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Jess14

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Everything posted by Jess14

  1. Yeah, the whole “don’t tell your teammates that an executive was spying on you in the locker room” is the most telling, IMO. A settlement that large is pretty much always going to have a confidentiality agreement unless it’s illegal for some reason, but they were trying to sweep it under the rug from the very start. I’m really curious to know how this came to light.
  2. I would be ok with any of those options. They need to do something. I agree, but I think this is the case no matter where the cutoff is. What’s the difference between a girl who turns 16 on December 31 in the Olympic year and one who turns 16 one day later on Jan 1 - basically nothing, but one is eligible for the Olympics and the other isn’t. Look at Nastia Liukin. She could’ve made the 2004 team, but had to wait four years, which included a bad ankle injury and a growth spurt only to lose Olympic gold to an underaged He Kexin… And one can argue that He Kexin would’ve been screwed had she not competed because she actually was the best bar worker in the world in 2008. No matter what the cutoff is, there is someone who loses out.
  3. It seems like fixing the scoring system is a likelier way to fix the issue of fifteen and sixteen year olds dominating than changing the age limit. You’re still going to have abuse, but I don’t think age limits have much to do with that anyway. In sports like track and field, swimming, basketball, etc, athletes seem to hit their peaks when they’re in their 20s. Sure you have some young phenoms, but it’s not as common. Gymnastics and figure skating seem like the 2 sports where very young girls have dominated, but the code of points in gymnastics seems to have fixed that in some capacity….it’s difficult for the tiny girls who have little muscle mass or haven’t gone through puberty to throw the kind of difficulty needed on vault and floor on a consistent basis. It’s why China hasn’t been a real contender lately…they just don’t have the difficulty on either event. I think it’s harder for skating to fix the issue since skating doesn’t have multiple events to offset others. If you put more emphasis on the artistic side and away from quads, you just get even more subjectivity and favoritism for certain countries…. I don’t think anyone is saying Kamila should be banned for taking legal drugs. I just think it casts even more doubt on the silliness of her claim that the drug got into her system due to contamination from grandpa. She was taking a cocktail of similar drugs, so the odds of just this one getting into her bloodstream by accident is highly unlikely. And by accident, I mean the type that could result in an athlete not being punished at all. The team coach or doctor accidentally giving her a banned substance or giving it to her in a high enough dosage to where it was detectable at the time of the test (what I think is most likely) is not that type of an accident. That’s just doping.
  4. They probably assumed there were adults in the room and didn’t see him as creepy. The Nassar scandal was such a perfect storm of everything that is wrong in elite sports. I think parents assumed that there was adequate supervision at the ranch and definitely in the examination rooms, and from what I remember, he abused some girls when their parents were in the room! Everyone (parents, individual coaches, gymnasts) were scared of making waves because they didn’t want them or their kids to get blackballed by Marta. Then, you add in the fact that gymnasts have said that Nassar (classic predator) was one of the only adults who was nice to them. So, the gymnasts didnt want to think anything was wrong with the one person at the ranch who was slipping them snacks and treating them (from their perspectives) as people instead of robots….and boom, you get hundreds of girls abused. On the Valieva matter, I do think any decent parent who has a kid that trains with Eteri has to be wondering what the hell their kid is ingesting at this point. Beforehand, maybe they just assumed “the coach knows best,” but at this point, it would be crazy not to at least inquire about their meds and “vitamins.”
  5. Yeah, I have no idea if she is still taking all of these drugs, but plenty of people who are doping have passed drug tests before getting caught. That’s part of the issue - the cheaters are always ahead of the tests.
  6. It seems like Trusova is a favorite among many skating fans, but I honestly don’t see the appeal, especially not in the free skate. It’s just jump, jump, jump….
  7. I doubt they will raise the age higher than 16, but as seen with China in 2008, if the country is sponsoring the cheating, then it’s not that hard to simply change the birth year on the official documentation. You just have to do it early enough to not raise suspicion and be consistent. The only reason the 2000 Chinese team got caught was because the gymnast went back to using her real birthdate years later in official documentation. If Russia is willing to engage in doping 15 year olds, then changing a birthdate seems pretty minor in comparison. I do think that they need to raise the age to address this “protected person” issue. As it to stands now, it just seems like an invitation pump drugs into teenagers and then feign innocence.
  8. I’ve always been more of a gymnastics fan than a skating fan, but while I’ve soured some on both sports (Yuna Kim losing gold in 2014 disgusted me, and gymnastics has just lost all artistry), I still feel that gymnastics results are usually correct in the end, and I find the scoring system to be much easier to follow. With skating, I feel like it’s ridiculously complicated, and often times, it seems like the results are pre-decided. Given the comments that I’m seeing about the short program results, combined with the Russian cheating, this Olympics may be when I give up on figure skating all together.
  9. If anyone follows Fredrik Eklund (Million Dollar Listing), Kelsey Bond is included in one of his IG stories. She was apparently one of the top producing real estate agents on his team in November 2021. Good for her!
  10. Right. It seems like a lot of Russian fans are trying hard to compare this to the Andrea Raducan situation from 2000, where Raducan was stripped of her All-Around gold, but got to keep her other medals from the Olympics. Therefore, they’re claiming that Valieva, who id also young, should still get to compete bc her Beijing samples have been clean. However, outside of the young ages of the athletes, the situations aren’t that similar. There is a legitimate reason why a 16 year old would take a Sudafed (a cold), and the team doctor admitted giving it to her. Also, my understanding is that the substance that Raducan tested positive for is banned on the day of competition, not at all times. Raducan had not taken it on the day of the other competitions. Here, there is no legitimate reason (outside of doping) for a healthy 15 year old girl to be taking that drug, and it is banned in and out competition, so it doesn’t matter if Valieva stopped using it once she got to the Olympics. It’s not the same situation. I’m curious if there is any previous example of an athlete testing positive for a substance banned at all times and only being suspended for a day… It’s rather absurd.
