated in international competition and how rules are not clear either fair. Today I saw an article about A group of international athletics federations met in Lausanne, Switzerland, last month to discuss the eligibility of transgender athletes competing in top-level sport
source
Rachel McKinnon the Canadian transgender competitive cyclist (photo) is another athlete who's been under fire for competing as a woman although she was born as male. She said all her papers and exams says she's a female but other cyclists (and not only) don't agree with her competing in women's competitions.
It looks like a group of international athletics federations have reached a well needed agreement on new regulations for transgender women in elite sport. They agreed that the current testosterone maximum limit should be halved for transgender women. I bet transgender women are not happy with this but it's the only way of creating equal chances for women in any competition.
I'm curious to see what rules are going to apply for athletes participating in Tokyo Olympics. There are a few transgender athletes that will be participating and they will be affected by these rules for sure.
Dutch Olympic athlete jailed for drug trafficking. This is shocking news, no one can deny that. It's about Madiea Ghafoor, a Dutch born female athlete who was caught with 2 million pounds (US$2.58 million) worth (50kg) of ecstasy tablets and crystal meth in her car at the German border. What is more shocking is that she's pleaded not guilty, she said she thought she's transporting doping materials. This is ridiculous, she can't expect people to believe that, she must have known exactly what she is carrying.
What is more shocking is her explanation. As an athlete who has gone through a number of doping tests, she said she thought she's transporting doping materials. Unbelievable. She didn't want to reveal the name of the people who gave her the drugs and she said she's afraid for her family and friends. She got eight and a half years and even if she gets out earlier, her career is over.
She's not the first and for sure not the last one caught breaking the law by committing a crime. It's said to see these cases as an accident like this can overwrite your athlete career and you'll be remembered as a criminal.
While scrolling through the news on Twitter, one piece of news kept popping up all the time, looks like every news outlet had covered it. It was about the 170year old British Fortnite gamer called FaZe Jarvis, who was banned for life for cheating by using forbidden hack. I don't know him, gaming is not my thing but it looks like this kid is or has been really popular as he has 2million fans on YouTube.
Gaming is very popular these days regardless of the age category and channels like YouTube can give you the opportunity to gather as many followers as you want and an earning opportunity as well. I believe with 20 million followers this kid could have got a nice monthly revenue from adds, not to mention the popularity.
The kid was crying at the end of his message to his fans. He obviously feels sorry for being banned for life. It's a tough lesson at this age but I believe it must be done. They need to know cheating is not the way to do things.
A lot of negative news today! Rachel McKinnon, in my opinion, is one of the worst role models for transgender athletes.
When she communicates with people at least online who diagree with her. She often just tries to out those people down with inflammatory remarks . I also find that she tends to contradict herself often.
On Twitter she once said that people should want to compete against the best so it shouldn't be a problem if transgender athelers are competing. However, for me, that means you should be competing with males since that often are better at physical sports..
You're right. If you look at her on the podium, she's way bigger than the other women and that means a great advantage, no matter what she says.
More and more transgender athletes are competing and this will always be a problem in my opinion. Testosterone regulations may help a little but it's still not quite right.
Your first news reminds me of this one from Spain:
Volleyball Federation prevents a girl with Down Syndrome from playing the Cup
The Royal Spanish Volleyball Federation (RFEVB) prevents a 14-year-old girl with Down Syndrome from participating with her team in the VII Spanish Children's Cup because she is one year older than the players in her category, despite the support of her club.
The girl, Laia, has been playing since 2011 with the same team of the Esplugues Volleyball Club of Barcelona, which has proposed to the federation to give all their games for lost in exchange for allowing her to participate with her teammates, as explained by her mother, Marta Montserrat.
Haven't heard about this case but it looks like there are problems everywhere.
The big difference I see with this one is that the young lady, despite Down syndrome is older than her competition. Just like I don't think I would be allowed to compete in a younger age group when I was that age either.
Granted, I don't think she has an unfair advantage and this instance sounds more like they are adhering to the rulebook. Did they still not allow the young lady to compete even after her team proposed that they would accept a loss in all of there games despite the outcome?
Her team would accept lose all games only to allow her to play.
How do transgender athletes get around drug testing? I know transgender friends here in Thailand who take god knows what drugs and hormones etc to try and increase the pitch of their voice, grow boobs and heaven knows whatever else.
I don't know what drug tests are done, only know testosterone is always the problem. Truth is rules are not clear and I believe officials have no clue what to do with them. I'm not against them but when a man is becoming a woman and is competing as a woman it's clear that has some advantages.
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