WrestlingRasta

He also, save from 45 seconds of brain fart against Petro, showed he was levels above the competition in Tokyo. Many before have taken off significant time in a cycle and come back to win another gold.

My opinion, what you are speaking of is the fundamental connect, where there should be disconnect. ‘Government’ should not be anywhere in there. Not as far as the Olympics (and level competition) is concerned. I realize that that’s ‘should be’ and not necessarily always is. None the less, the athletes represent the people of their nation. And I think we can all agree governments don’t always represent the will of their nations peoples. I can tell you with certainty this war is not the will of the people of Russia, and while I agree there has to be accountability, withholding the athletes is a much much bigger punishment to the athletes, and the pride the people of Russia take in their success, than it is to the individuals perpetrating what’s going on over there.

They (the athletes) don't have as much "choice" as you might think.

Huh?

His freestyle leg lace might be (or at least had been, we haven’t seen it in awhile) as good as his folkstyle tilt.

First-dependence and addiction are not the same thing. An addiction causes an actual physiological reaction upon withdrawal. Can be as major as sweats and trembles and shakes you see with crackheads, can be as minor as a headache because you didn’t have any coffee today. Im a dipper and a nightly pot smoker. (I also spend very little time sitting in front of the TV on the sofa). Two points want to make here relating to this. As a LEGAL pot smoker, I still have a job that has policies. One of those policies is ‘random’ drug tests. We know when the pull is going to happen, we just don’t know who’s going to get pulled. So every three months, I make a decision to go three weeks without any pot. I make that decision because I know there could be consequences should I fail a test. During those three weeks I feel no physical effects, other than the lack of pain relief. I WANT to have a smoke, but there’s no physical pull to do so. I go a day without dipping and I’m shaking, headache, etc (yes I know I need to stop @Jason Bryant) Dependence is an emotional attachment, that requires a decision. Addiction is a neurological connection, and requires intervention.

Then quality of competition goes out the window. So now we can’t factor how many wins, how many pins/bonus, or quality of competition.

In years past I would say a college athlete doesn’t ‘owe’ this kind of explanation to anyone. But that’s years past. In todays world college athletes are getting paid, and they’re getting paid by individuals and/or LLC’s based on their fan following. With that comes responsibility. I think in today business of college sports, an athlete does have a responsibility for an explanation as to why he withdrew from the national championship.

There were four world champs, a world silver, and a world bronze in the heavyweight bracket this year, all but one of them in the big ten. The way the ladder has rotated the previous three years under Gable, it’s very possible this bracket has three NCAA champs heading in…..if not for Gable. When it comes to comparing level of competition, give me a Junior world champ over NCAA any day of the week, and twice on wrestling days. Parris wrestled more matches than anyone else, in that weight, ran the gauntlet unscathed, and had more falls (always a big criteria) than anyone else. Beat more all Americans. Bonused more qualifiers and all Americans. At the weight with the deepest level of accomplishment.