V 11 N. 77 Erik Kynard Finally Gets His High Jump Gold Due Since 2012

  

Erik Kynard,  About Freakin' Time

The former Kansas State U. High  Jumper Erik Kynard will finally receive his well deserved gold medal from the 2012 London Olympics for his 2.33 meter jump 7 feet 7  3/4 inches or is it 7 feet 7 1/2 inches?   When I first asked Google they told me 2.33 meters was equivalent in Imperial measure to  0.001447795 miles.  Believe me, Virginia, somedays it's not an easy world to live in with all this tech support.  Actually I finally got  7 feet  7.73 inches.  So do we round up or down?

Kynard more than deserves the gold for his patience. Derek Drouin of Canada, Robbie Grabarz of Britain and Mutaz Essa Barshim of Qatar will all get silver.   Wonder if they have to give back their bronzes or will we find them on eBay?    Ivan Ukhov, the culprit,  his coaches, and the Russian sports federation that oversees track and field deserve the misery of each other's company.  And furthermore, the IOC also took away the bronze medal in the women's  high jump from Svetlana Shokolina for doping and gave it to Ruth Beitia of Spain who would go on to win gold in 2016.

                                                                Ruth Beitia

Here is Erik on the David Letterman show, shortly after his return from London.  If you watch at 6:57 in the interview, he has a few choice words about Ukhov, but not implying anything about doping.

Erik Kynard on the Letterman Show

Maybe Erik Kynard had no inkling that there was some foul play going on, but finally the best man has won.  Putin and his minions have done more than their share to besmirch the sports world with their cheating.   A lot of people cheat on an individual basis, but the Russkies have taken it to an institutionalized level as did the former German Democratic Republik and likely a few more.   The Russians so corrupted their own Winter Olympics in Sochi with cheating and falsification of drug testing that their ban on team representation was recently  extended another year and deservedly so.  

                                                 

                                   Kynard alongside Ukhov in 2012

                                                            And The China Thing

Now the US is toying with the idea of having a 'diplomatic boycott' on the Winter Olympics in China in 2022.  This is not like Jimmy Carter's 1980 boycott of the summer games.  This just means that some middle level diplomats and perhaps the First Lady would not be present at the pageantry and in the reception lines for the big wigs.  He or she will not be dipping into the Peking duck canapes and slugging back the Maotai's, shouting gambai, and telling about their sporting life as a third string lacrosse player at the  Putney School or Philips Exeter Academy for the Feebly Wealthy.  Remember in the last Winter O's when Mike Pence and Kim Jong Il's sister sat one behind the other but they could not turn around and say , "Hello"?   These people know nothing and care nothing about the Uyghurs who are being persecuted toward extinction by the Chinese government.  Oh, and let us not forget the current scandal of the tennis player Peng Shuai.  In western countries if women cry 'foul' they get ignored, in China they get 'disappeared'.  

As long as money is to be made and a bit of short term national prestige is to be garnered,  the Games will go on.  That was proven this past summer.   Thank you CBS, NBC, ABC, and ESPN or whoever has the contract.

Erik Kynard is a Toledo Rogers product and KSU grad.  Interesting to note that "diplomatic boycott" is not a boycott by athletes but a boycott by politicians.  That's not a big deal but the other is.  I hope we don't have a rerun of Jimmy Carter in 1980 but it would not take much to switch to an athletic boycott. Bill Schnier