  11. She wasn’t there in person, but I thought I read that she testified by video for the hearing.
  12. I take it that they’re saying that the irreparable harm would be that she could have some legitimate excuse (contamination, etc) for the positive test and not allowing her to compete would strip her of the opportunity to make that case and win the gold forever. Whereas if she competes, but they later disqualify her, the medals can be re-apportioned to the right competitors. The problem is, as you mentioned, this does irreparable harm to the sport and the other skaters. The vast majority of people won’t be following this story in 6 weeks. All they will know is that the sport basically said there are no real consequences for doping minors and that Russian cheating goes unpunished. Who wants to follow a sport or enroll their kids in it when we know that a skater competing in the top competition tested positive for a banned substance less than 2 months ago? And it’s banned in and out of competition, so the excuse that her tests in Beijing have been clean is irrelevant.. I’m just disgusted with this ruling.
  13. I watched the Atlanta/rural GA episode this morning, and my goodness, the wife was one of the most annoying people ever on this show. She was insufferable. There’s no way in hell I would have agreed to that commute if I was the husband. Anyone who thinks it’s no big deal for their spouse to be in the car for 4 hours (for no reason) seems like a pretty shitty person. I don’t even care that it’s only a couple of days a week. That’s terrible. It’s not even like they were out in the country to save money, given that they spent $700k+. I also didn’t fully understand their options. There are several cities and towns between Clarkesville and Atlanta (Duluth, Lawrenceville, Suwannee, Buford, etc) where they could’ve gotten a big house for their budget and at least cut his commute down some. It seemed strange that they weren’t looking in any of those places, but perhaps the wife shot that down. She didn’t seem to be into compromises.
  14. I would be ok with any of the remaining girls winning. I like all of them, and I think they all are pretty good bakers. I would’ve said Ellora was definitely the best baker before this week, but I can’t stand tart desserts (I’ve always hated sour candy as well) and her layers were tiny, so I thought she was rightfully bottom 2 this week. Lucia was the obvious person to go with all of that vanilla and her previous struggles, but I would have given the win to Summer. If I had to pick, I think I like Nadya the best. She has such a bright personality.
  15. Yes. I have no doubt that they will have guests from time to time. I completely understand not wanting a one bedroom for instance, so that guests have somewhere to stay. It’s just that it seems unlikely that they would have guests so often that a second bedroom couldn’t function as a workspace and guest bedroom.
  16. I also didn't understand why the Milton Keynes couple needed 3 bedrooms... I mean, if it was in budget, fine, but it wasn't, and how often does she actually think they are going to have guests in Europe? She was perfectly willing to get a job to help out with expenses though, so she didn't bother me as much as some others who seem to want to go way over budget with no real way of paying for it.
  17. It’s kind of appalling that a $400k budget only gets you those rundown crappy houses in LA….the buyer was quite likeable though. She is a true “look on the bright side” type of person, and that was refreshing to see. I hope the purple house works out for her. It looked very sketchy to me. I thought the Durham couple picked the right house. Blowing out the wall and creating a large master bath and closet in the 3rd house was not going to be cheap, and I assume that the post was in the middle of the living room because that wall is load bearing, so fixing that wasn’t going to be cheap either. Also, that bathroom was just bizarre. I’ve never seen an American home have a bathroom like that.
  18. Yes. Not only are these procedures completely unnecessary but it ages them (that and the weight loss). I actually had just seen this story on IG. She looks like a different person from when she was a rookie.
  19. Yeah. I always thought it was an odd move. It was known when they got married that Fredrik’s career was in New York. Also, Fredrik’s brother had just moved to NY to be near them. I can understand Derek’s disdain for cold weather (I hate cold weather too), but they’re rich. It seems like it would’ve made more sense for them to stay in NYC and Derek be the one to fly to warmer climates every now and then, especially since it doesn’t seem like he has a demanding job. Instead, Fredrik is flying back and forth across the country and living in LA, where he doesn’t fit in at all…. I really wonder if he regrets the move. It’s definitely when he went downhill on MDL for me. He was always awful on the LA show, but even the last NY season was all about him living in LA and not being at his listings enough…blah, blah, blah. It got old quick!
  20. I wish I could say the network wised up and stepped in, but it kind of seemed like they thought people liked the drama. A couple of years ago, it felt like the agents (including Fredrik) were mostly getting along on both editions, and the shows were SO much better. I don’t know who thought Fredrik’s drama on both editions, back to back, was good tv. It wouldn’t shock me if his business partner stepped in. I can’t see how Fredrik staying on much longer was a good look professionally, and they certainly don’t need the exposure.
  21. I definitely don’t think LA needs any new agents. The show had a good balance without Fredrik. I think New York is a slightly different story. They probably don’t need another agent to produce the show, but I think it’s more likely that NY will add someone.
  22. Interesting. I didn’t mind him on the NY show as much as the LA show, but on both shows, he was becoming a caricature. Regardless, I do wonder if they’ll just let Ryan be the top dog or try and get in a new top broker to compete with him. I always saw NY as Fredrik/Ryan with Steve being a few rungs down and then KJ/Tyler being a few rungs down from Steve.
  23. Yes! If anything, her old uniform may be a bit loose now. She is tiny! Hannah is another one who struggled with weight on the team, but seems to be much smaller now.
  24. My thoughts exactly! If you showed me those 2 pictures side by side and didn’t specify that they were pictures of the same woman, I would swear that there were 2 different women. Don’t get me wrong, she looks good either way, but damn! For all the work that Lacey has had done, I’ve never thought that she looked like a totally different person.
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