“We see it almost every day in a good number of sports: in tennis and in cycling. And in table tennis. And in ice hockey, in handball or in soccer, and in other leagues in the United States and European or on other continents. There are Russian athletes competing everywhere, and we have not detected security incidents. Their presence works, despite the war,” Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), said today.
There has been a certain officiality in the format and structure of the message, a speech that has been produced before the board of members of the IOC and in Lausanne, the mother house of the Olympics.
Many applaud the message, although a range of countries say no. Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic countries are opposed in a frontal way.
-Not a single reason justifies the reincorporation of Russians and Belarusians into the Olympic family -they protest.
Thomas Bach listens to them.
But he believes that the time to override the veto is drawing near.
In reality, his position is a rapprochement of positions, a change of third. Well, Olympism has been questioning Russian athletes for a long time, a position that has been supported by a set of arguments as diverse as they are distributed chronologically.
The starting point is the Sochi 2014 Winter Games.
The story is known.
In the depth of the night, Grigori Rodchenkov, head of the Sochi anti-doping laboratory, replaces the samples of the Russian athletes: he changes urine vials by the light of the lamp. While Moscow celebrates podiums, its scientists work in the shadows. Rodchenkov will confess later. The story is documented in an internationally awarded film project. It’s called Icarus.
History puts the Kremlin on the ropes. The IOC is in a rage, the IOC and the popular imagination. Moscow is suspected of engaging in a state doping program.
The legal process is long enough for Russia to compete in the Rio 2016 Games. It is fourth in the medal table, with 19 gold, 18 silver and 19 bronze, 56 podiums in total.
Then the door closes on him: he finds himself banned from the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Games, and also from Tokyo 2020. If he wishes to compete, he must do so under the banner of the Russian Olympic Committee.
The veto for state doping is joined by the war in Ukraine. The derivatives are different, although the consequences are identical: Russia and Belarus are left out of the sport.
While the Russian troops meander through the Ukrainian territory, the sports institutions do their work in the offices.
Moscow manages to get the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to reduce the sanction of four years imposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency (AMA) to two years. The ban ends in December 2022.
By then, the war is running its course, so Russian and Belarusian athletes continue to swim against the current. There are no Russian tennis players in a range of Grand Slam tournaments, such as Wimbledon, and neither are there at the Eugene (Oregon) World Athletics Championships.
However, the vetoes are being lifted little by little. And Thomas Bach hides behind this drift.
And while he recalls that the IOC had decided to ban Russian athletes in February 2022, he now says he considers that the ban is coming to an end.
And it is true.
Russians and Belarusians have been competing on multiple stages for weeks. Although his presence irritates the international community. “The governments of the countries where these tournaments are held are providing Russian and Belarusian athletes with visas, as well as work permits,” says Bach.
His position arouses susceptibilities. “While the war aggression lasts, the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes is imperative,” denounces a group of elite German athletes, Athleten Deutschland. A group of 300 international fencers also raised their voices. Together they have written and signed a letter addressed to Bach: “Favoring the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes is a catastrophic mistake,” they say.
