American Olympic swimmers: The Russians shouldn't be competing in Tokyo, you know

If you tuned into the Tokyo Olympics and saw a team competing from ROC you were probably wondering which country that might be. That would be understandable as there is no country that competes with the ROC designation. ROC is being used by the Russians, you know, the country allegedly banned from competing in the Olympics due to doping violations.

ROC stands for Russian Olympic Committee, but it’s a made-up label by the Russians. It’s a loophole being used in order for their athletes to compete in the Olympics. More than 330 Russian athletes are competing but not actually representing Russia, wink, wink. It’s ridiculous. Here’s the thing – in 2019, Russia was banned from international competition for four years because of perpetrating the biggest doping scandals in sports history. The ban was for four years but it was recently reduced to two years. Apparently even the reduced ban doesn’t even matter as the Russians are working around it and their athletes are competing. One example of past cheating happened during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Russians swapped more than 100 tainted urine samples for clean samples overnight. That sort of illegal action during competition fueled a reputation Russia has held for a very long time. They cheat and dope to win.

Rightfully so, American athletes are speaking out against Russian participation. American swimmers made some headlines over the weekend voicing complaints. On Friday, two American swimmers won the silver and bronze medals in the men’s 200-meter backstroke competition. During the press conference afterward, things got a little awkward for the Russian who won the gold medal.

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