Rico raised a good point. Not that it has never been raised on every drug scandal, but I reckon the subject gets easily dropped in most conversations. I think we need to continue talking about it. Let’s raise awareness and call these athletes out. As sports fans, we believe in a higher cause, the athletes are the front runners (no pun intended). They live our dreams out by competing. They represent the country we are citizens of. The higher cause is love of the sport, love of the country.

Personally, doping merely tells me of inadequacy and incompetence. That athlete doesn’t deserve to step into the arena. That athlete merely wants the glory and NOT the sacrifice. That athlete is greedy. That athlete is an idiot. Selfish git.

Enough of that. Be sure to check out Rico’s post. And if you’re interested to continue the dialogue (on this topic or something else), feel free to join us over at The Watering Hole!

Post from: EveryJoe

Talk on Doping, Marion Jones and Trusting Athletes at The Watering Hole

Jones’ confession follows Floyd Landis loss of his Tour de France title due to drug use. With all of these doping-related scandals, athletes and sports in general risk losing our trust.

Without a doubt, this is a bad thing. We all rage at the unfairness of life, at people who get ahead because they know the right people or invested in improvements like breast implants, which can arguably be interpreted as artificial enhancements of sorts. We can also argue that Yao Ming enjoys an unfair advantage because the Chinese government set up his 6′10″ dad with his 6′8″ mom. We love sports because the game is supposed to be the last refuge of fairness.

Is it any wonder that we come down hard on athletes who are caught cheating? Performance-enhancing drugs threaten to destroy the illusion that successful athletes win based on their own merit. The cycling world is losing its audience, thanks to all the negative publicity focused on the story of Tour de France’s recently dethroned champion.

Organized sports will suffer terribly, as more athletes are found guilty of wrongly tipping the scales in their favor. Can we still look up to our sports heroes and continue believing in them, when some notable examples have broken our trust?

Let’s see if the IOC and all governing bodies involved in the 2008 Olympics can come up with a system that truly keeps the game clean. It doesn’t help that it’s now cool to win at any cost.

Post from: EveryJoe

Marion Jones Confesses to Doping and Retires: Can we Still Trust Athletes?

Then, in 2000, we started hearing less of the motto and more of the IOC’s new advertising campaign: Celebrate Humanity. There was nothing wrong with Faster, Higher, Stronger. But apparently, with all the doping going on, many athletes took it literally, justifying the use of performance-enhancers as a part of winning at any cost.

And that’s why the Celebrate Humanity campaign is a huge success. It refocused the Olympic message, reminding people that the Games aren’t solely about scoring the lowest time, reaching the highest marks, and lifting the heaviest weights, regardless of how you do it. It’s also about true competition, about earning real victories that only competing on your merits brings.

In other words, to quote a tired cliché, it’s not about winning, but taking your best shot.

Post from: EveryJoe

How Doping Changed the Olympics’ Message

You want to know what it means? Well, you have to stay tuned with all the rest. Hehe.

Join us at The Watering Hole!

This is going to be interesting.

(Rico also wrote, “Why I’m Glad Amateurism is Basically Dead in the Olympics”)

Post from: EveryJoe

The Watering Hole Gets Busy This Saturday

Let’s accept a simple fact: Amateurism just doesn’t work for the Olympics. And it’s not because cities can allegedly win hosting bids through lots of money. Keeping athletes from earning money from sports is simply unfair.

The word amateur is actually French, meaning “lover of.” Thus the amateur ideal is someone who plays just for the love of the game, without expecting to win money. But I believe such an ideal is irrelevant in today’s world. I’m not saying Olympians nowadays no longer love their sports. I mean, only true passion will keep a person struggling through the many practices and trials required to develop the skill and talent to suceed.

