Rampaging Russians (13/06/16)

The violence in Marseille in recent days seems to have been caused by mixture of English, Russian and French football fans who are using the Euro finals to launch organised attacks on rival supporters.

But the trouble inside the stadium was down to Russian hooligans which is why the football authorities (UEFA) are taking action against Russia, since the England fans in the ground were simply doing their best to get out of harm's way.

The Russian media told a different story, however, glorifying the antics of their own fans instead of facing up to their drunken, moronic behaviour, as this report from The Independent demonstrates. 

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/international/euro-2016-marseille-violence-russia-england-fans-a7077766.html

Euro 2016 Marseille violence: Russian media praise own supporters and label England fans 'drunk islanders'

State news service reports Russians 'did not flinch and repulsed the attack' by English fans 

By Peter Yeung - The Independent

Uefa has opened disciplinary proceedings against the Russia Football Union after crowd disturbances at the game Getty Images

Russian media has praised the country’s supporters and labelled England football fans “drunk islanders” after violence broke out during their Euro 2016 match in Marseilles.

“Two hundred and fifty Russian fans repulsed an attack by several thousand English and forced them to flee,” state news service Vesti reported.

“English fans started the fight by attacking our fans, but 250 Russians from different corners of our country did not flinch and repulsed the attack of the heavily drunken islanders.”

Drugs in Sport (09/06/16)

Maria Sharapova has been banned from international tennis of two years which is a good thing, if you ask me.

Because the Russian athlete has been making a mockery of the campaign to clean up sport   with the admission that she has been taking a performance enhancing drug (Meldonium) for many years.

Not only that, but apparently there are hundreds of other Russian athletes who have been taking the same drug across other sports which suggest a doping scandal in Russia on an industrial scale. 

And if you need more evidence of Russia's arrogant attitude towards WADA (World Anti-Dpoing Agency) and the use of performance enhancing drugs in sport, then consider the fact that Maria Sharapova was just recently nominated by Russia to participate in the Rio Olympic Games 2016. 

    

You're Unbelievable (11/03/16)

Maria Sharapova is one of the world's most highly paid athletes and this champion tennis player is wealthy enough to acquire the best, most up-to-date medical advice money can buy.

Yet after failing a drugs test earlier this year at the Australian Open, Sharapova is asking the public to believe that a family doctor (Russian?) had been prescribing her with medication for the past ten years, unbeknown to her team of advisers.

The drug 'mildronate' or 'meldonium' has only recently been added to the 'banned list' after being judged to be potentially performance enhancing, but the Russian tennis player claims that she did not read the latest advice from Wada (World Anti-Doping Agency).

“I was given this medicine by my doctor for several health issues that I was having in 2006,” said Sharapova who mentioned an unspecified sickness, a deficiency in magnesium and her family’s history of diabetes as reasons for taking the drug in the first place.

But 'mildronate' or 'meldonium' increases blood flow to and from the heart, has no known link to diabetes and nor is the drug approved for use by medical authorities in either Europe or America.

So, good on Andy Murray for speaking out and calling for Maria Sharapova to face the music because if you ask me, the Russian champion has brought her sport into terrible disrepute.

Raging Russians (18/05/16)

GETTY Image

I never watched any of the ghastly Eurovision song contests, but apparently the population of Russia has been whipped up into a frenzy over the fact that their entry (the favourite apparently) was beaten into third place by Ukraine, the winners, and Australia, who added insult to injury by snatching second place.

Now it's strange that an industrial scale doping scandal in world athletics has created hardly  a murmur of protest in Russia even though the government's own drug agencies have been heavily implicated in what amounts to organised, cynical cheating.

UK newspapers have published some of the crazy Tweets and comments that have been encouraged by frenzied and outraged reporting on Russia's largely state controlled TV and here are a few examples. 

All we can hope for now is that the World Athletics bodies stand up to Russia for their Mafia-like behaviour in relation to the use of drugs in sport by throwing them out of the Olympics Games which are due to take place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in August 2016.  

 

We'll go to Kiev in tanks for next year's Eurovision -  Yana


Ukraine on thin ice - warns Alex

Ass-kissers - complains some Russian homophobe