Olympic updates - Doping samples and Boston 2024

Doping samples

The IOC is going to retest hundreds of doping samples from the 2008 Beijing games as part of a crackdown to catch cheaters. The IOC has retested a small amount of the 4,000 samples from the Beijing games already and now has a window of 10 years to retest doping samples under a new world anti-doping code. The old code limited doping testing to 8 years. The IOC hopes to retest the majority of the Beijing games samples before the statute of limitations runs out in 2018. The IOC realistically would like to test several high profile athletes competing in Rio in 2016. No positive tests have been found from any Beijing 2008 samples as of now.
Testing samples from the 2004 Athens games wrapped up in 2012 and five athletes were caught and stripped of their medals.
The IOC has already carried out retesting on a few samples from the 2010 Vancouver games and 2012 London games with no positive results. For the 2016 Rio games, the IOC will be testing roughly 5,000 and that number is the same number tested in London.


Boston 2024 Update

The USOC selected Boston as the US city to bid on the 2024 Summer Olympic games back in early January. Since then support for these games has been declining. In January 51% supported the bid and 33% disapproved. A poll was taken in February and those numbers slipped to 44% approve and 46 % disapprove. The last poll taken this month(March) with 36% approve and 52% disapprove. Boston 2024, the organization leading the bid, has agreed to a statewide referendum to take place in Nov. 2016. For the IOC to consider strongly the Boston bid, approval ratings need to be close to 70%. Hamburg, Germany has officially decided to bid on the 2024 games and Hamburg has approval ratings of 64%. Boston 2024 has said the bid will not go forward If the majority of statewide voters don't approve. They won't go forward if there is not a majority of voters approving the bid within the City of Boston itself. Boston has to submit their final bid to the IOC by January 2016. This means if the referendum fails the USOC will not be able to bid on the 2024 games at all.
Boston 2024 has an extensive public relations and social media/marketing campaign set up to try and stop the decline in poll numbers. Boston 2024 is led by John Fish. Fish is the CEO of Suffolk Construction. It is the largest construction company in the northeast.
There are several opposition groups that have formed. No Boston Olympics and No Boston 2024 are two of the groups. Bostonian's say they think they will be on the hook for cost overruns while Boston 2024 says there will be none. Opposition groups plan to talk to state legislators who could introduce legislation to make sure state taxpayers are not responsible for cost overruns. Boston 2024 has said that they won't submit a final bid if they cannot insure the bid against overruns. Boston 2024 has a 10 point plan of a cost effective, compact Olympics with temporary venues and plenty of jobs and housing created. Bostonian's do not want resources taken away from their city and are unsure about a transportation system that shut down several times during the winter of 2014/15.
Boston 2024 has said they have a plan to ease the concerns of Bostonians through 20 meetings spread out through Boston and the State of Massachusetts over the next several months. Boston 2024 will listen to concerns and change the bid to meet Bostonians needs.
Boston 2024 has recruited over 1,000 volunteers to fan out all over the city to pitch the 2024 Games to Bostonians.
The latest development is a rumor that the USOC might pull the bid on Boston 2024 soon if poll numbers don't go up. This was reported in a CNBC tweet. The USOC has denied the report.

Lastly, 2012 Olympian Jordyn Wieber has retired from gymnastics at the age of 19.

500 Days Until Rio Games!

Today marks the 500th day until the Rio 2016 Olympic Games! The games will be held August 5-21 2016.