Gymnastics has lost some of its appeal over the past few years, whilst Russian athletes have been out of competition. This might be an unpopular opinion, but it reflects the reality of international gymnastics without around a quarter of its leading protagonists. The international competitive field has not raised its performance in the absence of Russia's leadership; gymnasts from the top ten or fifteen have floated upwards in the ranks to fill gaps in the medal placements, and we see mediocre performances gaining gold, silver and bronze medals. Gymnastics has lost some of its imagination and vision without Russian athletes.
This doesn't detract from the efforts of the world's best gymnasts. Gymnastics quite simply needs the special abilities of Russian athletes to provide competition for our international contenders and drive the sport to ever greater things. In particular, artistry has been almost entirely lost without Russian athletes to provide a good example.
The world does not need war. Russia's merciless destruction of Ukraine is a frightening picture of unprovoked aggression backed by a powerful state with little care for peace and harmony in the wider world. Providing the Russian state with an international voice through the medium of sport seems wrong. Punishing Russia's individual athletes for their state's cruelty seems equally wrong.
Russia is not a state that tolerates dissidence. Russia's athletes are in no place to speak out against the war without risking serious consequences. Russia's sports institutions are historically bound to the state and to state organisations such as the Army (Mustafina, for example, trained at the Central Army Club in Moscow). There is nothing Russia's gymnasts can do about that when they compete for their clubs from childhood and are assigned to their clubs at a very early age.
It's great news, however, to read that the RGF is supporting its individual athletes in applying for individual neutral status to be able to compete in international competition. (I doubt that this reflects a national intention to pursue diplomacy in its relations with Ukraine; to imagine thus would be to conflate sport with international diplomatic relations.) It will be two or more months until we hear the results of these applications, which presumably will be measured against the FIG Conditions of Participation for Individual Neutral Athletes.
I'm expecting Melnikova and Listunova to be amongst the first wave of Russian athletes to make their applications. Both have been out of competition for around nine months, recovering from injury. Most of their publicity is self-managed, through social media. No risky press interviews, then, likely to press the athletes into tricky corners with questions about the war. The walls of their gymnasia appear to have been painted in plain colours, without any embellishments that might count as political propaganda.
I'm less sure of the status of Russia's male gymnasts. I've heard contradictory reports of the likelihood of Dalaloyan making an application, although he seems to have managed to keep his powder dry and has avoided contact with the notion of the war. Ditto Belyavski, although he seems more interested in his family than in gymnastics these days. Nagorny, who appears on international sanctions lists, is surely out of eligibility, and won't even bother applying.
I don't know if any of the new, up and coming gymnasts will make their voices heard. We have to keep our ears to the ground.
I'm not expecting Russia to rush back into the competitive arena in a blaze of glory, even if they are accepted into the international fold. Gymnastics is not a sport that stands still, and without the impetus of international competition the Russian gymnasts will inevitably have lost some of their edge. I hope though that we will have at least two Russian gymnasts competing in the World Championships next autumn, and possibly continuing to the next Olympic Games. Gymnastics needs Russian athletes, and the IOC's decision making should not be designed to kill off the sport in Russia, especially when the sport has relied so much on Russia's leadership over the years. The re-election of Russian officials to leading roles in the FIG recently only emphasises this. For many, many years the gymnastics community in Russia has worked for other countries by convening international camps and disseminating technical and artistic knowledge and know how. This dates back to the Soviet era and has only recently stopped as a result of the war.
Russian athletes have for so long given so much to make the sport great competitive entertainment, in a a spirit of friendship as much as rivallry. They have been patient and faithful to the sport. The FIG and the IOC should pay the athletes and coaches back by giving them the floor once more. Surely it would be healthy to show the world that Russian people remain decent and normal, even if their state, for now, is betraying them.
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