30th January 2023

The International Olympic Committee ought to hang its collective head in shame. It’s bewildering and staggeringly naïve decision to permit Russian athletes to compete in the 2024 Paris Olympics, so long as they do so without representing Russia or any affiliated organisation, is as feeble as a teabag in a bath.

I find myself firmly in agreement with Ukrainian President Zelensky, who rightly pointed out that allowing these athletes to compete sends a message that “terror is somehow acceptable.” Has the IOC misplaced its history books? In 1920, five nations were barred from the Antwerp Games for their roles in the First World War. In 1948, Germany and Japan weren’t invited to London, not because their paperwork was late, but because they’d just finished wreaking havoc on the world. South Africa was exiled for nearly three decades over apartheid. Afghanistan got the boot in 2000 for its treatment of women. Even Kuwait was shown the door in 2016 to protect the Games from political meddling, and India was benched in 2012 for electing corrupt officials, no mean feat, even by Olympic standards.

And now, in 2024, we’re supposed to believe it’s perfectly fine to allow athletes from Russia, a country currently engaged in a full-scale invasion of an internationally recognised sovereign nation, to pop over to Paris for a spot of javelin and a croissant?

Thousands of lives have been lost, sanctions have rained down like confetti at a dictator’s wedding, and let’s not forget that Russia is barely out of the naughty corner for its state-sponsored doping escapades, which saw it banned from Tokyo 2020 and the 2022 World Cup. Yet here we are, pretending that putting a neutral flag on a Russian tracksuit somehow makes everything alright.

The IOC’s excuse? That there’s a precedent: athletes from the former Yugoslavia were allowed to compete as independents in the 1992 Barcelona Games, despite UN sanctions. Ah, yes, nothing says “carefully considered policy” like citing a one-off from the early ’90s and hoping nobody notices the glaring differences.

What message does this send? In the grand tradition of modern diplomacy, you can lob missiles at your neighbour, claim it’s all a misunderstanding, and still get a go at the shot put.

In a perfect world, anyone engaged in aggressive conflict would be shown the red card, simple, consistent, and fair. But alas, sport and politics are now as inseparable as fish and chips. Perhaps the IOC could take a leaf out of the UN’s playbook, an organisation famously known for letting countries talk, vote, and ignore each other with decorum. The UN General Assembly did vote, after all, on 2nd March 2022, to condemn Russia’s invasion as illegal.

So if the world at large agrees that Russia is in the wrong, why on earth should its athletes, however blameless they may claim to be, be granted a global platform at the Olympics? With sanctions already in place and the memory of state-sponsored cheating still fresh, it beggars belief that the IOC didn’t opt for a blanket ban. One wonders what sort of example this sets for future aggressors: start a war, dodge the blame, swap your national kit for something vaguely neutral, and we’ll see you on the podium.

Olympic ideals may be rooted in peace and unity, but turning a blind eye to war crimes is neither.