Russian Olympic Committee suspended

 The IOC has suspended the Russian Olympic Committee (see notice attached) for its unilateral decision to include as its members the annexed regions of Ukraine which Russia is occupying.  

The IOC says that individual athletes can still compete on a neutral basis providing they can show that they haven’t supported the war.  The FIG has still to publish its detailed criteria by which gymnasts can qualify as neutral.  But it seems highly unlikely that any Russian gymnast will even apply to do so.  Most of them have links through their clubs to organisations with military connections (Dynamo, CSKA, for example).  Some of them have publicly supported the war.  Russia’s growing restrictions on freedom of speech make it difficult for anyone to declare themselves neutral without risking prosecution.   

I’ve already said that I don’t think it is right to target for criticism individual athletes and coaches whose actions are guided by political forces we can’t see and do not understand.  However, on a national level the ROC’s action appears to be a final and aggressive manoeuvre to see their country’s military violence echoed in its sporting structure.  It’s unnecessary and actively alienates Russia from world sport.   The ROC must have known there would be action from the IOC.

It’s unkind, too.  For example, I very much doubt that Oleg Vernaiev, from the Donetsk region, will want to compete for Russia under the ROC flag.  Oleg had to move to Kiev years ago because his home gym in Donetsk was razed to the ground by Russian bombs.  Igor Radivilov lost his grandparents in the Russian siege of Mariupol.  There have been many sad deaths, losses and acres of destruction directly affecting gymnastics in Ukraine and most of the athletes cannot even train at home any longer; so to suggest, as the ROC’s actions do, that Russia should harvest gymnasts from the affected regions of Ukraine for their national team is deeply upsetting.  

Most of the gymnasts quietly continue with their training.  Some, like Nagorny and Dalaloyan, seem less motivated (unsurprisingly).  Nagorny’s connection with the Youth Army leaves a bad taste in the mouth.  He has been sanctioned for parading in Red Square on Veterans’ Day by the Canadian govt.  

I am reluctant to criticise any individual until proper investigations have been made; even Putin will have to face The Hague, and the Nazis had the Nuremberg Trials.  

I had hoped that Melnikova might apply for neutral status but that seems unlikely now.  She works hard, gets her training done, but is at the same time moving towards a life outside of gymnastics.  She has just secured a role acting in a film.  

National coach Valentina Rodionenko has had a rant about the quality of the gymnastics at this year’s Worlds, and the emphasis on Difficulty that has saturated the sport with poorly performed elements.  She remains refreshingly outspoken and to an extent I agree with her; gymnastics is less aesthetically pleasing for its adoption of complexity at the expense of virtuosity.

Also (and this is me speaking) athletes are paying a higher price for the sanctions than most other affected Russians; oligarchs and political leaders barely feel the financial and lifestyle effects of the sanctions while gymnasts, for example, have lost their purpose in life and part of their livelihoods.  

Russia surely is wrong in its military actions, but the gymnasts are paying a certain price that seems hard relative to its leaders.  

It is also true that Russia is as yet the only country to be excluded in sport since South Africa was boycotted for apartheid.  With this most recent action by the ROC, the ground has shifted from action by the IOC to a tit-for-tat, further blurring the boundary between sport and politics.