On December 9th, the World Anti-Doping Agency’s executive committee announced that Russia will be banned from the Olympic Games, World Championships and large multi-sport events for the next four years due to non-compliance with anti-doping regulations. The ban will also prevent Russia from hosting major international competitions. However, athletes who will be able to prove their clean status will be allowed to compete as neutral athletes.
There are still many unclear details about the ban. Russia can still try to appeal the ban and likely will. Thus, the full set of criteria on which athletes will be allowed to compete and what kind of conditions is not public yet. From the statements by WADA, it seems that this ban will be different from 2018, when Russian athletes competed as “Olympic Athletes from Russia” and were allowed to compete as teams. However, there was controversy regarding who was deemed to be a “clean athlete”. Shortly before the Winter Olympics, the IOC prepared a list of the Russian athletes who would be allowed to compete at the Games. Some of those who were not on the list and, therefore, banned, had no official doping violations and no charges of doping violations against them. For example, a figure skater Ivan Bukin claimed he was not provided any reasons why he was not allowed to compete at the 2018 Winter Games despite having no charges of doping violations and, without official charges, could not appeal this decision. It seems that the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” does not work in this situation and some athletes might end up with no way to prove their innocence.
Several gymnasts and gymnastics officials have made public statements regarding the issue. Overall, Russians are, understandably, very upset with the decision. The official discourse likens the current political situation to the Cold War and ordinary Russians often believe in the idea of Russia being “at war” with the rest of the world, especially with the West.
Svetlana Khorkina made quite a few speeches about WADA and IOC in 2017, comparing WADA to Nazis, saying that WADA needs to be dismantled, claiming that IOC is trying to “orphan” Russian athletes, and even threatening the world with Russian nuclear weapons. Compared to that, her comments this year sound quite mild.
On the day of the announcement, Khorkina posted her own photo on Instagram with the caption: “waiting, like many athletes and sports fans… for news… the wait is over…” and tagged the photo with “everything will be fine”. In the comments to the picture, Khorkina complained about the perceived lack of fairness: “When the punishments will be applied equally to everyone who violated the doping rules, then we can talk! But some countries and their athletes can compete now while Russians can’t!”
In the next post, Khorkina suggested reinstating the Goodwill Games, the competition that was originally created in 1980 as an alternative to the boycotted Olympics:
“What’s stopping us from reviving such a competition as the GOODWILL GAMES. I really liked winning multiple times at competitions of such a level. And the level was quite something. The whole world came to fight for medals.”
World and Olympic medalist Anton Golotsutskov invoked Nikita Khrushchev’s famous shoe-banging incident, saying that Russian athletes will show the world “Kuzka’s mother”. Russian expression “to show someone Kuzka’s mother” means to punish someone and it became famous after Nikita Khrushchev, then the USSR’s First Secretary, made a speech decrying the Western world at the UN assembly in 1960. The phrase is often used by Russians specifically in the context of teaching foreign countries a lesson and it is becoming invoked more and more as a result of the political crisis and a return to Cold-War-like rhetoric in the Russian propaganda. Golotsutskov said to RT he believes banning Russia will not help counter the doping and is a political game:
“It won’t help. Those are political games. They want to punish Russia, to deprive in some way, but it’s pointless. We’re not a three-year-old baby, after all. I think our politicians will find an answer for them. Yes, some call for boycotting the Olympics completely. But listen, I gave my whole life to the sport, I prepared for the Games, how can we not go? We will defend the honor of the country under the neutral flag, we’ll compete and show our level. The whole world needs to know about it. I’ll go to Tokyo in person and will cheer on our athletes.”
“There should be a presumption of innocence. Got caught – violated the rules. Otherwise, how did they decide who’s guilty and who’s not? Everyone’s in the same situation, everyone’s doing the same doping tests. First, they need to allow everyone to compete and then check. Otherwise, they’re throwing everyone in the same barrel. Sports should be a fair and clean game but it’s not the case for now. But our athletes will show everyone Kuzka’s mother as Nikita Khrushchev used to say. I won’t take my shoe off but, I think, everyone understands what I mean.”
While there are some officials and athletes calling for a boycott of the Olympics, Vasiliy Titov, the president of the Russian Artistic Gymnastics Federation, believes that athletes need to compete, even though he also finds the ban unfair:
“They are punishing Russia as a state that was involved in doping without showing any objective evidence. There were discussions from athletes, journalists, but not from those who are involved. How they collected this information and so on. WADA is a completely non-transparent organization. I don’t understand all these mechanisms. They are punishing the country and all the clean athletes. How can it be fair?”
“They found a platform where they can talk to Russia only for political reasons. WADA became the platform for implementing these unfair rules. Or they know something they are not telling us. Obviously, we need to fight it at the Court of Arbitration for Sport, to gather the best lawyer forces, to prepare for the Olympics. We need to go and participate and under no circumstances should we boycott it.
Vyacheslav Fetisov, a highly-ranked sports official and Andrey and Valentina Rodionenko’s son-in-law agreed that athletes should compete in any case:
“They should compete under the neutral flag because a life of an athlete is short. They are suffering because of someone else’s fault today. If an athlete wants to compete, they should compete, they shouldn’t be prohibited. I’m the most worried for the athletes now. My in-laws are coaching the artistic gymnastics national team and they’re sitting and crying because they don’t know what to tell their pupils who have been training from morning till night in order to compete at the Olympics and fulfil their dreams.”
So far, the only non-retired gymnast who commented on the issue to the media has been Artur Dalaloyan. As the specific conditions of the ban have not been announced yet, Dalaloyan fears that the participation of the team is not a given:
“I complete disagree with WADA being so categorical and their treatment of the athletes and people who are not connected to all this in any way. So far, I can’t give any specific details regarding my opinion on competing under the neutral flag, since, as I understand, our team’s participation is not guaranteed even under the neutral flag.”
Meanwhile, Russian fans and media have already started discussing their favorite topic – Simone Biles. Since Biles’ medical records were leaked in 2016 and the public learned that she has ADHD and takes medication for it, Russians have been unable to let it go. Khorkina even went so far as to dedicate almost an entire chapter of her last book to Biles, accusing her of using doping. To put it in context, there is very little awareness of ADHD in Russia with many people believing it is a made-up disease. In addition, drugs like Ritalin and Concerta that are used for treating ADHD are illegal in Russia and considered to be serious narcotics, in the same category as cocaine or heroin. The lack of understanding of ADHD drugs leads to many people think the drugs are also related to steroids. Thus, the general public often does not understand what ADHD is, what kind of drugs are needed to treat it, and how those drugs affect athletes with this disease.
Photo: Commons.Wikimedia
It absolutely amazes me that Russia cannot get a grip on ADHD. This is science, not homeopathy. The whole world understands this. I get that there are some nations, probably ones with less accessible health care, which don`t really have the resources to treat this. But Russia is not this case. They just chose to ignore something and treat is as a drug problem. Geez,