Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Count On Seeing Russia In Rio

I've been saying all along that I fully expect the Russian track & field team to be in Rio, and the actions/comments of the past few days have done nothing to make me change my mind.  In fact, I'm more certain than ever that the IAAF will lift Russia's ban in time for the Olympics.  And I'm not the only one.  Well-respected Olympic blogger Adam Abrahamson agrees with me, and he lays out a pretty convincing argument why in the great piece posted on his website today.

The IAAF and IOC aren't in an easy position here.  There's no question about that.  And whatever they do, somebody's going to end up being unhappy.  There's a large group that says there's no possible way they can allow Russia back in and still protect "clean" sport.  But the IOC has never banned an entire national team for non-political reasons, and doing so opens up a dangerous can of worms.

Yelena Isinbayeva, perhaps the most famous Russian track & field star, has threatened legal action of Russia's ban is upheld.  She should.  And she'd probably win, too.  Because Yelena Isinbayeva has done nothing wrong (she has plenty of negative drug tests to prove it), and depriving her of an opportunity to participate in the Olympics, which only happens once every four years to begin with, is definitely a violation of her rights.  Not to mention how much the blanket ban has been affecting her ability to make a living (no international meets=no prize money/appearance fees).

Isinbayeva isn't alone.  It's naive, wrong, and downright unfair to say that they're all guilty.  Even if the rumors are true and the retested samples from the Beijing Olympics do include a fair number of Russians, it's still a stretch to label them all as "cheaters."  And this guilt by association is unfair to all the clean ones, of which I'm sure there are plenty.

And Russia is doing its part, too.  Their federation president has put the odds on their participation in the Olympics at 50-60 percent, which might not sound that high, but is significantly higher than it would've been if you'd asked him that same question two months ago.  They made the necessary reforms to the doping program and taken the extra step of saying that anyone with a doping history will be excluded from the Russian Olympic team, provided there is one.  That includes 2012 gold medalist Anna Chicherova, who's evidently one of the ones from Beijing, where she won the bronze in the high jump.  It would also include the likes of Mariya Savinova, the 2012 gold medalist in the 1500, and Tatyana Chernova, a two-time World Championships medalist in the heptathlon.

Besides, it does seem like selective enforcement.  Russia's not the only nation embroiled in a doping controversy at the moment.  But are there calls for a blanket ban on all Ethiopians and Kenyans?  Was anyone pushing to keep all Americans out of meets immediately after the BALCO scandal?  So why now, and why just the Russians?

Not to mention the political ramifications.  Russia is one of the most politically significant and important nations in the entire Olympic movement.  Scratch that, in the entire sporting world.  Where were the Olympics two years ago?  Where's the World Cup in two years?  Alienating Vladimir Putin and such a vast sporting nation is not exactly high on anybody's agenda.  Not Seb Coe's.  And certainly not Thomas Bach's.

This is uncharted territory for the IOC, and I doubt this is the precedent they want to set.  The only countries ever to be banned from an Olympics were Germany and Japan in 1948 for their roles in World War II, as well as South Africa during apartheid.  Also, Afghanistan had to sit out Sydney because of the Taliban's treatment of women, but that's it.  Even when Iraq and India (and currently Kuwait) had their NOCs suspended because of political interference, their athletes were still allowed to compete under the Olympic flag.

It's also worth noting that we're talking about only the Russian track & field team here, not the entire Russian Olympic team.  The IOC hasn't suspended anyone.  It's the IAAF that imposed Russia's suspension.  In fact, the IOC has never suspended an entire nation for doping.  Once they do, there's no going back.  And that's a step they have to be 100 percent sure they want to take, which I'm not sure is the case here.

In 1984, the entire Soviet Olympic team was prevented from traveling to LA as a result of a political boycott.  Athletes were denied the opportunity to represent their country because of something that had nothing to do with them.  Thirty years later, we're in danger of that happening again.  And it would be equally unfair.  Especially if Russians who did absolutely nothing wrong are stuck at home watching their competitors (some of whom may have doping histories of their own) go for the Olympic glory that could've been theirs had they only been born in a different country.

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