Russian sport proudly accepted the suspension

The passing year, despite the formally luxurious gift received at its end in the form of admission of domestic representatives to the Olympics in Paris, seems to have deprived domestic sports of the last illusions about the imminent return to world sports in the status of at least an almost full-fledged player. It also left a bunch of questions about how tenacious he is in conditions of isolation and whether he is able to effectively implement new formats into reality that increase vitality and add meaning to his current status as an outcast, but not conquered.

This year in Russian sports ended with what might seem like a fanfare of victory to anyone not too immersed in the nuances of its modern existence. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) nevertheless allowed representatives of Russia and Belarus to the Olympics in Paris, although until recently it seemed that they were going to postpone admission until the last minute – that is, almost until the Olympics itself, which opens on July 26. And the most telling thing in this story is the reaction of the recipients of the gift letter to it.

No thanks. Instead – tons of doubts, undisguised bile and warnings: as neutral athletes – without a flag, an anthem, a ban on at least mentioning our homeland – we will not go to France.

However, nothing strange. Strictly speaking, even after the December IOC meeting, there was no certainty with the Paris Olympics: the admission conditions are too strict and allow for a lot of different interpretations. And in general, if certainty arose about anything within the Russian sports community in 2023, then, apparently, it was exclusively about how to accept the attitude towards it from the outside, on the part of individuals and organizations forming and implementing the current agenda. Earlier, during the doping crisis that preceded the current crisis, the topic was delicate, and the trend was caution: on the one hand, a decisive denial of guilt on the scale that is spelled out in the reports of experts who studied the state of affairs and the verdicts based on them, on the other – a loudly expressed desire to still remain one of the accusers, even if for this you have to correct something, repent of something and suffer a little humiliation.

The peculiarity of the moment is that there are no halftones left. “Lawlessness”, “lawlessness”, “farce”, “blatant discrimination” – this is a tiny part of the set of biting terms that were previously allowed to be thrown at the IOC and its President Thomas Bach only by deputies of the State Duma of the Russian Federation known for their radicalism and sharp language and which are now firmly entrenched in the vocabulary of, for example, the President of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) Stanislav Pozdnyakov and the Minister of Sports of the Russian Federation Oleg Matytsin, although it was always believed that their positions involved smoothing corners. But, apparently, we can forget about the subtle approach.

Everything in 2023 has become simple and clear. And no tricks or concessions can change anything.

Do the March IOC recommendations formally lift the ban on Russian athletes competing in international competitions? Well, firstly, not for everyone, but with a bunch of “discriminatory” clauses, and secondly, let’s see how they will be implemented. In some sports – judo, taekwondo, wrestling – are Russians really allowed to participate in world championships? Well, most federations are either still, like all winter federations, blatantly ignoring the recommendations, or, like those responsible for gymnastics and swimming, inventing impossible conditions for obtaining neutral status, or artlessly weeding out everyone, as in fencing, using the ones donated to them numerous reasons to find fault with an applicant who expects a neutral status – for belonging to CSKA or Dynamo, for a careless post on social networks. The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) suddenly announces that it is inviting Russian youth teams to its tournaments? Wait a couple of days and you will find out that you were happy too early – everyone is blocked again. Thomas Bach repeats that he is ready for constructive dialogue? What kind of constructive dialogue can there be if it subjects the ROC to sanctions in the form of removal, depriving all rights and privileges, for accepting regions included in the Russian Federation? IOC opens the door for the Russian team to the Summer Olympics in Paris? Who can be fooled here?! Of course, it opens up – not for the national team, but for a delegation devoid of any national characteristics of three dozen people who have passed through the “filters”, of whom at best half a dozen will win medals. And there is no need for illusions.

Russian sport, which for decades has worshiped the “friends versus foes” format, which, as if on purpose, even in turbulent times was glorified by blockbuster films like “Legend Number 17”, “Moving Up” and “World Champion”, has angrily but proudly donned the clothes of an outcast , forced to look for new ways of survival and new meanings that allow one to reinvent oneself.

And with an assessment of how successful he is on this front, there is about as much clarity as with the composition of the brigade of “individual neutral athletes” from Russia in Paris.

Anyone who tries to carefully study the fresh sports landscape of Russia must go crazy from the dissonance of arguments: pro constantly collides head-on with contra. The Ministry of Sports of the Russian Federation admits a fairly significant reduction in the budget; ROC General Director Vladimir Sengleyev honestly says that sanctions “undermine the economic foundations of the entire Olympic movement in Russia” – sponsors are leaving, money is leaving. But there are plenty of tournaments – both old and invented or redesigned to fill the gaps that have just arisen due to isolation. True, most of the ratings are suspiciously low, and biathletes are already complaining about the shortage of high-quality cartridges – imported, of course.

The trend is that athletes who are left without top performances will necessarily lose motivation. But in these numerous tournaments – championships, Cups with different names, in which it is easy to get confused – the lion’s share of the heroes of the previous era participate, including those for whom the window to the world is still tightly slammed shut. Performing are skiers Alexander Bolshunov and Natalya Nepryaeva, gymnasts Arthur Dalaloyan and Victoria Listunova, “artists” Dina and Arina Averina and Lala Kramarenko, biathlete Eduard Latypov, swimmer Yulia Efimova. And Efimova’s opponent, Evgenia Chikunova, not yet knowing whether she will be able to fly to Paris, destroys the world record in breaststroke. Isn’t this motivation?

True, no, no, and bad signs emerge. The famous skier Sergei Ustyugov admits that this season he “relaxed his buns.” And the figure skaters suspiciously quickly either forgot how or lost the desire to perform quadruple jumps, which they had recently fired as if from a multiple rocket launcher.

The trend is a forecast about the inevitable mass exodus of athletes from Russia for “big” competitions, since the regulations allow for a fairly quick change of citizenship.

But all the leaders still seem to be in place – they are skating, running, throwing the ball in internal competitions. Although it is impossible not to pay attention to the list of those who made the transition in the past two years and represent another country. It is already too long – of seven dozen people, according to official data, but according to unofficial data, taking into account both the “second echelon” and juniors, the number goes into the hundreds. There really are no names in it that would cause the average Russian fan to have tears streaming from their eyes. However, there are enough simply well-known surnames. And some “defectors” are already taking medals from important competitions and preparing for the Olympics, without thinking about how to verify the lack of ties with the Russian armed forces and national security agencies. And such processes often have an avalanche-like character: the dimmer the ray of hope for normal integration into world sports, the more often they flee.

There are doubts about the most high-profile Russian sports project of the past months. This is about “ringing” the Paris Olympics with the BRICS Games in Kazan and the World Friendship Games in Moscow and Yekaterinburg with a program, budgets and prize money at a completely Olympic level. The success of such competitions, it seems, cannot be achieved without a competitive environment. But how many of the countries that are part of BRICS and the layer that the word “friendship” implies will want to send more or less combat teams to Russia, not giving a damn about the IOC warnings about the inadmissibility of such a step and the timing of tournaments – right before the Olympics and right after it , if, for example, the same China, the partner of partners, did not really invite Russian athletes to the Asian Games in Hangzhou, and then did not get the idea to perform at the Channel One Hockey Cup? But a colossal series of matches in the same form between the national teams of Russia and Belarus, which is now called the Super Series, gathered a good audience, and in the frosty November Volgograd, they came to see how in football the Russians mock the Cubans who came to play with them without suitable boots four ten thousand people. A hint that the persistent worship of the “friends versus foes” format was suitable precisely for the “era of isolation”, when every opponent, be it from the second or third hundred of the world hierarchy, and every victory over him is a joy.

Alexey Dospehov