Just a few sporting things to sort out in 2019 …

And so we welcome Rusters to another new year with a promise to continue our crusades for purity and honesty in all avenues of human life – but particularly in the world of sport.

Here are three things that we feel would improve or advance the causes of the following:-

Better and corruption-free administration of global sport; athlete welfare and well-being generally; diversity/equality; honesty and integrity; and lastly, the maximum the beneficial enjoyment of all participants and spectators.

[In no order of importance, of course] …

 

THE SCOURGE OF THE USE OF PERFORMANCE-ENHANCING DRUGS

The problems of dealing with the used of performance-enhancing drugs should be addressed by absolutes.

In other words, all major sporting world bodies should meet and vote which of these two alternative policies they wish to implement from 1^st January 2020:

EITHER

In all sports any athlete caught and/or proved to have been using performance-enhancing drugs at any time should be banned from sport for life (with no right of appeal);

OR

All said bodies should announce that the use of performance-enhancing drugs will be permitted across the board.

All athletes and participants will be required to sign a contract with their relevant world governing body agreeing that (1) they compete (irrespective of whether they use drugs in doing so) entirely at their own risk and (2) they indemnify without qualification said world governing body against all future claims of negligence, failing to protect the welfare of participants and indeed the costs of all medical treatments that any of them have to undergo – and/or even early deaths that might afflict them – as a result of them taking drugs in order to enhance their performances.

 

TRUE EQUALITY – THE ENDING OF GENDER-BASED SPORTING CONTESTS

In the politically-correct 21^st Century it stands to reason that the only way to achieve true equality between men, women – and also anyone identifying themselves differently from how they were born; or from how they identified themselves last week; or wishing to state how they’d like to be regarded next week; or those who would like to identify themselves as gay, lesbian, transgender, bisexual or indeed as black plastic bags, or disabled, or mentally disturbed – is staring us all in the face:

From 1^st January 2020, it should be declared that all sport will be played uniformly and together without fear or favour – and no sporting events will ever again be reserved for those identifying as anything. And anyone can sleep in any athletes’ dormitory – and use whichever toilets – they feel like.

Because they’ll all be the same anyway.

The benefits will be immediate and far-reaching.

Never again the need to mount different sporting events for women, gays, disabled people, transgenders, or even those switching back and forth between being a man and a woman every three weeks!

Everyone will be equal and they’ll all be competing together.

And presumably at the world’s major sporting events – not least the FIFA Wold Cup, the Olympics, the World Championships in every sport, the Ashes Test Series and the Rugby World Cup – athletes, irrespective of gender or orientation, will all be selected upon merit and then appearing before the biggest crowds that their chosen sport can attract.

Just think of it. In cricket, women selected for the Australian Test team would appear at the WACCA in front of 50,000 spectators – as equality campaigners demand that they deserve – but only if they make the team, of course.

In sports like horse racing, show jumping, dressage women already compete equally with men.

Arguably, sport science already teaches us that physiologically, one day women might be able to run long-distance events like the marathon faster than men, Goody!

How big a deal would it be if (in my day) Paula Radcliffe had won the Open Marathon gold medal … and not just the Womens’?! [Actually, that’s not a very good example, is it? Paula kept failing to do herself full justice in the in Olympics …].

But take Formula One.

The top (male) drivers tend to be small and light in order to maximise speed and savings on fuel consumption. There’s no reason to doubt that one day top talented female drivers wouldn’t actually be at a premium in such motor racing competitions.

 

ENDING OF CORRUPTION GENERALLY

Any sporting body, nation or individual discovered and/or ever proven to have been acting corruptly should be immediately banned (without appeal) for 30 years.

Obviously the potential effects of such a decree would be far-reaching.

Russia and those other state (top-down) controlled countries associated with her that formerly went to make up the Eastern Bloc would never be allowed to host – or indeed compete in – any future world sporting festival such as the Olympics or World Cups.

However, I’d venture to suggest that this would be a small ‘price’ to pay for the removal of the money, drug-taking and power-corrosive corruption endemic in these nations – and indeed their automaton, drugs-crazed, swivel-eyed, steroid-pumped players and athletes who formerly used to win them cups and medals but then got discarded in a heap of knackered bodies and left to their early deaths through drug abuse.

There are some other nations and continents of the world in which electoral and financial corruption have traditionally been rife for millennia and are considered part of everyday life.

Perhaps I should not name them here for fear of tarring the occasional innocent with the same broad brush that I’m pointing at the overwhelming majority of them who are as guilty as hell, but (my point is) clearly, these countries will be at a significant disadvantage in terms of ever being considered as viable hosts of – or even invitees to – major sporting tournaments at all.

And why not?

Vive la Revolution, I say!