Brazilian skiers, American ICE agents, Israeli bobsledders – this is just a smattering of the fascinating characters that will be present at this year’s Winter Olympics, which formally kick off today in Northern Italy.
Yet it will be the omission of one particular country, one that has traditionally dominated the medals table, that once again garners more attention. That country is Russia.
For the fifth Olympics running, Russian athletes will not be able to compete under their flag. This began at the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea, where they had to compete as “Olympic Athletes from Russia” due to the state-backed doping scandal in prior years. The same scandal forced them to compete as the “Russian Olympic Committee” at the 2020 and 2022 Games. Still, hundreds of Russian athletes were able to compete.
That’s no longer the case. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine means its athletes must now participate as “Individual Neutral Athletes.” They cannot compete as a team – only individuals can attend – and they must not have shown support for the Kremlin’s war effort. Only 13 athletes from Russia will compete at these Games.
And yet, the tide appears to be turning.
First off, some of the 13 athletes have been linked to activities supporting the war effort. One liked pro-military content on social media, another trained in Russian-occupied Crimea, while a third worked closely with a publicly pro-Kremlin trainer. Yet the International Olympic Committee authorized their entry amid questions about the leanings of one member of their three-person eligibility panel regarding Russia.
FIFA President Gianni Infantino, who oversees the separate but more widely watched soccer World Cup, went a step further on Monday, saying that FIFA should also lift its ban on Russia.
“This ban has not achieved anything,” Infantino told Sky News. “It has just created more frustration and hatred.” The Italian’s comments come after the IOC said in December that Russian youth athletes should be able to compete under their national flag and anthem at this year’s Youth Olympics in Dakar, Senegal.
Infantino’s comments incurred the wrath of Kyiv’s top brass: Ukraine’s foreign minister called the FIFA president a “moral degenerate.”
The shifts from the IOC and FIFA hint at something else: Is interest in the Russia-Ukraine war, now approaching the four-year mark, going downhill? The amount of online searches regarding the war has plummeted. No longer is the war top of the US foreign policy agenda, as other regions like Latin America and the Middle East fill greater space. Polls even show more willingness among Ukrainians to kowtow to Russian territorial demands if it means ending the war.
A chequered history. Russia – and the Soviet Union – have a sordid past when it comes to major sporting tournaments like the Olympics and the World Cup, stretching back decades. It has been involved in several doping scandals. The Soviets even faced accusations of forcing female athletes to get pregnant and then have an abortion, with the aim of boosting red blood cell count. More recently, the US Justice Department found that Russia bribed FIFA officials in order to become the host of the 2018 World Cup.
Yet it was only after the most recent doping scandal and international condemnation for the invasion of Ukraine that the IOC and FIFA decided to ban Russian teams.
Both these organizations appear to be rethinking that decision, possibly because it hurt certain Russian athletes and forced the organizers to take positions on other conflicts, like the Israel-Hamas war and the Sudan civil war. Is this the right move? The Winter Olympics are filled with intrigue of their own – sliding headfirst down a concrete track on what is ostensibly a tea tray (otherwise known as a “skeleton”) is always bound to garner interest. However, this potential U-turn from both the IOC and FIFA provides an unwelcome distraction. Yet again, geopolitics are at play in the sporting world.
