The Games Putin Plays - Business As Usual... What 'Sports Neutrality' Really Looks Like
In Budapest last week 'neutral teams' claimed swimming world titles and records. How? And will they be honoured by the Kremlin just as 'neutral' Russian Paralympians were when Vlad and visitors stuck a finger up at Ukraine and international sports authorities? An Editorial on 'neutrality'...
Planet Swimming and a few ripples beyond it will have noticed that the relay races at World Short-Course Championships in Budapest last week included 'neutral' relay quartets that claimed global titles and set World and European records.
At best, it was deeply uncomfortable to witness the imbalance and harm unfolding as a 'success' story ' propped up by propaganda and the wilful blindness of sports governors in the Olympic movement.
At worst, the presence of close to 30 Russians - yes, you can call them Neutral Athletes B team but we all know the truth - at a championship with just six Ukrainians, represented an excoriating injustice with direct links to the world of sport.
Regardless of whether you feel sorry for Russian athletes (caveat emptor on the type of sympathy that fails to recognise itself as a shadow of the propaganda that lives and breathes), through an obvious prism and perspective, Olympic sports' deliberate delusion stretches to a giant finger up at Ukraine and its athletes, many believe.
And no, they don't have to be Ukrainian: replace sympathy with empathy and it isn't hard to understand that sport cannot avoid one party or another being deprived and damaged. The question for sports governors is clear: why does it have to be the victim who is made a victim all over again?
How so? Well, in that count of Russians vs Ukrainians, there are six golds and four silvers, 1 World, 2 World Junior and 2 European records. All Russian and not a single one of them 'neutral' to Ukrainians who emerged from Putin-friendly Budapest with... nothing.
Those Russians can now expect a call from the Kremlin to pop into for tea and a hand shake and snap with Vlad, if these images highlighted by Ukrainians are anything to go by:
On December 16, neutral russian paralympic medalists took part in a propaganda event together with Putin.
— Base of Ukrainian sports 🇺🇦 | Olympics (@Ukrsportbase) December 16, 2024
They received state awards from the hands of Putin. pic.twitter.com/sTpfx9ZRBZ
Discernment cuts to the chase: neutrality is treated as a uniform concept by leaders at World Aquatics who thought it a good idea to have 28 Russian swimmers on the entry list for Budapest, the new home of political headquarters in a decision that can definitely be seen to have included at least a hefty slug of politics in a mix you'd have to shake, prod and run through lab tests to see if there's any athlete/employee/integrity interest in there somewhere.
