Sport, friendship and the Olympics - reflections on McLaren report implications for Russian gymnastics

BREAKING - President Putin on the McLaren report - http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/52537

What is happening today, is perhaps the end of an era.  The end of an era when sport was truly playful, and international.  Will we ever see our athletes in the same way again?

The findings of the McLaren report are devastating to me.  They made me think about the value and meaning of the Olympics.  People have written whole books and volumes of books about the history of the Olympics. I am not going to try to unravel all the different strands of the history of the Olympic movement from the Ancient Greeks to the present day.  I'll just reflect here on the current values of Olympism; you can see below an extract from the new Olympic Charter, which was published in 2015.

I certainly am inspired by the values of Olympism; I have followed the Olympics all my life.  But unfortunately it seems that they have been under attack, not just in Russia but internationally.  I will come to the dreadful behaviour of the Russian Ministry of Sports later.  But first of all, let me say, the way that USADA and CCES have behaved, trying to manipulate the results of the McLaren report to animate an Olympic ban on Russia, jumping to conclusions before the findings have even been published, and leaking information to leverage the support of their sporting allies against their sporting enemies, is far from Olympic.  Sport has become a victim of politics, and the athletes and the wider public are losing out. 

Russia has to take its fair share of the blame.  Russia has been doping on an immense, almost factory scale.  You can read the full WADA/McLaren report here, and you can watch Professor McLaren's presentation of the findings.   Positive tests have been swapped, hidden, subverted.  No one can imagine that anyone in the chain of command didn't know what on earth was going on.  It is shameful behaviour.  

But, I should point out that while his findings are devastating to Russian sport as a whole, at no point in the document is gymnastics mentioned.  Our team is clean.  Aliya, David, Nikita, Seda, Daria, Ksenia, Natalia, Nikita, Nikolai, Denis, Maria, Ivan, Evgeniya, all of the rest of them, the coaches, the doctors, all of them are wonderful Olympians, and have been all their lives.  They set a good example, they create a way of life based on the joy of effort, they show respect for ethical principles.  They shine like new pennies.  They inspire me, for one.  I will follow them, support them, remember them and their ilk till the end of my time.  I will never let people forget them whether they compete in the Rio Olympics or not.  Remember Olga Mostepanova, who never competed at the Olympics thanks to political boycott, and yet was the most perfect. astonishing, beautiful gymnast of all time.

On a broader sporting scale, however, Russia's behaviour has been execrable, far from Olympic. Who could say that the Government of the Russian Federation, the FSB, RUSADA, have set a good example, created a way of life based on the joy of effort, shown respect for ethical principle? They have shot Russian sport in the foot, destroyed twenty years of imagination and vision, and Russia's gymnasts, and the sport of gymnastics, will be the victims of their behaviour if the IOC applies the heaviest sanction.  The name Grigory Rodchenko, the Director of the Laboratory who enacted much of the cheating under the direction of the Ministry of Sport, and who blew the whistle on the whole thing, will become notorious in the history of sport.  I wonder who appointed him to the role?  How on earth will Russian sport ever recover from this position?  It is, surely the end of an era. 

It would be tragic if the sport of gymnastics suffered as a consequence of this episode in sports history.  If Olympism is about international relations and friendship, then gymnastics is a truly Olympic sport.  If you read this or any blog on the gymternet, if you contribute to social media, if you read quietly and don't speak, if you rant about this or that, you are a kind of friendly Olympian, even if you can't run or jump or throw.  If you attend competitions, if you do silly tumbling into the pit even though you can't hit splits or land upright, you have the spirit of the Olympics inside you and around you.  Under the umbrella of sport and culture you are creating a network, you are contributing to the 'harmonious development of humankind', you are learning about other cultures and learning to tolerate and grow together through all the differences, difficulties, and joyful things that exist in sport. The sport of gymnastics and its spirit of Olympism has created our networks and our friendships.

