Kurt’s Korner: The Olympic Games are no Longer Neutral
The Russian flag has been conspicuously absent from the last three Olympic Games. After the host country’s athletes surprisingly topped the medal table at Sochi in 2014, investigators unearthed a doping scheme sponsored by the Russian state. As a result, Russia was barred by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) from the Games for four years; athletes instead competed under neutral banners in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Yet, despite the steroid ruling expiring last year, Russia — and Belarus — will officially be missing from the 2024 Summer Games in Paris. This ban is independent of cheating scandals and is instead caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Russian case, however, is unique in that individual athletes who have not publicly supported the war will be eligible to compete in Paris. This decision was protested by 34 countries — including Ukraine, the United States, and host nation France — who argued absolute bans should be in place. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian participation in the Olympics would amount to “propaganda” for the war effort and has considered a Ukrainian boycott of the Games if Russians and Belorussians are present.
Unconditional restrictions have been imposed by track and field’s governing body, World Athletics, which will extend its ban on Russians and Belorussians from the annual World Championships and the Olympic Games. World Aquatics, swimming’s governing body, recently loosened their rules, but will only allow one Russian and one Belorussian entry per individual event at the Olympics. The Russian Federation is also barred from the 2024 European Football Championships, while its teams remain absent from the UEFA Champions League, the world’s premier club football competition.
Politically motivated bans have some precedent in Olympic history. In the aftermath of World War I, Germany, Turkey, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria were not included in the 1920 Games. Likewise, Germany and Japan were excluded from the 1948 Games after World War II. More recently, South Africa was prohibited from competing from 1964 to 1988 due to apartheid; a similar policy was enacted on then white-minority-ruled Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in 1972 and 1976.
Contradictory to these previous rulings, Russian and Belorussian athletes will be unmistakably present at the 2024 Games. The purportedly unaffiliated Russian Olympic Committee won twenty gold medals at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, including four in wrestling and three in shooting; a similarly substantial medal tally should be expected in Paris. Belarus’s Aryna Sabalenka won back-to-back Australian Opens in 2023 and 2024, cementing her status as a gold medal favorite. Sports are considered to be the truest meritocracy existing in society; on athletic talent alone, Russians and Belorussians unequivocally deserve to be competing at the pinnacle of their respective sports.
This claim — after all, fans pay to see the best of the best — informed the newest IOC’s ban. Yet critics correctly contend that banning the Russian Olympic Committee but allowing individuals to compete is not a meaningful decision. Fans, athletes, and politicians alike will know that Russian athletes are on the medal stand, even if the Russian national colors and anthem are missing. If Vladimir Putin wishes to use athletic propaganda from the Paris Games he can easily do so — like he has done in the past.
Russian sports propaganda is nothing new. Josef Stalin presided over the Soviet athletes’ parade from 1931 to 1945, both as a celebration of the Soviet people and a testament to the Soviet Union’s superiority. The doping scheme uncovered in 2016 was designed to achieve the same goal; topping the medal chart was as much a political achievement as an athletic one. Russia played host to the 2018 FIFA World Cup, where resounding sentiments of goodwill — echoed by the Trump Administration’s national security advisor John Bolton — overshadowed criticism of an increasingly authoritarian regime. Putin’s personal use of athletics, from scoring eight goals against professional hockey players to shirtless horseback riding, is an attempt to portray himself as a superhuman figure. It is no coincidence that the athlete's parade — in some ways, a celebration of Stalin more than the USSR — is being revived by Putin.
Vladimir Putin and IOC President Thomas Bach at the 2014 Olympics Opening Ceremony
Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons
As a result, the implications of Russia’s Olympic ban are rightfully being questioned. IOC president Thomas Bach has long been accused of deference to Putin, who reportedly helped Bach get elected in 2013. The IOC’s decision defies Ukrainian pleas, does little to restrict Russian propaganda, and equates the punishment for military invasion to those for steroid scandals — leaving much speculation about the nature of Bach’s relationship with the Russian autocrat. Bach’s recent proposal to seek a fourth term as IOC president, currently illegal under Olympic bylaws, will certainly be backed by his ally in Moscow.
Should publicly neutral athletes be forced to skip a potentially career-defining event because of the actions of their government? Or, rephrased, should autocratic countries who impinge on another nation’s sovereignty be sanctioned in international sport? The Ancient Greeks, the original Olympians, supposedly answered these questions with the “Olympic Truce,” a concept that allowed warring city-states to send athletes to the Games without fear of conflict. Yet the modern-day notion of an Olympic Truce — like the outdated ideals of amateurism and nonpolitical athletics still espoused by the IOC — is a farce.
Section One of the Olympic Charter, written by Bach himself, claims to “maintain and promote [the] political neutrality” of the Olympic Movement by “oppos[ing] any political or commercial abuse of sport”. However, the distinction between propaganda and national imagery is blurry at best. Russian and Belorussian athletes at the Paris Games will be a beacon of fairness for some but a symbol of war and autocracy for others. “Political neutrality” is impossible in this context; the IOC’s decision to straddle competing views — as they have tried to do in the past — is vastly ineffective. The IOC attempted to support the Russian and Belorussian athletes who deserve Olympic participation. Instead, Putin got served a generous slap on the wrist.
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Matthias Schrader
