A Russian flag is held above the Olympic Rings at Adler Arena Skating Center during the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.David J. Phillip/The Associated Press
In about ten days, Russia and Belarus will soft open their return to the Olympics, via the Paralympics. They’ll have their own athletes in Milan, competing under their own flags, who’ll hear their own anthems if they win.
So by the time Los Angeles 2028 rolls around, this won’t be a debate. They’ve already been here, they’ve already done that. Why argue?
But argue is what we in the West do best. That’s not to say we’re good at it. We’re unbelievably bad. But we do feel the need.
Italy, for instance. As they very reasonably feel that they might soon be in the same jam as Ukraine, they would rather not later have it said that the Russian flag was flown on their soil in the calm just before that calamity.
They’ve written a strongly worded letter to the International Paralympic Committee, voicing their “absolute opposition” to the Russian flag. The complaint states that 33 other countries feel as they do.
I’m sure they’ll all hear back by March 16, the day after the Paralympics ends.
What’s the problem with “No” here? No flag. If you try raising it, one of our many ornately costumed police forces will pull it down.
You don’t like that? Great. Film your show somewhere else. I hear Russia’s sports facilities have a lot of availability.
Russia’s response to the letter – that the Italians and everyone else are bigots for picking on disabled athletes. For a country responsible for the maiming of so many, they have a cheek.
On Friday, the New York Times published a story suggesting that the head of Russia’s current anti-doping program was mixed up in the pro-doping program at Sochi 2014. Official accusations have been made.
I guess this makes sense. Very little onboarding required when you move from the first job to the second.
The IOC learned this information when the Times told them about it in a live press conference.
The accusation had been made to them as well as the World Anti-Doping Agency, but was sent by e-mail, and then blocked by the IOC’s spam filter. In the future, perhaps a few less international junkets, a few more junior coders.
The issue here isn’t Russia returning to the Olympics. Of course they’re back. They shouldn’t have been kicked out in the first place. It’s not the IOC’s job to sort the good countries from the bad ones.
The Olympics is a saloon in a cowboy movie. Everybody’s welcome, but leave your guns at the door.
What could be usefully up for debate is whether, after a long period sitting in the Naughty Corner, Russia can be trusted to follow the rules.
It won’t require much back and forth. The answer is of course not. Cheating is Russia’s sporting M.O.
Anyone who creates an enormous, Bond-villain style laboratory/urine vault a few hundred feet from where the international media was stationed at an Olympics isn’t just cheating. They’re playing.
Showing that they can repeatedly get one over on Western nerds is the whole point of this. Assigning a doping expert to do anti-doping would be of a piece with this ongoing performance.
Accepting that reality might lead to a second revelation – that the Olympics is not a useful stick with which to beat your opponents. Not because it can’t be swung, but because it doesn’t hurt enough when it lands.
In a worst-case scenario – which is what we’ve created here – Russia yanks that stick off you and begins whacking the whackers. If all of this wasn’t accompanied by real, ongoing tragedy, it would be hilarious.
If Italy and the rest of us want to make a stand on Russia, great. If that means they are angry at the IPC or the IOC (which are functionally the same thing), also great. But this isn’t the way to show it.
Every statement of complaint, every speech, every paltry stand, makes whichever western thought leader delivers it sound like Neville Chamberlain crawling back from Munich. A current and future victim of history.
If Italy doesn’t want the Russian flag unfurled on Italian soil – and I wouldn’t either – it’s time to threaten to cancel the Paralympics.
Is that fair to the athletes? No, and who cares? No athlete – no one person or interest group – is more important than national pride. Remember when we did things because we thought we thought they were right, not because we’d focused grouped them into a thin majority?
If the IPC insists on the Russian flag, tell them have fun touring Milan, but don’t bother heading to the arenas. The doors will be locked.
If Canada and the rest don’t want to stand under the Russian flag in two-and-a-half years time, same thing. No more letters. No more official statements.
If you want to stand up for yourselves and your beliefs, then find the courage to do so. Don’t go.
For a decade, the now crumbling western alliance has behaved as though the Olympics was their most effective diplomatic tool against Russia. That this was the best idea they could come up suggests one reason why it’s crumbling.
We’re beyond rules and fairness here. You can’t deal straight with someone who’s temperamentally crooked. To continue doing so is delusional.
The only person you can control here is yourself. Forget about hiding behind an international consensus for a second. This is sport. It’s not important. So what is important to you? What are you willing and not wiling to do?
Canada’s position has always been the IOC’s position – athletes first. Fine. Say that.
When people ask about it, say, “We don’t care what Russia does, or who they hire, or if they cheat, or about the war. We’re focused on what’s important – curling.”
If that’s not our collective stance, then do something. If it is – and everything up until now suggests that’s the case – then stop whining. If we must be weak, try not to advertise it.
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