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I applaud the French Government on its delivery of a fabulous Olympiad in Paris and wish the athletes and organisers success in the Paralympics that kick off today. I have but one criticism. In 2021, the Olympic motto ‘faster, higher, stronger’ was changed with the addition of one word – ‘together’. Excluding Russia from Paris 2024 eroded the sense of togetherness. It also breached the noble Olympic ideal of keeping sport and culture out of politics.
Banning Russia from the Olympics won’t turn Russian people against Vladimir Putin; he remains as strong as ever, two and a half years into a grinding war in Ukraine. The ordinary Russians that I came to know when I served at the British Embassy in Moscow loved sports, the opportunity to meet and compete with people from different countries, and welcomed me as an equal. A ban merely confirms to them what Putin has been saying for many years, that the west is intent on Russia’s isolation and destruction. It increases the sense of resentment towards the west, which is helping to replenish the Russian military with new recruits.
Banning Russia from sport won’t end this needless war in Ukraine. Rather, it will elevate Russia’s determination not to give ground. The US and UK governments in particular need to depart from using sport and culture as a diplomatic tool to isolate Russia and get back the tough diplomacy of negotiating a resolution to the huge challenges and dangers we face through confrontation.
It's worth recalling that the origins of an Olympic Truce go back to Ancient Greece, with warring countries setting aside their weapons to compete with their skills and abilities. It evokes remembrance of British and German troops laying down arms late on Christmas Eve 1914 to exchange gifts, play football, and recover casualties.
With the exception of pauses to the Olympic Games during World Wars I and II, Olympiads have taken place every four years since 1896. Over that period, the world has seen hundreds of conflicts, uprisings, wars and genocides. Since 1945, there have been inter alia devastating wars in China, Korea, Vietnam, Greece, Israel, India, Pakistan, the Falklands, the Balkans, terrible genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda, and two wars led by a US coalition in Iraq, the second of which many in Britain consider to have been illegal.
Yet, the banning of countries from sport has been extremely rare. Germany, Hungary, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey were banned temporarily from the Olympics after World War I and Germany and Japan were banned from the 1948 Olympics.
Russia (with Belarus) is the only country ever to have been banned for its role in a regional conflict, making it the exception to the rule.
Yes, Russia’s invasion on 24 February 2022 breached the notion of an Olympic Truce. However, that doesn’t explain why Russia was excluded from competing in Paris more than two years later. During the Paris games, Israel’s offensive in Gaza continued which to date has killed, according to the United Nations, over twenty five thousand innocent civilians including children; calls for Israel to be banned from Paris were brushed off. There have never been calls for the US or UK to be banned for their role in overseas military adventures.
Since the onset of the Ukraine crisis, there has been a concerted – and highly successful – effort by the US-led west to edge Russia out of all global events in a massive, and in my view, disproportionate politicisation of sport and culture. No more Football World Cup, Formula One, World Athletics, and for a brief period, Tennis. Russians can’t sing in Eurovision or go to their local parks to compete in a Saturday morning 5k Parkrun.
All of this departs from the very point of the Olympic games and wider international events; to bring people together in a spirit of solidarity, non-discrimination and peace.
In an interview in 2020, IOC Chair Thomas Bach reflected on the sense of powerlessness individual athletes felt as western governments applied pressure for a ban on attendance at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He spoke about why this drove him to join the West German National Olympic Committee, ‘to give all the clean athletes of the world chance to compete in Olympic Games’.
He said, ‘anybody who is thinking about a boycott should learn this lesson from history; a sports boycott serves nothing. It’s only hurting the athletes, and it’s hurting the population of the country because they are losing the joy to share, the pride, the success, with their Olympic team.’
I hope that when Los Angeles lays out the red carpet in 2028, we will see a return to the Olympic ideal of putting aside our weapons so that every country can compete.
This article repeats and adds to a piece I recently posted on the Strategic Culture Foundation Website.
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