Dangerous Intersections at Sochi — An Olympian Speaks Out

I sit to write this commentary on the eve of Valentine’s Day. Each year, this day of LOVE comes around on February 14th, and this year it happens to fall during the Winter Olympics. How very appropriate. As a youngster I had a love, and that love was ski racing. By the time I was fourteen, I made Olympic history as the youngest alpine ski racer to ever compete and the first Black female alpine ski racer. My heart was filled with the love of my sport.Before the sport of ski racing entered my heart I had a first love, and that was the pure admiration and respect I felt for animals.  Since birth, I was raised as an ethical vegan. I have never worn nor eaten an animal nor used his or her so-called “by products.”  As soon as I was able to comprehend, I was taught that animals have the desire and the right to live happy, healthy lives just as we humans would like to do. There was never a time in my young life that I didn’t look at animals as thinking, feeling, and loving beings. A little later, in my early teenage years, I would find that oftentimes animals were much more loving than many of the humans I encountered.

Without going into great detail about my own experiences, I’d rather like to speak about those who suffer great deprivation when it comes to the matters of respect and compassion.  Just today I was asked if I was watching the Olympics currently taking place in Sochi.  My immediate response to anything Olympic-related is  all about the controversies surrounding this year’s Games. Those controversies include both abuses of animals and discrimination against LGBT people.

How on earth is it OK to shoot poisonous darts at homeless dogs and cats, otherwise known as “Sochi strays”? This Olympic host country was awarded the Winter Games back in 2007; certainly, a spay-and-neuter program could have been put in place well in advance. This would have prevented the cull of strays and the cruel slow deaths of many adorable canines with hearts as loving as the Olympians who have vowed to rescue and save a life or two. May the international attention to the dogs of Sochi force the International Olympic Committee to implement humane treatment of all future host country’s non-human population. While they’re at it, may the IOC challenge Japan to cease their annual dolphin hunt in Taiji for good, well before the 2020 Olympic Games are to be held in that host country.