Here is the IOC for you, and here is the threshold – Newspaper Kommersant No. 53 (7498) of 03/29/2023

The participation of the Russian team in the Olympics in Paris in 2024 will definitely not be at least more or less full-fledged. The International Olympic Committee (IOC), having confirmed the recommendation on the admission to international competitions of domestic athletes, who, after the start of a special military operation in Ukraine, were in a state of almost complete isolation for several months due to sanctions, supplemented it with a number of reservations. The decision on the performance of the Russians at the Olympic Games will be made later, that is, perhaps already in the midst of the qualifying cycle, and a ban on the return will be imposed on Russian teams, as well as on those who “actively” support the special operation and are even simply associated with the armed Russian forces. Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) President Stanislav Pozdnyakov called the IOC criteria “unacceptable”.

The next meeting of the executive committee of the International Olympic Committee opened with a resolution on the most pressing issue for the world sports community. This is an opportunity to return to the international competitions of Russia and Belarus. Two countries in the spring of last year, immediately after the start of a military special operation in Ukraine, found themselves in a position of virtually absolute sports isolation precisely because of the position of the IOC, which insisted on a ban on the participation of their representatives in top competitions. The line of the main sports structure was supported by the vast majority of federations, and it was adjusted only in January, when its president Thomas Bach recommended that Russians and Belarusians be allowed to compete in international competitions and give them the opportunity to qualify for the Paris Olympics. It will take place in the summer of 2024. True, so far only two federations that previously followed the sanctions trend have canceled the removal of Russia. The first, last fall, was the International Boxing Association (IBA), which, however, was deprived of recognition by the IOC and has long been in conflict with it; the second, more recently, is the International Fencing Federation (FIE).

At first glance, the outcome of the discussion at the executive committee can be considered an absolute success for Russia.

In any case, Thomas Bach confirmed the now completely official recommendation on the admission of Russians and Belarusians to international competitions, which “should be held in the spirit of peace and tolerance and without discrimination,” albeit in the status of neutral athletes. Mr. Bach, explaining the decision of the key body of the IOC, once again stated that “sanctions cannot be applied only on the basis of a passport or belonging to a particular nation.” Moreover, addressing the members of the executive committee, he drew attention to the fact that the format with the integration of Russian athletes in such competitions is already “working”, citing as positive examples including tennis, which did not follow the “isolation” trend, and hockey (there was referring to the North American National Hockey League, in which more than 50 domestic players have played this season). In these species, the presence of Russians does not cause, according to Mr. Bach’s observations, a “negative reaction” and does not threaten security.

Thomas Bach, developing the theme of their return, pointed to the Asian Games. This is the main competition of the Olympic Council of Asia (OCA), which this year will be held in Hangzhou, China, and its organizers have already invited the Russian team. Mr. Bach made it clear that he did not see anything contrary to the regulations in the performance of the Russian team under the auspices of the OCA.

But in fact, no less important are the reservations that accompany the recommendation for its admission. They actually exclude the more or less full-fledged return of its athletes.

The IOC denied it to “teams made up of athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport.” Thus, Russia will definitely not be able to compete in game types, including the top ones – football, hockey, basketball, volleyball. But there are also group disciplines in formally individual sports – artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, athletics and swimming, fencing and shooting. There, participants from the country are also usually presented as a team, and Thomas Bach did not explain what to do with them.

Also, Mr. Bach repeated that athletes who “actively support” the military special operation will not be able to count on participation in international competitions. Moreover, the IOC President clarified that “active support” means not only “open solidarity” with the special operation, expressed, for example, in demonstrating the letter Z and statements on social networks, but also “belonging to the armed forces or national security agencies.”

The task of “filtering” Russian athletes is entrusted by the IOC to international sports federations, on which the interpretation of the admission criteria developed by the executive committee depends.

Once he already gave them such a right in a similar situation, and then the consequences of delegating these powers for the Russian team were very sad. At the peak of the doping crisis, the IOC agreed that the Russian national team would still participate in the winter Olympics in Pyeongchang in 2018 in a neutral status. At the same time, the federations had to ensure that only “clean” athletes from the point of view of the doping background were included in its composition. As a result, the Russian team lost the lion’s share of the leaders, among whom were those who did not even have disqualifications in their careers, and managed to get only two gold medals, finding themselves outside the top ten of the medal standings.

