Although I had been following the olympics, I  didn’t watch anything beyond the figure skating and some of the blunders associated. This was a great table talk where we not only were able to discuss the very interesting articles but, see what other events others were interested in. Interestingly, we have a bunch of figure skating fans. I actually had no clue that Russia had been found cheating in the Olympics and to read the article was a shocking revelation. The plot line was almost as if straight from a spy movie. You could almost imagine a team of three people in a dimly lit room, retrieving little bottles of urine and trying to break through the tight packaging. The entire situation was almost as if someone intended to make the situation as dramatic as possible.

Nevertheless, we approached the matter of whether or not the Russian athletes should have been allowed to participate. Most of us agreed how despite the Russian athletes being barred of carrying their flag and representing themselves as a country, they still represented Russia via the gray ensemble. Although we agreed that this may be the one logical solution to keep athletes who have trained their entire lives to fulfill their dreams, we still know that they represent Russia. To a degree, I think that the question comes to making cheating regulations much harder and blurring the lines between state and individual aspirations. Do we punish a nation of athletes or do we punish just individual athletes? In the case of Russia, there’s an entire corrupted system hungry for success. The idea of having a system designed for cheating and going to different lengths for the recognition as an athlete of a nation is terrifying. In addition, this news actually makes the idea of Russia even scarier as they’re manipulating their own people who just “disappear”.