IOC = Insane Olympic Committee?

First, they fuck over half the competitors by being too careless to see that the vault is the right height. Now, they've stripped a Romanian of her gold medal because she took some Sudafed.

But Wait! There's more! I can't figure out why, if she can't have her gold medal because of a mistake made by the team doctor that certainly didn't enhance her performance, why does she get to compete tonight. Either all the forbidden drugs are forbidden...or only in some cases where they think, maybe, they should be forbidden. How is that fair?

Furthermore, Tino and I saw a Chinese gymnast dismount the parallel bars this evening and have the floor or the mat collapse underneath him...and he was penalized for taking a step on his dismount. Okaaaaay, whatever. And everyone has been complaining about how the mats here aren't bouncy and lots of people are failing to stick dismounts and are going out of bounds on the floor exercise. In fact, not one of the men on the high bar tonight didn't stumble on their dismount

And for God's sake, will the journalists just leave Marian Jones alone? Regardless of what her husband did or did not do (and it looks like he didn't do it, based on an independent lab test), she's not him. It's like they are trying to psyche her out, and that's just mean.

Of course, I'm pretty liberal about all this. I didn't think the Canadian snowboarder deserved to lose his gold medal for a positive marijuana test. Marijuana is definitely not performance enhancing. The biggest thing wrong with marijuana (a drug very dear to my own heart, admittedly), is that it's anti-motivational[1]. If anything, one could argue that it would be sabotaging his own performance!

I do think stimulants and steroids should be banned[2], but what happens if an athlete has a muscle strain? Are they allowed to take NSAIDs? Is the lack of swelling caused by the NSAID's performance enhancing? Where does one draw the line?

[1]"Girl, that stuff's gonna rob you of your ambition." "Not if your ambition is to get high and watch TV."

[2]I think these things could cause long-term harm to the athletes but if they were legal to use, athletes would be pressured into using them, thus, they should be banned. And, of course, if the drugs are allowed, the athletes who chose not to use them don't have a level playing field, and that's also wrong.