Russian President Vladimir Putin was as soon as a significant participant within the Olympic motion, spending tens of billions of {dollars} to host the Sochi Winter Video games in 2014. Now his nation is barely collaborating on this 12 months’s Paris Summer time Video games.
Pavel Golovkin/AP
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Pavel Golovkin/AP
PARIS — Three years in the past, greater than 330 Russian athletes arrived in Tokyo for the final Summer time Video games. It was a powerhouse contingent that managed to attain 71 Olympic gold medals in Tokyo.
This 12 months in Paris, Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) officers say Russia will area scarcely greater than a dozen athletes.
“We have 15 [athletes] with Russian passports,” stated Package McConnell, the IOC’s sport director, who added that the quantity who truly compete might change.
McConnell famous that Russian athletes will compete in solely 10 sports activities disciplines, down from 30 just some years in the past.
The dramatic decline in Russia’s involvement within the Olympic motion follows years of doping scandals that started in 2014, heightened by worldwide condemnation that adopted Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Forward of the Paris Video games, the IOC invited dozens of Russian athletes to compete however solely as neutrals.
They’d not be allowed to fly the Russian flag or play their nation’s nationwide anthem.
IOC guidelines additionally banned any Russian athletes who’re “actively supporting” the invasion of Ukraine, or who’ve served in Russia’s navy.
Russian officers balked at these limitations, describing them as “unacceptable.”
In a press release issued final month, Russia’s nationwide judo federation stated its athletes would decline to compete.
“Until the very end, we had hoped that common sense and a desire to hold full-fledged Olympic Games with athletes from Russia and Belarus would prevail over political intrigues,” the assertion stated.
Russia’s weightlifting federation additionally issued a press release saying its athletes wouldn’t compete, regardless of qualifying for the Paris Video games.
That is the smallest Russian involvement within the Summer time Olympics since 1984, when Moscow boycotted the Los Angeles Video games fully.
Belarus, considered one of Russia’s closest allies, may also ship far fewer athletes to Paris, down from 101 in 2021 to simply 17 this summer time.
Olympic powerhouse to world pariah
Russian President Vladimir Putin, heart, as soon as used the Olympic motion to burnish his nation’s popularity, internet hosting the 2014 Winter Video games in Sochi. Affected by doping scandals and accusations of conflict crimes, Russia and its athletes play a dwindling function in world sport.
Mikhail Klimentyev/AP
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Mikhail Klimentyev/AP
Russia’s function within the Olympic motion peaked in 2014, when President Vladimir Putin proudly welcomed the world to Sochi for the Winter Video games.
Putin’s authorities spent tens of billions of {dollars} internet hosting the Video games, which had been designed to showcase Russia’s progress after the autumn of the Soviet Union.
On the time, Russia was additionally a significant monetary sponsor of the IOC.
However within the months following the Sochi Video games, journalists uncovered a deeply entrenched Russian doping system.
Investigators described the widespread use of efficiency enhancing medicine as an “institutional conspiracy” involving greater than 1,000 athletes.
In 2017, Russia was suspended from the Olympics by the IOC.
Meaning Russian athletes can solely compete as “individual neutral athletes,” with out flying the Russian flag or taking part in the nationwide anthem.
On the 2022 Winter Olympic Video games in Beijing, Russia suffered one other black eye when it was revealed star determine skater Kamila Valieva had examined constructive for a efficiency enhancing drug.
Final 12 months, the IOC took an extra step to punish Moscow, banning the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) from all worldwide sports activities actions.
That transfer adopted the ROC’s resolution to soak up sports activities golf equipment in areas of jap Ukraine — Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — occupied by Russia’s invading military.
Final week, a human rights group referred to as World Rights Compliance issued a report suggesting that as many as two-thirds of Russian athletes who certified for the Paris Video games had violated the IOC’s neutrality guidelines by supporting the Ukraine conflict.
“The IOC is popping a blind eye to the involvement of Russian and Belarusian athletes who’ve demonstrated their help for Russia’s unlawful invasion of Ukraine,” stated Wayne Jordash, the group’s president.
It is unclear, nevertheless, how lots of the 57 Russian and Belarussian athletes named within the report will truly compete in Paris.
