There are some very unequivocal expressions coming out of Russia right now - from both gymnasts and coaches - to the effect that no athlete can agree to the criteria for neutral participation in world competition.
Read these in the context of intense pressure on freedom of speech in Russia. Say the wrong thing and one can end up with a prison sentence, or worse.
The language Andrei Rodionenko uses here (see below) is uncharacteristically strong - he describes the IOC and FIG criteria as ‘offensive’. I have toned the translation down a bit to ‘injurious’, but it’s still strong for a normally very diplomatic leader, who spent more than a decade living and working in Australia and Canada, and has experienced life in totalitarianism (Soviet Russia), and now the unpredictability of 21st century Russia.
Mustafina trod a fine line yesterday by supporting the gymnasts’ needs to top class competition. What we are reading now - perhaps from Dalaloyan, perhaps from Rodionenko - sounds more like a Govt led campaign to alienate Russia from world sport on anything but their own terms.
From now on consider that the words you read or hear may not be the speaker’s own.
‘None of the gymnasts will agree with the injurious admission criteria recommended by the IOC" - Andrey Rodionenko
The head coach of the Russian artistic gymnastics team, Andrei Rodionenko, told Match TV that none of the Russian gymnasts and members of the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation (FSGR) will agree to take part in international competitions if the recommendations for admission from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) are not revised.
IOC recommendations include individual admission, neutral status, a ban on participation in team sports, and a ban on the participation of athletes associated with security forces or who have expressed support for the CBO (‘special military operation’). In July, the executive committee of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) decided to allow Russian athletes to compete under the auspices of the organization in a neutral status from January 1, 2024.
— Are the criteria for admitting Russian gymnasts to international competitions known?
- Do you believe that they will change? This is not a fair game and it affects our relationship with them. We will not bow our heads, we are strong, independent, and will defend our principles. The question is that with the injurious criteria recommended by the IOC at the end of March, we will not have the opportunity to compete. None of the FSGR and Russian gymnasts will agree to these criteria. I don't think anything will change. We were initially denied the team championship, and in artistic gymnastics this is half of all competitions, this is where it all starts,” Rodionenko told Match TV.’
Comments made in response to Rodionenko’s words on social media also show that a hard line response to this is exactly what the Russian public want to hear. This is an effective ploy to increase support for the war amongst the general population.
The IOC are waiting for the conflict to end so they can save face. Russian tennis players are not banned, except from Wimbledon (and they were, rightfully, punished for it). Guess what, nobody cares. There are no riots, the sky didn't fall in. Other federations allow them to compete. There are no issues. The IOC over-stepped the mark and they know it. But look at who funds them....
ReplyDeleteWho does fund the IOC? I see broadcast rights, commercial sponsors, contributions from national committees but nothing that explains the IOC ban as a decision strongly biased by a single funder.
ReplyDeleteThe IOC and the sports federations have mismanaged neutral participation because they haven’t considered the way different sports are structured. It’s relatively easy for a tennis player who is resident outside of Russia and is coached on a private basis to declare their neutrality and condemn the War. Sports like gymnastics do not offer such conditions for the athletes so neutrality is not an option.
I agree that the IOC and sports federations are trying to ride the tide. Their current position won’t allow Russian gymnasts to compete at all. They don’t want to take the blame for this, so are just letting athletes’ hopes wither on the vine.
A third of IOC funding is from their TOP program which is heavily funded by large American, Korean and Japanese corporations. Take Intel for example, they supply not just financial assistance but also provide much of the software and hardware. Samsung likewise. So if those companies put pressure on the IOC well, you can imagine the outcome there. There is probably no evidence of this, of course, but these closed-door meetings are exactly that. Closed. They are hardly likely to televise such actions.
DeleteHistorically, the IOC did not act against Pol Pot, the Mugabe regime, many other blood-drenched regimes. They remain aloof from such things and rightly so. However, interference does happen. South Africa were banned at British insistence (irony) due to their Apartheid regime's treatment of indigenous Africans. Afghanistan's Taliban regime were banned from the 2000 games (in Australia) but the countries who destroyed it a few years later (including Australia) were not. And in perhaps the supreme case of irony, at Russia's insistence India were banned from Sochi for corruption. Let that one sink in...
Political interference happens. The IOC do not and cannot operate in a bubble. The conflict in Ukraine brought a tremendous amount of political pressure upon them to act in this instance. And no doubt that pressure came in many forms and mostly behind those closed doors. So, was funding threatened? I have no idea but I wouldn't be at all surprised given the nations that we're talking about here.
Then, there is the McLaren report and the doping saga. The IOC made its decision largely based on this and the Russian responses to it. Yet so many of the penalties imposed resulting from that report have been overturned or reduced by the Courts of Arbitration for Sport, including medals reinstated, that the entire document needs to called into question. Some of those cases are still before the Court now and many never made it that far due to lack of plaintiff evidence meaning those athletes could not have their penalties even looked at. I won't go into the politics here except to say that McLaren is (no surprise here) from a 5-eyes country. In my opinion, an independent review of that report from an impartial source is needed. I have no doubt much of it is still valid but should we be banning a country using a questionable report? Probably not.
This ban makes little sense. A blanket ban involving all athletes of all ages is just spiteful. Collective punishment is evil. We punish only those proven guilty and we punish them all, equally. And to claim that Russia uses sport as "soft power", then to instate sanctions upon their athletes to exert political power? I mean, how arrogant and hypocritical are we?
Would you like to write a post for this blog on the IOC ban and the influence of its funding on the decision? Please email me at elizabethbooth136@btinternet.com
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