Pravda – a Pseudo-Russian’s Inane Rant about Vancouver 2010.

Wow – sportsmanship is apparently a totally foreign concept to the journalistic staff at Pravda.  Or perhaps it’s just the fawning attempt of a pseudo-Russian to curry favour in his adopted country.  In an article Feb 19th, the paranoid ravings of one Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY (a good Russian name, that, we’ll come back to this…) appeared, accusing Canada of all sorts of wrong-doing in both the Olympic and in foreign policy.  Apparently we’re the “skinny and weakling bro to a beefy United States and a colonial outpost to the United Kingdom” and  that we’re utterly incapable of hosting a major international event.  He suggests proof: “Natalya Korosteleva was asked to provide a urine sample during a half-hour pause between the quarter-finals and semi-finals of a skiing event.”  Now that could be considered suspicious, if one were to totally discount the following statement by a Vice-President of the International Ski Federation: “There are some rules which I'm not going to discuss right now. In this case, Korosteleva was not right. She could have been banned from the race."  This VP, btw, also happens to be the President of the Russian Olympic Committee, Leonid Tyagachev. 

Hmm…the Russian President of the Russian Olympic Committee agrees that the skier was in the wrong, yet our Pseudo-Russian journalist cries foul.  Lets look at Mr. Bancroft-Hinchey for a moment...very little time spent searching turned up his Bio:

“I incidentally became involved with the world of music and even became one of the leading English song-writers of the 1980s. I took part in three Eurovision contests, released three albums, two maxi-singles and five singles. That was the time when I started establishing contacts with the press. "I had to give a lot of interviews for television and newspapers. I noticed that facts were reinterpreted on numerous occasions, almost always, in order to make an article correspond to ideas of a reporter. One fine day I realized that there was only one way to strive for the truth: to write a true story and to send it to mass media outlets. That's what I did."

I showed my first articles to a friend, a reporter, who expressed his interest in them and asked my why I did not take up journalism seriously. After that, I finished journalism courses, and worked as a freelance journalist at Portuguese, Spanish, Latin American, English and Romanian media outlets. However, journalism was not my only occupation. "I believe that there is nothing more boring for a journalist than to sit at table, working on the so-called news, which has already been picked out from the Internet by someone, retelling someone else's stories. In addition to that, it is proof of the absence of professionalism, it is not worth it, in the long run. I like to visit new places, to collect new material for my own articles."”

Ah, a silver-spoon communist ex-pat British subject, with next to no journalism background, no sporting background, no political background…nothing, in fact, more then a forum in which to spew misinformation.

 

But wait, there’s more.  In his Feb 28th “Goodbye, Vancouver” piece, this drooling paranoid questions whether the Canadian Men’s Hockey team were on drugs when they beat the Russian team.  Obviously, he says, that since they beat the Canadians 8 – 1 in the 80s  (His information, not mine, I’ve not researched it) and been “close” every year since then, well, we must have been drugged up this year.

I’d like to take a moment to rebut.  Perhaps *this* year…the Russian team *wasn’t* doped.  For a change.  See, ever since we trashed them 5 games to 4 in the Summit Series, in 1972, they’ve only ever been “close.”

Or here’s another thought.  We might just be better at the game.  See … if *our* athletes were doped, well, how does that explain the Russian team losing to Slovakia?  I guess they must have been doped up, too.

He points out, correctly, that there hasn’t been one single doping incident with a Russian athlete in Vancouver, but fails to point out that a number were disqualified for the games before they even booked their flights.  Oh well, perspective is everything.

Sochi will be better, he prognosticates while channeling the spirit of Nostradamus.  The host country will welcome everyone as friends,the judges will be fair, drug testing will be at the conveniece of everyone involved.

And Canada will show the world, once again, that Hockey is *OUR* game.  Other countries can dabble, but we own it.  Bring it on.