Category — Controversies

Whoo. This is juicy news. But disturbing too. Who would think of drugging Olympic gold medalist Pasha Gishuk with GHB, “a predatory drug that can be mixed with alcohol to reduce resistance from a victim before a sexual assault?” Could it be the butler? The waiter? The candlestick maker? Whoever s/he was, we hope that the police is running after his or her ass.

Associated Press: Former Olympic ice dancer Pasha Grishuk was drugged with GHB, a common date rape drug, during a business meeting at a ritzy Orange County hotel, a sheriff’s spokesman said Tuesday.

Grishuk, who won Olympic gold medals for Russia in ice dancing in 1994 and 1998, was attending a business meeting at the St. Regis Monarch Beach on April 12 when she began to feel ill and numb, sheriff’s spokesman Jim Amormino said.

While eating dinner, she spotted a partially dissolved pill in the bottom of her drink. Investigators later found another dissolved pill in the bottom of a drink she ordered in the hotel’s lounge.

Amormino says toxicology tests that came back Tuesday were positive for GHB, but it wasn’t immediately clear how the pills got in Grishuk’s drinks or who put them there.

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Is your country’s leader attending the Beijing Olympic Games? What about your athletes? We’re asking because of news reports that some world leaders are boycotting the opening ceremonies to express their displeasure for China’s human rights record in general and its recent conduct in Tibet in particular. Some athletes have also expressed support to the boycott idea.

The boycott calls prompted us here at The Olympian Blog to come up with the following list of party goers and party poopers. See where your President/Prime Minister, some athletes, and some famous personalities stand on this issue.

The Party Goers
1. Finland: Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen will go to the party. Turns out that Finland has a policy of keeping politics and sports separate so PM Vanhanen is free to go.

Do you think the Finns have the right idea? To end the endless debate on how to deal with the issue of sports and politics, maybe each country should come up with its policy of either mixing sports and politics or keeping them in separate realms.

2. Mongolia: President Nambaryn Enkhbayar will attend the opening ceremony. On top of that he will also watch some matches. No doubt he’ll be cheering for Mongolia’s 13 athletes who are hoping that they can bring home a medal for their country.

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Poor Lobsang Gendun. We wouldn’t want to be in his shoes. With hundreds of mis-informed people apparently after his ass, its no wonder that he has been hiding lately.

People mistook him as the man who snatched the Olympic torch when it was being carried by a wheelchair-bound athlete in Paris. These same people are now harassing the Lobsang Gendun. Argh, mistaken identity and human errors. We hope the matter gets clarified to those out to get him before more harm is inflicted on Mr. Gendun.

Read more about this story here .

We give points to Bjork for uttering the “T” word during her concert in Shanghai.

She’s got balls, we tell you. Sure, maybe she’s in it for the publicity but we gotta give her props; after all, the controversy she generated is not entirely risk-free. Who knows what the Chinese authorities could have done to her for her “insolence”.

Shouting for Tibetan independence right in the middle of the Middle Kingdom? That’s unheard of. Until Bjork entered the scene. Go Bjork!