There were no Russian swimmers among the participants at the World Championships in Doha

The admission of domestic athletes to top competitions, which was sanctioned last year by the International Aquatics Federation (World Aquatics), as expected, apparently turned out to be more of a formality due to the ultra-strict criteria invented by the structure. None of them will take part in the February World Championships in Doha. This excludes the possibility of Russians participating in the Olympics in Paris in two events at once – diving and open water swimming. Those who deal with them have already lost their chances of qualifying for it. The prospects for the most prominent of the species controlled by World Aquatics, the classic swimmers, to qualify for the Olympic Games appear to be increasingly dim.

Leading news agencies reported that Russian athletes will not compete at the World Aquatics Championships, which opens in Doha on February 2. The deadline for entries to take part in the competition, one of the main sporting events of the first half of 2024, expired on Tuesday. However, World Aquatics confirmed that there was not a single representative of Russia on the list of registered participants.

This situation may seem surprising at first glance. The fact is that back in September, World Aquatics joined the international federations, which, following the recommendations of the International Olympic Committee, canceled the suspension of Russian and Belarusian athletes that came into force in 2022, shortly after the start of the special military operation. However, even then it was obvious that admission could, in fact, be formal. It’s all about the criteria developed by World Aquatics.

Absolutely all federations made decisions on the return of Russian athletes to top competitions with a number of reservations complicating it. However, in the case of World Aquatics, their number and severity seemed simply unprecedented.

The structure has excluded the possibility for Russians to compete in all disciplines in which the performance of more than “one athlete” is determined. In other words, all team or doubles events turned out to be inaccessible to them. And this is a huge layer, including not only water polo, but also almost the entire synchronized swimming program, except for the non-Olympic solo, synchronized diving, and relay races. At the same time, the federation warned that only one athlete from both Russia and Belarus will be able to participate in competitions in any of its disciplines.

But to obtain neutral status for this one and only athlete, World Aquatics came up with cruel conditions. Among them were mandatory ones, written down in the IOC recommendations. The clarification from World Aquatics said that the athlete seeking return must not be contracted with “the armed forces of Russia or Belarus” and “any other national security agency” and cannot support a special operation. Moreover, the ban was extended to all forms of support – “verbal, non-verbal and written”, “explicit or implicit”, “public statements, including those made on social networks”, “participation in pro-war demonstrations or events” and “use of appropriate symbols”.

That’s not all. World Aquatics has ruled that Russian and Belarusian swimmers wishing to return to its competition must meet qualifying standards “outside” the two states, in tournaments “approved” by the federation. Plus, they will be subject to super-strict anti-doping regulations. In particular, it requires the athlete to undergo four tests over a 12-month period before his or her eligibility, including at least one conducted by the International Testing Agency (ITA) on behalf of World Aquatics without the intervention of the national anti-doping authorities of Russia and Belarus.

The story of the World Championships in Doha confirmed the assumption about the incredible difficulty of fulfilling the criteria. It also preemptively deprived those who are interested in diving and open water swimming of any hope that Russian athletes in these events would compete at the Summer Olympics in Paris, to which the IOC allowed them in neutral status in December. The Qatari championship was the final qualifying stage for them, and all the previous Russians, naturally, missed out.

So now marathon swimmers and jumpers have joined the synchronized swimmers and water polo players excluded from the Olympic Games because of their “team spirit.”

Apparently, these sports have long come to terms with this development of events. At least the vice-president of the Russian Diving Federation Gleb Galperin said TASS, that “everyone has long understood that we will not perform at the Olympics.” According to him, the jumpers will prepare for the BRICS Games and the World Friendship Games: Russia intends to hold these large-scale competitions with a large budget and an as yet unclear composition of participants from a geographical point of view before the Olympic Games and after their completion.

Theoretically, swimmers, including two potential Olympic favorites, still have a chance to go to France. We are talking about Kliment Kolesnikov, who at domestic Russian competitions was constantly ahead of foreign leaders in backstroke in the correspondence competition, as well as Evgenia Chikunova: she set a fantastic world record in the 200-meter breaststroke at the Russian Championships in Kazan in the spring of 2023, and World Aquatics set it, By the way, I ratified it. But they will need to travel abroad to achieve Olympic qualifying times in the remaining events on the calendar without violating any World Aquatics requirements.

Alexey Dospehov