- By Vitaly Shevchenko
- ` surveillance
14 minutes ago
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President Vladimir Putin wants Russian athletes to compete again on the international stage
As Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine enters its second year, its athletes are hoping to get back on the field.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has recommended that competitors from Russia and Belarus compete as individual neutrals in upcoming international competitions.
The decision comes as a blow to Ukraine, which has vehemently opposed allowing them to participate.
Like other countries, Russia strives to use international sport to showcase the nation’s sporting prowess.
But what makes Russia unusual are the efforts the government and military are making to produce award-winning athletes – including an extensive doping program that has resulted in Russian athletes being banned from competing abroad.
Wimbledon has also lifted its ban on Russian and Belarusian tennis players so long as they agree not to support their countries’ leaders or governments. And this despite the fact that the Ukrainian Elina Svitolina appealed for her expulsion while “innocent Ukrainians are still being killed”.
The Ministry of Defense in Moscow has been running extensive programs to train athletes for decades with notable success.
military connections
The most famous such program is called the Central Sports Club of the Army (CSKA). It employs hundreds of coaches, operates dozens of locations across Russia, and reportedly trains more than 10,000 athletes.
The club, which will soon be 100 years old, has developed so well that its members have won the most medals won by athletes from Russia at the last Summer Olympics in Tokyo 2021.
At these Games, Russian athletes competed as part of Team ROC (Russian Olympic Committee) after the national team was banned over allegations of state-sponsored doping.
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Russians took part in the Tokyo Olympics – even though their national team was banned
Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu met the military athletes at a post-competition ceremony to present them with awards and tell them to start preparing for the next Olympics.
“We have no time to waste, we have to get to work,” he said. “We will do everything to ensure that you can properly prepare for the next games.”
Another prominent sports program affiliated with the Russian military is the DOSAAF (Army, Aviation and Naval Assistance Volunteer Society), which also has its roots in the 1920s.
The Department of Defense is involved in the implementation and funding of DOSAAF and is headed by a General.
President Putin described it as a “real school of bravery” that helped train numerous military commanders, cosmonauts and pilots.
DOSAAF has also produced a number of Olympic medalists, including Vitalina Batsarashkina, the first Russian athlete to win gold at the Tokyo Olympics. She trained in the organization’s technical, military and practical sports club in Omsk, Siberia.
DOSAAF celebrated their gold medal, calling it “the highest form of patriotism”.
The Russian government’s hunger for sporting victories is perhaps best illustrated in its athlete doping program. It was discovered after the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, where Russia topped the medals tally.
In November the following year, an investigation commissioned by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) accused Russia of “widespread cheating”. It found evidence of “direct intimidation and interference by the Russian state” in laboratory operations examining samples from athletes.
In 2016, another report commissioned by Wada, known as the McLaren Report, claimed that more than 1,000 Russians – including Olympic champions – benefited from the state-sponsored doping program between 2011 and 2015.
After the revelations, Russia was banned from international competitions.
Moscow denied operating a doping system for athletes, and President Putin only admitted that “Russia’s doping control system did not work”.
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Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren made a report on Russian doping in 2016
But why is the Russian state so keen to keep winning in sport?
The popular newspaper Vedomosti argued that the Russian government wants to use sporting success to keep Russians happy and united when things aren’t going well elsewhere.
“We need victories as doping for patriotism,” it said. “Victories are part of state politics.”
But that policy backfired when the state-sponsored doping program came to light and Russia was banned from international sport.
Russia was then barred from international competitions by sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
“We are the disgraced country in the history of international sport,” says Vyacheslav Fetisov, a former famous ice hockey player, two-time Olympic champion and now a member of parliament for the ruling party United Russia.
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