If the international federations literally accept the IOC’s reservations, and the Russian team will go to the Olympics in Paris in a line-up in which it does not shine with more or less solid performance. The previous Summer Olympic Games were held in Tokyo in the summer of 2021. On them, the Russian team took fifth place in the medal standings with 71 awards, 20 of them were gold. Team game types – volleyball, beach volleyball, 3×3 basketball, handball – then brought her five silver medals. Another whole scattering of prizes was obtained in team disciplines from individual events. But much more impressive is the contribution of athletes from the CSKA and Dynamo societies, who are closely connected with the armed forces, that is, the Russian Ministry of Defense, and “national security agencies” and often have different ranks. The army team in Tokyo, personally or as part of a team, won eleven gold medals, the Dynamo team won ten. And the list of winners delegated by two powerful sports societies included such stars as the athlete Maria Lasitskene, fencers Sofia Pozdnyakova, Sofia Velikaya and Inna Deriglazova, wrestler Abdulrashid Sadulaev, who are still leaders in their sports. Without such athletes, it is unrealistic to assemble a combat-ready Olympic team.

However, the question remains open at the moment, in principle, whether the Russian team will still go to Paris, at least in a greatly truncated composition. Thomas Bach frankly warned that a “responsible” decision on it would follow at the “appropriate moment” only after “long monitoring of the implementation of the recommendations.” Mr. Bach even refrained from giving an approximate deadline for this decision, noting that “the situation is complex and it is not known what will happen in a week, a month or nine months.” Meanwhile, his remark means that the IOC has the right to allow the Russian team to compete at the Olympics not only in the midst, but almost at the end of the qualifying cycle, when most of the trips to the Olympic competitions have long been played out.

There is nothing strange that the Russian sports authorities reacted without enthusiasm to the results of the IOC Executive Committee.

The President of the Russian Olympic Committee, Stanislav Pozdnyakov, commenting on them to journalists, frankly called the conditions for the return of Russians to international competitions “unacceptable.”

In the official statement of the organization, dedicated to the results of the executive committee, the neutral status is characterized as “obvious discrimination on the basis of nationality, violation of basic human and civil rights, which has been repeatedly pointed out over the past few months by international humanitarian experts, including UN human rights experts. person”, and the ban on the participation of Russians in team competitions is discrimination against athletes “according to the disciplines they represent”. The ROC believes that such an approach, depriving “at least 30% of our Olympic team members of the opportunity to compete in qualifying and qualifying competitions without any legal basis”, “contradicts the Olympic Charter, the UN Charter, humanitarian, civil, or any generally accepted norms.”

The statement equated the conditions put forward by the IOC with a proposal to “put an end to the dream of thousands of athletes to compete for Olympic medals,” and accepting restrictions on posting content on social networks as “bending under political pressure from outside.”

The exclusion from international competitions of “Russian athletes who are registered in the military and law enforcement agencies or have contractual relations with them”, from the point of view of the ROC, “is no longer just another chapter in the list of gross discriminatory sanctions.” The structure believes that “this criterion lays the foundation for an internal conflict in Russian sports, aims to split the community of our athletes, divide them into “acceptable” and “other” not only on a national basis, and damage the Russian sports industry as a whole. The ROC concludes that “the current admission parameters will in no way contribute to the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in international competitions,” and the decisions of the IOC Executive Board are “nothing more than a farce that is not aimed at normalizing the situation.”

However, at the same time, the Russian Olympic Committee promised “to continue contacts with colleagues from Lausanne in order to obtain objective information about the destructiveness of discriminatory measures that destroy the humanitarian and unifying mission of sport”, and also, “considering the fact that at the moment the IOC Executive Committee has postponed the decision on participation of our athletes in the Olympic Games”, “to monitor the actions of international sports federations regarding the admission of Russians to participate in competitions”.

Alexey Dospekhov