Politics and Sports

We don't have an omnibus thread for discussing issues as they relate to sports and we could use one. There were a couple of times during Wimbledon where I came across some articles I might have wanted to post about but did not, so I'm creating this thread for such purposes should they arise in the future.

I don't have any intention of any sort of long and well-thought-out-post, but i do think the situation with how Russian and Belarusian players have been treated is absurd moral grandstanding. In 2022 they were banned from competing altogether at Wimbledon, and this year they were allowed to play but not under the flags of their countries. They are also being banned from representing Russia and Belarus at the olympics. Why not also ban China and Iran I wonder? Why not all the BRICS? But certainly if we're banning athletes from countries that support war, then the US needs to be the first country that should have its athletes forced to compete under neutral flags.

There has also been plenty in the news in recent years about the Saudis, the PGA tour, and the upstart league tour the LIV-- not something I care about but that's definitely something that could be discussed here, or about issues related to the NBA and China.

My general stance is that athletes should be free to express themselves as they see fit without fear of recrimination from their leagues or organizations, but that excluding players from competitions because of the sins of their countries is a line too far. So please use this thread to discuss these things, or any other topic as it relates to sports as long as it's not about males competing against females as we already have a thread for that.