A year after the invasion of Ukraine, the possible reintegration of Russian sport threatens to create the greatest dissension within the Olympic Movement since the Cold War.
Russia remains excluded from several international sporting events, but this could soon change. The 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris are fast approaching and qualifying events are already underway. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is seeking to bring athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus back into competitions, but not all agree.
If Russians are to be readmitted, the sports world must answer two key questions, which quickly arose in the days following the invasion of Ukraine: how can Russian athletes be readmitted without alienating Ukrainians? And what can be done about the Russians in support of this war?
While the first battles raged, the Ukrainian fencing team refused to face the Russians in a tournament in Egypt. Instead, she showed up with posters that read: “Stop Russia! Stop the war! Save Ukraine! Save Europe! “.
A year later, one of the biggest obstacles to Russia’s return to the sporting fold is the insistence of Ukraine, which threatens to boycott any event instead of giving its enemy a propaganda opportunity or traumatizing more of its athletes already affected by the war. Other European countries have also spoken of boycotting the Olympics if the Russians can participate.
The last major Olympic boycott came over 40 years ago, when the United States and more than 60 allies skipped the 1980 Moscow Summer Games. The Soviet Union and its allies hit back by boycotting the Los Angeles Games four years later.
The individual actions of some athletes are also part of the debate. Russian gymnast Ivan Kuliak affixed a sticky-tape ‘Z’ to his chest, mimicking the symbol used on the country’s military vehicles, as he stood alongside the Ukrainian winner on the podium at a competition in Qatar , last March. He was suspended for a year.
The IOC now says it will not support the return of any athlete from Russia who ‘acted against the IOC’s peace mission by actively supporting the war in Ukraine’, but has not defined what exactly that means .
Sports organizations reacted quickly to the invasion of Ukraine. The day after the first manoeuvres, Russia was withdrawn from organizing the final of the Champions League football as well as its Formula 1 Grand Prix. After four days, the IOC recommended not admitting athletes from Russia and Belarus to “protect the integrity of sports competitions and ensure the safety of participants”.
The Russian national football team was then participating in the qualifiers for the World Cup, but Poland refused to play them. Russia was then kicked out of the competition, four years after hosting the event and reaching the quarter-finals.
With the Paris Games on the horizon, the IOC has now changed its message, saying instead that its role is to avoid discrimination based on nationality and to create a way for Russians and Belarusians to participate as neutral athletes, without a national symbol. Safety concerns would be avoided if these athletes could participate in competitions held in Asia, including the Asian Games in China, which will serve as Olympic qualifiers.
The IOC cites tennis, where both men and women on the professional circuits can participate without a national symbol. Belarusian Aryna Sabalenka won the Australian Open last month. Russians and Belarusians are however excluded from competitions between national teams, such as the Davis and Billy-Jean-King Cups. They were also banned from Wimbledon in 2022.
Russia has been threatened with seeing its athletes excluded from each edition of the Olympic Games since the doping scandal at the Sochi Games in 2014.
Ukraine is fiercely opposed to the return to competition of Russian and Belarusian athletes, particularly in view of the Olympics. Ukraine claims that more than 220 of its athletes were killed during the conflict and that hundreds of sports facilities are in ruins. She points out that there are precedents: the exclusion of Germany and Japan from the 1948 Games, after the Second World War.
Earlier in February, following a summit of sports ministers and leaders from 30 countries, these representatives issued a joint statement fraught with skepticism about the IOC’s proposed neutrality process. These signatories are particularly concerned that athletes from military branches can participate in competitions. The IOC said on Tuesday that it found the questions “constructive”, but that these 30 nations did not take a position on possible discrimination.
Time is running out for the IOC to find a solution if it wishes to give athletes from Russia and Belarus the opportunity to participate in Olympic qualifications.
In a statement released Wednesday to mark the first year of the invasion, the IOC did not mention its efforts to reinstate these athletes, but said the “Olympics may promote peaceful competition” between athletes, citing including North and South Korea, as well as Israel and Palestine.
“Peace efforts require dialogue,” the IOC wrote. A competition in which the athletes respect the Olympic Charter can serve as a trigger for dialogue, always the first step towards peace. »