The FIG has finally announced its decision regarding the participation of Russia and Belarus in international competitions due to the invasion of Ukraine. The IOC recommended sports federations to ban the two countries on February 28th, however, the FIG ended up being among the last federations to make an announcement. Even Russian cats were banned from international competitions before Russian gymnasts.
The decision is not immediate and athletes will be allowed to finish the two ongoing competitions – the Doha World Cup and the Acrobatic Gymnastics World Age Groups competitions. Both competitions started after the IOC issued its recommendation to ban Russia and Belarus. The athletes at these competitions will compete without their flags and anthems as per the FIG’s decision from February 26th.
Yesterday, Valentina Rodionenko said Russians hoped they would be allowed to keep competing:
“We had the qualification today, our girls had the best results. The guys, unfortunately, did a bit worse but it’s ok. We’re preparing for the finals tomorrow, competing under a neutral flag. Pressure? We’re prepared for anything, everything has turned upside down. I don’t have the slightest idea what happens next, our situation is quite complicated. But we’re competing today and hope that nothing will change tomorrow.”
Russian and Belarusian officials at the FIG will be allowed to keep working for the federation and attending competitions. This includes an FIG vice-president Nellie Kim and a member of the executive committee Vassily Titov (also an official at the sanctioned VTB bank). Russian judges will not be allowed to attend FIG competitions.
Even if Russia wasn’t banned by the FIG, their participation in any competitions abroad would have to stop soon because of logistics issues.
First, Russians have to have visas to travel to most countries where FIG competitions are usually held. Many of those countries stopped issuing visas because of the war.
Various financial sanctions make it extremely hard if not impossible to wire money to pay for competition fees and accommodations.
Multiple countries closed their airspace to Russian airlines and, in response, Russia banned most international airlines from its airspace. In a further step, air insurance companies stopped insuring flights to Russia even from countries that did not close the airspace. Russian airlines have almost all of their fleet leased from foreign companies. The leasing companies are recalling the planes now and Russian airlines suspended most of the international flights due to the risk of having their fleet seized.
Another issue is doping control that became almost impossible to carry out now. Russian gymnasts were normally tested by RUSADA or additional agencies in Russia and the samples were sent to laboratories in Europe by courier companies (such as DHL). All major courier companies stopped their operations in Russia and European laboratories are no longer accessible. Russia does not have a WADA-accredited laboratory anymore due to its involvement in the state-sponsored doping program.
