TOKYO — For a country that has been officially banned from the Olympics, Russia is heavily involved in the Tokyo Games this summer.
Attend Friday’s opening ceremony. An important Russian delegation marched in the parade of nations, just behind San Marino and just in front of Sierra Leone, under the ROC flag, short for the Russian Olympic Committee. That’s the official label for which more than 330 Russian athletes compete here, the somewhat disciplined sleight of hand required by the penalties after the country’s recent doping scandals.
Since proudly marching to the Olympic Stadium in central Tokyo, Russian athletes in Russia’s national colors have competed in dozens of sports, from archery to diving, fencing to gymnastics, tennis to taekwondo. On Sunday, Russia even gathered first gold. Twenty-four hours later, he took two more.
“We don’t actually feel like we’re banned,” a Russian journalist admitted this week.
Still, the penalties are real and based on one of the worst doping scandals in sports history: years of campaign Replacing dirty examples of doping with clean ones — and then covering up — eventually affected dozens of sports and included more than 1,000 athletes, dozens of coaches and sports officials, and even members of the nation’s state security services.
Firstly suspended from global sports for four yearsRussia spent years overturning or at least commuting his sentence. It won at least a partial victory in December, when the Court of Arbitration for Sport mostly sided with Russia’s appeal. two-year reduction of the ban By making Russia’s path to the Olympics, imposed by the World Anti-Doping Agency, much less arduous than the doping organization had demanded.
The result was that more Russian athletes traveled to Tokyo than at the Rio de Janeiro Games in 2016, and the country’s penalties felt open to interpretation. This may be because the International Olympic Committee, which generally refrains from imposing direct sanctions on Russia, places the responsibility on individual sports federations to interpret their two-page sport-related guidelines. sanction measures“All public representations of the organization’s participant name must use the abbreviation “ROC”, not the full name “Russian Olympic Committee”.
This rule was violated almost immediately and repeatedly in public statements by event organizers, including the IOC. At the opening ceremony, for example, the name of Russia was read in English, Japanese and French, and dozens of members of his team entered the stadium.
A day later, on the first day of the judo competition, it was announced that Russia’s Irina Dolgova, who went out for the first round match in the 48kg category, was a member of the ROC. A few hours later, its compatriots on the men’s volleyball team dressed in red uniforms were introduced as the Russian Olympic Committee.
For the few viewers and journalists present, there was little indication that the team represented an affirmed nation. A Kenyan journalist expressed confusion about the abbreviation by asking loudly why the recently announced Russian team was labeled ROC on the scoreboard.
That’s how things went at most venues: ROC on signs and screens, but Russia or the Russian Olympic Committee in official announcements. Confusion over what to name the team has at times confused sports officials: For example, the European gymnastics federation deleted a tweet on Sunday referring to the team as Russia while compiling the results in the women’s standings.
“The rules are being followed and it depends on the specific situation,” IOC spokesman Mark Adams said on Sunday. “According to our interpretation, it is correctly interpreted.”
When asked why the team’s full name was not said out loud, Adams said the message would be “medium.” “We feel satisfied with what has been done.”
Some expressed their dissatisfaction with the presence of Russia. The World Anti-Doping Agency is still pondering how the Court of Arbitration for Sport diluted its original sentence. the origin of the team cannot be identified.
“You will clearly see what we want and what we get,” WADA managing director Olivier Niggli told reporters last week. “If you look at what we want, that’s not what we have, especially when we’re talking about uniforms.”
But what you have here is in line with the CAS decision. “It’s not what we want, it’s what we have and it’s in line with what’s acceptable.”
Russian officials backed up their athletes for awkward questions about their presence in Tokyo before they set off for the Games. All participants were given a guide on answers to questions about politics, social issues and the doping ban, vedomosti, a Russian news source reported earlier this month.
The best answer, according to the document, would be to ignore the questions. Such was the case: Russian athletes in Tokyo have so far been mostly silent about their status in Tokyo.
But Russia did not have everything in its own way. Officials and athletes were dissatisfied with the ban on the Russian flag, and some, like Alena Tiron, the captain of the rugby team, promised to be as recognizably Russian as possible.
“If the flag is not allowed, we will become the flag ourselves,” he told the state-run Ria Novosti agency. “We know which country we represent”
While the IOC is comfortable with the word “Russian” booming from speakers in reference to the Russian Olympic Committee, the country’s artistic swimming team “From love with Russiabe part of your routine. They said the song could be used but the Russian word had to be cut.
The choice of music to be played at the ceremonies attended by Russian gold medalists is another concession. The IOC rejected Russia’s first choice, “Katyusha,” a military standard popularized during World War II, and replaced it. settled on a part From Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No.
The tunes of this provisional anthem were first heard on Sunday as Vitalina Batsarashkina took the podium after winning ROC’s first gold medal in the women’s 10m air pistol race.
The uncomfortable stay may end soon. After the Tokyo Olympics and the Winter Games in Beijing next February, Russia will be closer to returning to the world of sports. Next year’s volleyball world championship will be held in Russia. Taekwondo is scheduled to be held in the country a year later.
Despite facing reprimands and penalties, Russia has quietly increased its influence in the sport. The three summer Olympic federations – shooting, boxing and fencing – are now more Russian than ever before in history.