Sport, friendship and the Olympics - reflections on McLaren report implications for Russian gymnastics
BREAKING - President Putin on the McLaren report - http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/52537 What is happening today, is perhaps the end of an era. The end of an era when sport was truly playful, and international. Will we ever see our athletes in the same way again? The findings of the McLaren report are devastating to me. They made me think about the value and meaning of the Olympics. People have written whole books and volumes of books about the history of the Olympics. I am not going to try to unravel all the different strands of the history of the Olympic movement from the Ancient Greeks to the present day. I'll just reflect here on the current values of Olympism; you can see below an extract from the new Olympic Charter , which was published in 2015. I certainly am inspired by the values of Olympism; I have followed the Olympics all my life. But unfortunately it seems that they have been under attack, not just in Russia b...