Game of the Untouchables: why the return of Russian sports will not be instant

This week, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) and the Appeals Tribunal of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation issued similar verdicts outlawing a total ban on the participation of Russian and Belarusian masters of table tennis and two winter sports in international competitions. Izvestia tells us how great the weight and significance of these decisions are.

Trial and gossip

As with any news story that claims to have a public response, this one has both positive and negative sides. There are already opinions from those who consider the decisions of various judicial instances that recognized the illegal and discriminatory nature of the suspension of Russian and Belarusian masters in three sports to be almost a breakthrough in the issue of athletes' participation in competitions, primarily in the Olympic Games in Milan—2026 and Los Angeles-2028.

But there are also those who reacted skeptically to these facts: so far, these verdicts do not carry anything but declarations. Both are right, but in order to understand the issue, it is necessary not only to know the entire decision-making system in international sports, but also to understand the trends according to which these decisions are made.

The space of nuances

Technically, to participate in the Winter Games in Milan, which are six months away, you need to qualify for the World Cup or similar competitions. To get to them, you need not only to receive an invitation from the organizers and the admission of the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation — IBSF, not only to show the relevant results there, but also simply to get a visa. At any of these steps, Russian athletes can be "stopped", or even prevented from competing for any reason, even upon arrival abroad, as was the case with our wrestlers at the World Championships in Croatia. Greco-Roman wrestler Emin Sefershayev lost his Schengen visa, spent more than seven hours in police custody on trumped-up charges and left the country under threat of deportation. The reigning world champion and leader of the Russian national team, Abdulrashid Sadulaev, was denied entry to the country, and members of the Russian national team, Zaurbek Sidakov, Ahmed Usmanov and Abdulla Kurbanov, were detained at Zagreb airport for five hours without explanation.

A similar story happened in Finland: the authorities announced that even if the Ski Federation decides to admit Russians, they will be barred from entering the country due to the current ban for all. And finally: a few days later, fearing its own speed, the IBSF Appeals Tribunal rejected the request of the Russian Bobsleigh Federation for the immediate admission of its athletes to participate in any IBSF competitions. So the legal recognition of an illegal ban does not mean that it is physically possible to speak.

In addition, the neutral status that legally puts our athletes in a humiliating and unjustifiable position has not gone away. Leaving aside the absurdity of the punishment itself, we note the striking duplicity of even the new decisions taken: banning performances altogether is a "violation of political neutrality" and discrimination, while one can only perform in a neutral status, without national uniforms, flags and anthems, and for some reason this is not considered discrimination.

About the IOC

These court decisions are indirectly related to the Olympics itself. Access to the Games is possible only at the invitation of the IOC, whose position, as it has become clear over the past three years, does not depend on legal decisions, but depends only on the political situation. And in this regard, nothing has changed since 2022. As has been said many times, sport is completely dominated by geopolitics. Decisions on Russian and Belarusian sports were made outside the framework of any laws, have no adequate legal justification, contradict the Olympic Charter and common sense - simply because they were made not in Lausanne, but in Brussels and Washington, they were made not by lawyers, but by politicians, and not in 2022, but back in 2014. Unprecedented political and informational pressure was exerted on Russia for two consecutive Olympic cycles, and only then, after the start of the IOC, most international sports (and not only) organizations, led by the IOC, synchronously "saluted."

Meanwhile, the athletes themselves remain in the hostage situation. No one asks them, no one is interested in their careers, and this alone puts a fat cross on the made-up mantra about "sports outside politics." They can only train and wait to be "called".

At the same time, a half-hearted decision can be considered a victory only because there have been no other decisions of this kind yet. Nevertheless, it is a victory, because in the legal field, within the framework of existing laws and in the process of courts of Western jurisdiction, more and more often our opponents themselves disavow their own laws, which sooner or later will lead to a big victory.

Against all the existing negative factors, there is one visible plus, whose name is relentlessness. Precisely because sport has never existed outside of politics, these, in general, small and pinpoint decisions in not the most influential and popular sports create, no, not a precedent (the laws created for the IOC and its subordinate federations have long been violated by them). They create an unambiguous political trend, the causes of which lie completely outside the field of sports, which is already obvious and irreversible for many.

Finally, it is well known that in order to win the process, even if the requirements are absolutely correct and legitimate, in addition to qualifications, patience is necessary. Especially when the fate of Russian athletes, as well as the whole country, is essentially decided not in Lausanne, but in Novorossiya.