t in recent years. But for far too long, the anti-doping infrastructure did not receive sufficient media scrutiny. It is, and was, subject to the same corrosive forces of conflict of interest and geopo

Football fans were reminded that anything is possible in 2016 - a year when Adelaide United and Leicester City won their first top-level titles, Tim Cahill came home and Melbourne City put together the best womens side in Australian history.REDS RISEOn Christmas Day 2015, Adelaide United sat in second-last position and the clubs board pondered whether to give their coach - Barcelona legend Guillermo Amor - his marching orders. What followed was the greatest recovery in A-League history. Amor turned his young and unloved squad into A-League champions, losing just once in 20 games on the way to the grand final. In front of 50,119 at Adelaide Oval, United were title-winners for the first time with a 3-1 defeat of Western Sydney.CAHILLS CITY CLIMBMelbourne City achieved what no Australian club had been able to do in two decades by bringing Tim Cahill home. The mega-rich A-League expansion side hoped the talismanic Socceroo might change their on-field fortunes and he has. Cahills Melbourne derby golazo announced his arrival and a trademark header brought the club its first trophy - the FFA Cup.SOCCEROO STRUGGLEAfter cruising through their preliminary group on the road to Russia, Ange Postecoglous Socceroos made short work of their first two qualifying assignments - at home to Iraq and away to the United Arab Emirates. Tom Rogic, Aaron Mooy and Tomi Juric had come of age and a 2018 World Cup place looked assured.Then the momentum stalled.Draws in Saudi Arabia, at home to Japan and away to Thailand have Australia sitting outside the direct qualification places and at risk of missing a first World Cup in 16 years. The highest-stakes challenge of his coaching career awaits Postecoglou in 2017, including a Confederations Cup group with Germany, Chile and the African champions. No pressure then.The news was considerably worse at youth level; the under-19s and under-16s both failed miserably in Asian championship campaigns, giving Football Federation Australia plenty to think about.MATILDAS PIPPEDThe Matildas took centre stage at the Rio Olympics when drawn against host nation Brazil in the quarter-finals. After 120 minutes, neither side had broken the stalemate and the dreaded penalty shootout brought heartbreak for Alen Stajcics side, beaten 7-6 in front of 52,660 screaming locals. Later in the year, winger Caitlin Foord was recognised as the best player in Asia.CITY DOMINATE W-LEAGUEMelbourne City certainly made a splash. In their first season, Joe Montemurros all-stars ripped through the season with 12 straight wins, overcame nerves in a semi-final penalty shootout and lifted the trophy with a 4-1 grand final demolition of Sydney FC.LEGENDARY LEICESTER CITY2016 had plenty of underdog stories; Cleveland Cavaliers. Chicago Cubs. Cronulla. Western Bulldogs.But for sheer improbability, look no further than Leicester City. Given 5000-1 odds of winning the title before the season and out-spent by English Premier League heavyweights from Manchester, London and everywhere in between, City did the unthinkable by claiming a first top-level title in their 132-year history and celebrating with an Andrea Bocelli concert before their last match.Australian Mark Schwarzer had the best seat in the house for the incredible ride, watching on from the bench as Citys reserve goalkeeper.Nike Air Max Plus Clearance . Coach Mike Munchak says Fokou stretched ligaments in his left knee Oct. 13 against Seattle, which could keep out up to five weeks even though the linebacker didnt need surgery. Nike Air Max Plus Sale . -- An ugly goal by Nick Bonino helped the Anaheim Ducks overcome the defensive-minded Phoenix Coyotes on a night when their ragged power play continued to struggle. http://www.airmax720wholesale.com/air-max-270-wholesale/air-max-270-flyknit.html . Patrice Bergeron and Daniel Paille scored 20 seconds apart a few minutes after Stamkos was taken off the ice on a stretcher with a broken right leg, and the Bruins beat the Lightning 3-0 on Monday afternoon. Nike Air Max Plus Discount . The recently retired Stern was elected Friday to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and will be enshrined with the class of 2014 on Aug. Air Max 270 Clearance . Lack made 20 saves for his third shutout of the season as the Canucks blanked the St. Louis Blues 1-0 in the first post-Olympic game for both teams night.With Mondays release of the McLaren report (aka Sochi report) commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency, here are some frequently asked questions and quick takes on an unprecedented situation:Q: What is the McLaren report?A: An investigation ordered by the World Anti-Doping Agency in May, and led by Canadian law professor Richard McLaren, after WADA was backed into a corner following revelations by former Moscow lab director Grigory Rodchenkov in a May 2016 New York Times report.Q: What were the major findings of the McLaren report?A: To the shock and surprise of no one who has been paying attention over the past 18 months, the same government-supported Russian sports bureaucracy shown to have systematically undermined anti-doping efforts in track and field was shown to have done the same across multiple sports, summer and winter.Q: Isnt this a little late in the game?With all due respect to the investigators, who appear to have done a massive amount of work in a very compressed time frame, anyone interested in any semblance of fair play should be livid that this avalanche of information has emerged only 18 days before the start of the Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro. It creates enormous potential legal and political complications with little time to resolve them. WADA should have acted to expand the investigation right after Part I of the independent commission report was released in November -- something its own athlete committee urged.Q: What are some highlights in the findings of the McLaren report?A: The WADA-accredited Moscow lab, in McLarens words, operated for the protection of doped Russian athletes within a state-directed failsafe system using the disappearing positive [test] methodology. Positive samples from protected (i.e., medal-contender-quality) Russian athletes were screened and deleted from the records. The aptly named Center for Sports Preparation collected and stored clean urine to be swapped for dirty samples at the Sochi Olympics lab. Supposedly tamper-proof sample bottles were, in fact, messed with. Secret police (whose office in Sochi was steps away from the IOCs and WADAs) actively participated in the scam. The conspiracy was orchestrated by the Ministry of Sport and affected more than two dozen summer and winter Olympic sports. After the WADA independent commission investigation began, a pre-announced visit by investigators resulted in some 8,000 samples stored at the Moscow lab being destroyed. (Click here to read the full McLaren report.)Q: Hadnt we heard this before?A: Yes, just not in so much detail. WADA released a two-part independent commission report in November 2015 and January 2016, a probe commissioned after it was backed into a corner following revelations in an investigative documentary by the German television network ARD. The documentary included substantial evidence of organized doping, cover-ups and bribery within the Russian track and field federation, much of it gathered by Russian whistleblowers Yuliya and Vitaly Stepanov. The report mentioned that Rodchenkov had destroyed 1,400 samples of athletes from multiple sports and secret police were present in the Sochi lab. Because track and field is not a winter sport, the logical deduction was that the same corruption had permeated beyond that federation.Q: What does all this mean?A: Were about to find out whether the International Olympic Committee has the spine to eject a wealthy superpower from its festival tent -- a country that deliberately subverted anti-doping efforts for years, made a farce of the 2014 Winter Games and cheated some unknown number of clean athletes out of economic and psychological payoffs.Q: What will happen next?A: The IOC has called a teleconference for Tuesday to discuss possible sanctions. In recent months, through its actions and the statements of president Thomas Bach, the IOC showed a reluctance to issue wholesale bans, citing the rights of individual Russian athletes said to be clean, while failing to address the individual rights of other clean athletes denied fair results for years because of the Russian system. The IOC also could toss tthe eligibility question back into the laps of individual international sports federations (i.dddddddddddde., FINA for swimming, FIFA for soccer, etc.) which have neither the time nor the investigative capability to determine one by one which nations or athletes should be permitted to compete in Rio 18 days from now.Q: What is the reaction so far?A: WADA has called for Russia to be barred from participating in the Rio Games. A leaked letter prepared by U.S. and Canadian anti-doping officials indicated those entities would jointly ask for the same. Members of the WADA athlete committee and IOC athletes commission are expected to issue their statement opposing Russian participation in Rio shortly. WADA athlete commission chair Beckie Scott, who called for an expanded investigation of Russian sport in November, reached out to other athlete and anti-doping groups to solicit support for a ban. Scott has specific moral authority on the subject, having been fleeced out of an Olympic gold medal by two doped Russian cross-country skiers 14 years ago.Q: Isnt the Russian track and field federation already suspended?A: Yes, but individual athlete eligibility became the focus of a tug-of-war between the IAAF, tracks world governing body, and the IOC. The IAAF wanted to grant only limited exceptions to the ban, for Russian athletes who had lived and/or been extensively tested outside the system, and to have those few athletes compete under a neutral flag. The IOC countered by saying it has sole authority over flags, which is vastly comforting to everyone watching the credibility of global sports governance and anti-doping systems collapse. The Court of Arbitration for Sport is expected to announce its rulings on Russian appeals this week. Its uncertain what would happen if CAS rules in favor of some individual athletes and the IOC (or individual international federations) ban Russia from Rio. Confused? So is everyone. This is uncharted territory being traversed unnecessarily late.Q: Hasnt Russia started some reform efforts?A: The country has indicated that is the case, but the McLaren report strongly implicated officials who continue to occupy key positions in the sports-government complex. In addition, anti-doping personnel from the United Kingdom assigned to carry out additional testing this year encountered substantial obstruction and obfuscation. Reforming a system and culture that took years to create and implement within a matter of months is a ludicrous proposition. Its also a slap in the face to athletes around the world who have competed cleanly or were punished for minor, inadvertent infractions.Q: Is Russia the only villain?A: No, its just the most apparent, front and center. Global anti-doping needs an overhaul and a critical, objective review of purpose via the efficacy of testing, intelligence and handling of whistleblowers. Theres a lot of blame to go around, including WADA, the IOC, numerous international federations, national Olympic committees and other alphabet soup associations where ignorance -- willful or not -- often trumped commonsense analysis. Journalists need to look in the mirror, as well. Investigative reporting played the most important role in bringing corruption to light in recent years. But for far too long, the anti-doping infrastructure did not receive sufficient media scrutiny. It is, and was, subject to the same corrosive forces of conflict of interest and geopolitics as the rest of the industry of international sport.Q: How could this affect the Rio Games overall?A: The actual sporting competition is perhaps the only aspect of the Rio Games anyone is looking forward to amid the myriad social, economic, infrastructure, security, environmental, ethical and public health issues threatening these Games. If Russia is allowed to compete, controversy rather than accomplishment will dominate any event involving a Russian athlete. Olympic officials would get the Games they deserve -- one that is compromised in every way. ' ' '