Russia's doping program is run by the same FSB team that poisoned Navalny (opens in new tab)

Navalnyj had very low popularity at home. He was mostly a made up hero for the western audience.

Ordinary russians not only gave no-f-f about Navalnyj but considered him a traitor or a trojan horse.

If this quote is genuine, as opposed to wistful, it suggests Navalny's evaluation of Russia was that Putin couldn't, in fact, do whatever he wanted there. As best I can tell, such an evaluation would have been pretty damn close to completely inaccurate.

The choice to return to Russia as a catastrophically-failed gamble based on that premise is what makes the most sense to me.

Imagine if all countries would put their energy into building peace and prosperity. That would make a difference.

Imagine if all Americans put their energy into making world a better place, instead of killing their neighbours, raping, stealing and corrupting. Sad.

That's what the Olympics is. The men's 100m final pits against each other the fastest 8 men who are in their physical prime, full of fast twitch muscles, with West African descent. With some minor noise.

If you want to watch people from other genotype buckets run 10-50% slower, you can watch the women's event or the Paralympics or, like, the All-Vietnam U-16 event. It seems churlish to complain that not every bucket is on TV at a convenient time for you.

> The Olympics is just watching the people who won genetic lotteries.

So? The olympic games should be the pinnacle of human performance (fed by their nation's interests). Of course it is lotteries all the way from the genetics, to what country you're born in, right to the national lottery putting money in to sports.

Your alternatives are either a proliferation of categories or random people assembling every four years to roll dice to determine the winner. Neither is exciting.

Genetics are necessary to a point, and are not at all sufficient.

Any follower of a sport knows of athletes with incredible genetic blessings who accomplish little or nothing because they lack the hard work, discipline, focus, skill, emotional management, teamwork, etc. to succeed. And that sample omits far more athletes whose non-genetic limitations caused them to drop out or fail out before making it to the level where public is aware of them.

At the same time, the GOATs (greatest of all time) in many sports were not particularly blessed genetically, relative to other top atheletes:

* Football / soccer: Lionel Messi: 5'7", ~160 lbs., and had growth hormone deficiency [0], and is small, and not particularly fast or strong. "Messi’s “software” is what often gives him a head-start on those who physically should have the better of him." If you're interested, this article describes it in some detail: [1]

* American football: Tom Brady was notoriously unathletic, setting records for poor performance in the NFL's scouting 'combine' where draft prospects are compared in standardized tests. Also didn't have a strong throwing arm.

* Basketball is an exception: Michael Jordan was supremely athletic.

* Baseball: Babe Ruth was overweight, not known to be particularly fast or athletic, and played a position for relatively poor athletes who could hit: right field (gets the fewest plays, usually doesn't require more than running to a spot and throwing).

* Hockey: Wayne Gretzky was relatively small, not very fast, didn't have a hard shot.

* Tennis? Boxing? Cricket? Rugby?

These people are far more athletic than ordinary people, of course; I'm comparing them to other professionals in their sports.

[0] Wikipedia

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/4008225/2022/12/16/lionel-m...

Hard pass.