Maria Lasitskene (29) reviews her recent past and doesn’t like what she sees: anxiety invades her, the feeling of being wrong.
It has been like this since 2016, since the day the International Athletics Federation (then IAAF, today World Athletics) had requested the Olympic veto for all Russian athletes.
Spanish fans will remember the story: Lasitskene was not going to attend the Rio 2016 Games and Ruth Beitia was going to squeeze the window to sneak in and claim gold in the women’s high jump.
(and we won’t question her prowess; chance doesn’t enthrone an Olympic champion)
Lasitskene reviews everything that has happened since then and puts his head in his hands. She falsely finds herself to be Russian, despite the fact that she has nothing to do with everything that affects her.
Nor was he part of the Russian state doping system, as proven as it was condemned.
It does not support the war.
(neither the denunciation; it is not easy to charge against the Kremlin if one lives under its umbrella)
And yet he pays dearly for it.
Lasitskene adds six years in false, six years in which he has competed without uniform, without identity, athlete of the ANA (Authorised Neutral Athlete) or the ROC (Russian Olympic Committee, never from Russia): after each title he was wrapped in a fabric with the championship logo, or with the Olympic flag.
And when he greeted the public, Tchaikovsky’s Concerto No. 1 was playing. Or there was silence.
And the composition of Aleksandr Aleksandrov? If that, then another day.
Thus, under the anonymity of the neutral flag, Lasitskene has collected two of her three world titles (2017 and 2019; in 2015 she was recognized as Russian) and also the 2020 Olympic title (held in 2021).
And now?
Now things have gotten worse: because of the war, World Athletics has banned all Russian athletes. None of them will attend the World Cups in Eugene (Oregon), which start on July 15.
Overcome by events, and fed up with the silence of World Athletics – it no longer responds to their desperate calls – Lasitskene has revised the focus and now charges against the International Olympic Committee (IOC), embodied in its president, Thomas Bach.
“I am not sure if you know me, Mr Bach, as, based on your latest statements and decisions, you are much closer to politics than to athletes and professional sport in general,” Lasitskene wrote in a letter published by MatchTV, Russian portal, lamenting the position of the IOC, which supports World Athletics.
“In the last seven years, I did not have the opportunity to be in four major international competitions, despite the fact that there was never any personal complaint against me (…) If you really cared about the destinations of athletes, you would not force them to express itself in this regard and would try to seek the unity of the world through the world. But you chose the simplest solution: ban everyone based on their citizenship.”
