● From our sister site, TheSportsExaminer.com ●
Last week’s short report from the Russian TASS news agency noted:
“The upcoming Paralympic Games ‘We Are Together. Sports’ in Russia may be organized in the future on a regular basis, Pavel Rozhkov, the acting president of the Russian Paralympic Committee (RPC), said on Thursday.
“‘We are pondering the organization of the Games on a regular basis,’ Rozhkov told journalists. ‘A matter of their frequency would be decided later. We plan organizing such Games for the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] and SCO [the Shanghai Cooperation Organization] member states. Participation invitations to other countries, including from Europe, are also possible.’
“‘We have grand opportunities for hosting such tournaments and they include the infrastructure, the refereeing staff, the organization and, most importantly, our desire to host them,’ the RPC high-ranking official stated.”
The competition in six sports took place from Thursday through Sunday in Khanty-Mansiysk, as “Athletes from Russia, Belarus, Tajikistan, Armenia and Kazakhstan competed in the games. The Russian national team won the medal count, winning 39 gold, 40 silver and 27 bronze medals.”
This was a small event, but rest assured it was noticed by the International Olympic Committee in Lausanne and the International Paralympic Committee in Bonn.
For them, the great strength of both the Olympic and Paralympic Movements is their worldwide appeal, their “universality.” Without this, the Olympic Games and the Paralympic Games could be in danger. IOC President Thomas Bach said so explicitly while defending his organization’s stance on political neutrality vis-a-vis 2022 Winter Games host China in a December 2021 news conference:
“By not commenting on political issues, you are not taking a side, neither the one nor the other. This is the mission of the IOC, otherwise we could not manage to accomplish the mission of the Games to being, to unite the world. If we would start to take political sides on one way or the other, we would never get the 206 National Olympic Committees to the Olympic Games.
“This would be the politicalization of the Olympic Games, and this, if I would think it further, could be the end of the Olympic Games, as it was the end of the ancient Olympic Games, when politics got involved after 1,000 years of Olympic Games, and then the Roman Emperor intervened for political reasons that it was the end of the Games.”
In the context of Russia’s blatant, state-sponsored doping scandal from 2011-15, China’s oppressive actions against Tibet, Hong Kong and the Uyghur minority in Xinjiang and now Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, it is not hard to imagine Rozhkov’s little Paralympic “make-up” event turning into something bigger on both the Olympic and Paralympic side.
He talked about “organizing such Games for the BRICS [Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa] and SCO [the Shanghai Cooperation Organization] member states.”
Brazil’s rightist government has been silent on the invasion on Ukraine, as has India. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization includes China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as full members, with Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia as “observers” and six more countries – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey – as “dialogue” partners.
These countries are primarily in Asia, but include a NATO member (Turkey) and a major South American power in Brazil. Would Cuba join? North Korea?
Those with longer memories of the Olympic Movement in the difficult days of the 1970s and 1980s – after boycotts in Montreal, Moscow and Los Angeles – remember the Ted Turner-driven Goodwill Games that started in Moscow in 1986 and generated significant interest until IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch (ESP) managed to get a record 159 countries – including the USSR and China – to compete in Seoul (KOR) in 1988. The Goodwill Games faded into obscurity after the fifth edition in Brisbane (AUS) in 2001.
Turner’s vision was driven by private television money; a state-run event could have longer legs and could be a symbol of an East vs. West political divide in which a new Games could be a symbol.
Neither the IOC or the IPC wants this, but the environment is present for a new event that could be designed by Russia and China to show off their sphere of influence, using the sporting world as a proxy. As the Russians are likely to be penalized for a long time due to their Ukraine adventure, this threat is not going to go away any time soon.
In his 11 March message asking for a ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes in international competitions, Bach emphasized the responsibility of the Russian government for the invasion and that “his war has not been started by the Russian people, Russian athletes or Russian sports organisations.”
With the fighting ongoing and no end in sight, Russian and Belarusian athletes are being largely (but not completely) shut out of worldwide events. But once the shooting stops, look for the IOC and IPC to recommend a path for the return of all athletes to the Games, to keep the Olympic and Paralympic Movements from shattering.
In this case, it’s not about money, because none of the aggressor countries or their acolytes are significant funders of the Olympic Movement, although China is moving up. But for the Games to retain its status as a worldwide beacon of hope, the IOC and IPC will insist that their athletes be allowed to compete, even if under a neutral flag and perhaps after a “time-out” of a single Games, as was the case for Germany and Japan after World War II.
But a break-away Games that could sprout from the tiny event held this past weekend could threaten the “universal” appeal of the Olympic and Paralympic worlds.
~ Rich Perelman
Be the first to comment