If you live in the West, how many Russians do you know, how many of them are gymnasts (or coaches)?  How many Russians would you know if it weren't for gymnastics?  How many different countries do your various online friends come from?  Maybe I am going a little bit mad - it is hot and humid in London.  But it seems to me that sport has the power to enhance and improve international relations, to create friendships on the ground.  To help people realise that in the end, all any of us really want is friendship, love and happiness.  For God's sake, let sport and friendship be an antidote to War and the big things that Governments make happen, that none of us can really control.

And that is where I come full circle.  Because Russia has made this awful thing happen, and there has to be change.  The innocent Russian gymnasts, the flowers of Russia's sporting culture, may suffer because a few of their countrymen, most of them in powerful positions, do not share their wholehearted following of the culture of Olympism.  The USA and Canada, in using the McLaren report so aggressively, has also degraded the value of Olympism and used it as a kind of act of War.  At no other time in my life, including the notorious boycotts of both the 1980 and 1984 Olympics (by the USA and Soviet Union respectively) have I suspected that sport, the Olympics, may be about to degrade completely.  

I look at the sport of gymnastics and yes, I consider it to be wholly admirable.  Not just the Russians, all of the countries competing, make me proud to follow this amazing sport.  Look at the honest, smiling faces, the friendships between the competitors all of different creeds, colours and religions, look at the way that they work, celebrate, entertain us. The Olympic spirit of gymnastics has survived, but sport is on the rocks.  If this is the beginning of a new Cold War, please let's not flush our friendships down the toilet pan.  Let's keep our Olympic flame of friendship burning bright.

Back to more prosaic matters, a key word that is emerging in Russia's response to the WADA report is 'credibility'.  The Russian media (I have been watching Russia Today in particular) say that Professor McLaren needs to be able to provide concrete evidence of all the practices and cheats that he says he has uncovered in the report.  There is no time to investigate the investigations properly before the Games, they are saying.  

Sadly, however, their pleas may be too late, and falling on deaf ears.  The seriousness of the situation seems to be escalating.  First of all WADA, having scolded the USA and Canada for pre-empting publication of the report, have called on the IOC to ban Russia from all Olympic competition.  Secondly, the IOC President, Thomas Bach, has issued a statement, saying that the IOC 'will not hesitate to take the toughest sanctions available against any individual or organisation implicated'.  This doesn't sound good for Russia.  There will be a telephone conference organised by the IOC tomorrow morning, which 'may include provisional measures and sanctions with regard to the Rio Olympic Games'.    

I just hope that the IOC pays heed to the FIG - who have issued a supportive press statement explaining their concerns about the application of a blanket ban. 'Before any actions are taken against FIG's athletes, facts must be presented and doping offences must be proven', they say, 'FIG's Russian gymnasts have been subject to controls equal to those of our other leading gymnastics federations.  Clean Russian gymnasts must therefore be allowed to compete at the Games'. 

Bruno Grandi then adds perhaps his greatest ever contribution to world sport : 

'The rights of every individual athlete must be respected.  Participation at the Olympic Games is the highest goal of athletes who often sacrifice their entire youth to this aim.  The right to participate at the Games cannot be stolen from an athlete, who has duly qualified and has not been found guilty of doping.  Blanket bans have never been, and will never be just.'

That just about says it really.  Now is the time to try to get some sleep, and hope for the best tomorrow morning.  Only one thing I can helpfully add.  We still love you Russian gymnastics.

And before I end this post and go to get my supper, I wanted to correct an error in my earlier post.  A serious error of omission.  Amongst all the dates listed, I forgot to mention that today is the 38th birthday of coach Sergei Starkin.  Sergei plays a pivotal role in Russia's Olympic preparations as personal coach to both Denis Ablyazin and Aliya Mustafina.  RRG wishes this great coach a very happy day, and very much hopes that he will be travelling to Rio in the next few days along with his amazing gymnasts.  He deserves all the hard work that this will involve.

Happy Birthday, Sergei Starkin! 

Further reading on RRG :

No Russia for Rio?

Our gymnasts will stand proud

The Russian team training update, and breaking news about the WADA report