Perhaps we should have known last summer, as we watched a simple act of celebration between two athletes be hijacked by the poison of geopolitics, that sport can’t always be how we want it to be.
She has, of course, long been a force for good, a method of uniting rather than dividing, but the past month has shown us that she cannot pull herself out of the whole world, the decisions she makes in response to Vladimir Putin’s Invasion hit Ukraine have raised some fiendishly difficult questions.
For example: Against which barbaric acts should sport take a stand? And when should you turn a blind eye?
Which athletes should be punished for their government’s actions? And which nationalities should get a free ticket?
If we leave behind the principle that sport is an arena that welcomes all participants, regardless of cultural differences or political beliefs, where is our limit as to who is accepted and who is not?
For Russia, for all its problems, does not have a monopoly on the slaughter of civilians.
But back to that moment last summer, which is about two athletes who have fallen victim to this conflict in very different ways and to very different degrees.
Gold medalist Mariya Lasitskene of Russia and bronze medalist Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine embraced and posed for a photo shortly after the women’s Olympic high jump finals in Tokyo. Lasitskene, 29, has been the queen of her event for many years, while her brightest young talent is Mahuchikh, 20, an athlete who grew up watching videos of Lasitskene jumping in hopes of emulating her technical brilliance.
Little did they know then, in that euphoric moment of celebration, how many in their homelands would see this image, their everyday act of basic decency, as a form of betrayal – a conscious choice to fraternize with the enemy. Critical comments hailed on social media and even from government circles.
Mariya Lasitskene of Team ROC and Yaroslava Mahuchikh of Ukraine pose with their nations’ flags after winning gold and bronze in the women’s high jump final at the Tokyo Olympics
What made it more difficult for Lasitskene and Mahuchikh was the fact that both are members of their respective armed forces, a relic of the Soviet sports system in which high-performing athletes are given a military rank, with salaries that allow them to train essentially as full-time Athlete.
After all, there is more than one way to serve your country.
Now fast forward seven months from the Olympics to last Saturday at the Stark Arena in Belgrade. Wrapped in a Ukrainian flag, tears in her eyes, Mahuchikh stood before us after winning gold at the World Indoor Championships, trying to put into words the horror of the past month.
“They killed our people, they killed our nation and they killed our children, the future of Ukraine,” she said. “I want peace for my country, and the way to peace is for the Russians to go home.”
Mahuchikh was at her home in Dnipro on February 24 when she was awakened by the sound of an explosion. “I can’t put into words what I felt in that moment,” she said. “I wish nobody in the world would have the same feelings.”
She fled her hometown, hiding in a basement to be safe, and had to travel for three days, enduring “hundreds of phone calls, many changes of direction, explosions, fires and air raid sirens” before making it to Belgrade.
In the days following the invasion, every sport was pushed into a difficult position, looking for ways to assert itself without abandoning its fundamental ideals.
Athletics, rowing and badminton were among those that completely barred competitors from Russia and Belarus from major competitions, while football and rugby barred all Russian teams from international events. Formula 1 terminated its contract with the Russian Grand Prix, while tennis, cycling, gymnastics and swimming allowed individual Russian athletes to continue to compete but only as neutral athletes, their flag banned – which has been the case in athletics for a number of years due to the Russian case was state-sponsored doping scandal.
Lasitskene missed out on a near-certainty gold medal at the 2016 Olympics due to the blanket suspension of Russian athletes in Rio, and since being cleared to compete as a neutral athlete, she has been a brave critic of the Russian Athletics Federation and its icy progress with anti-doping reforms .
And while she has done nothing wrong then and now, the 29-year-old must now sit and wait as her career sweeps past her again due to the actions of higher forces in Russia.
Of course, such difficulties seem utterly trivial compared to the millions who have been forced to leave Ukraine and the thousands of families who have lost loved ones in recent weeks.
The tragedy was remembered everywhere in Belgrade as Maryna Bekh-Romanchuk, whose father-in-law is currently fighting with the Ukrainian militia, dedicated her triple jump silver medal to those at home.
“I was able to prove today that we are a really strong nation,” she said.
As for Mahuchikh, there was deep sadness in her eyes on Saturday as she spoke about what lies ahead. Unable to return home, she will head to Germany and try to maintain some consistency in training as she aims for more global success in the summer.
“I want to show that Ukrainians are strong people,” she said. “You never give up.”
She stopped at any journalist who wanted to say something, and her words carried such raw emotion that they elicited both sympathy and anger from listeners, a sense that what the sport has accomplished in ostracizing Russia is ultimately one principled attitude. But what she also did sets a precedent, and many wonder when the same stance will be taken against other forms of aggression or oppression.
The sport must now ask itself some tough questions, and it could begin by examining what Saudi Arabia is doing in Yemen and the uncomfortable truth about the Western nations making it possible with their arms shipments.
You might wonder what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, something Amnesty International has dubbed apartheid.
You might wonder what China is doing to the Uyghurs, which Human Rights Watch says constitutes “crimes against humanity.”
It goes on and on – a dark, tangled web of complexity with no clear answers.
The sport is a powerful force for building unity in the world and now that it’s bared its teeth and taken a stand, it needs to pull through. It has to be consistent.
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