The Olympics does bring out the best of the world, especially in Track and Field. Thus, to have any chance of winning, competitors must spend a lot of their time training. So if most of their schedule is occupied, how else will they be able to put bread on the table? They’ll need venues to prove their prowess, and be rewarded for such with money. That’s where non-Olympic or regional competitions come in. But the thing was, if you were paid for competing, goodbye Olympics. It didn’t even matter if you’ve earned money through a different sport, as Jim Thorpe found out the hard way.

It’s unreasonable to expect atheletes not to make money off something they spend so much productive time on. Recognition and fame is good, but like I said, you still need to put bread on the table. Such a problem wouldn’t exist for the wealthy. Much of their income is passive, and thus they can concentrate on their athletic dreams easily. And this was another unfair aspect amateurism unintentionally brought to the Olympics. It made it harder for the less fortunate to compete. The Olympics is the showcase of talent it is today because people from all walks of life now have a chance to compete. Who said that only the rich can do it harder, faster, better, stronger?

So I’m glad that amateurism is basically dead in the Olympics, because it allows people to be justly rewarded for simply following the dream of being the best in the world.

Post from: EveryJoe

Why I’m Glad Amateurism is Basically Dead in the Olympics

Let’s welcome Rico Mossesgeld of The Smart PDA this coming Saturday, 16 September, and read about his thoughts on amateurism in the Olympics.

Hmmm.

This should be interesting, don’t you agree?

See you all then!

P.S. If you’re interested to guest blog here at Light the Torch, you should read this and then just drop me an email at sasha [at] b5media [dot] com afterwards.

Post from: EveryJoe

Head on Over to The Watering Hole

“We regard the (2012) London Games as the last of the 20th-century-style Olympics,” world-renowned Japanese architect Arata Isozaki, executive producer of the Fukuoka bid, said. “After the 1936 ‘Nazi Games’, nearly 90 percent of the (Summer) Olympics have been held in capitals or big cities of similar size and used to boost the prestige of the host countries,” Isozaki said. “This trend deviates from the true principle of the Olympics.”

The Japanese Olympic Committee (JOC) will choose between Fukuoka and the Tokyo on August 30 as Japan’s sole candidate for the 2016 venue, which won’t be decided by the International Olympic Committee until mid-2009. Other potential bid cities include Madrid and New York, both of which lost 2012 bids. New York will face challenges from Los Angeles, which reaped huge profits by hosting the 1994 Games, and other US cities. Other potential candidates include Rio De Janeiro and Asian cities Busan in South Korea, Bangkok and New Delhi.

Fukuoka has already hosted such world-class sporting events as the 1995 Student Games, the 2001 World Swimming Championships as well as the recent World Cross Country championships. The city plans to invest some 480 billion yen ($4.2 billion) in Olympic-related infrastructure — 97 billion yen each from its own coffers and the state government as well as 270 billion yen from the private sector.

Both Fukuoka and Tokyo, which staged Asia’s first Olympics in 1964, have promised to place most of their Olympic facilities within a radius of 10 kilometers with such “compactness” being an Olympic trend.

Post from: EveryJoe

Fukuoka Joins the Olympic Bid Process

Well — fabulous news! I got my first official guest blogger. Hehehe.

What better way to kick things off but have an Olympian to contribute here at Light the Torch? Don’t bother answering. It’s a rhetorical question. Heh. Sorry. I’m just happy that’s all.

Can I help it if this blog has awesome connections? Hahaha. ;)

Here’s a hint: You can find him here and here.

Oh, alright.

Look out for Olympic Gold and Silver Medalist Scott Goldblatt tomorrow! :)

Post from: EveryJoe

Something to look forward to

Like I mentioned before, I am inviting readers to come on over and speak up. I like the idea that Light the Torch will be filled with varied voices and hopefully launch a festive atmosphere filled with discussions and occasional debates on which sport should be considered a sport or not or let’s say how can a sporting event be mixed with religion or even with politics or by just simply rooting for your crush — er, home team, I mean. ;)

That’s what’s fun about Light the Torch. It’s diverse and dynamic.

Of course, I am biased. Heh. :P

Post from: EveryJoe

The Watering Hole Explained