There should be no room for Russia in international sport

Sport has an uneasy relationship with politics. Those who run international sport live in a bubble in which they convince themselves that sport stands above conflict, tyranny and appalling human rights abuses. On the one hand, they refuse to acknowledge a connection between sport and politics but in the next breath they spout pious nonsense about being able to build bridges and promote peace: that’s called politics. They cannot have it both ways.

Since Russia’s brutal assault on Ukraine most major sports have banned Russian and Belarusian athletes and teams from international competition. The outlier has been tennis which continues to allow them to compete, although British tournaments, including Wimbledon, banned them last year but are now under enormous pressure to let them in. I hope they stand firm in the face of the threats to strip British tournaments of their status.

Why does this matter?

It matters to us because it matters to the Russians. Sporting sanctions related to geo-political issues only work if sport is important to the regimes you are targeting. This is why the isolation of South Africa during the apartheid era was important and effective – because sport was such an important part of Afrikaner culture.

Similarly with Russia. We know how important sporting achievement on the international stage is to Russia. They have been serial cheats for generations and are already suspended from many sports because of a government-backed doping programme. Winning is everything to them, no matter the means by which they achieve it. Every victory will be cheered in the Kremlin and ruthlessly exploited as propaganda.

Fencing lines up with tennis as a Russian ally
With the next Olympics due to take place in Paris next summer, the International Olympic Committee is suggesting it will allow Russia and Belarus to compete. Russia is working hard to build momentum towards persuading the IOC to capitulate and let them in. This week, it persuaded the International Fencing Federation to let them back in despite desperate Ukrainian pleas not to do so. Perhaps it is not surprising that fencing should join tennis as a sporting pariah as it has been bankrolled by Russian money for years. It reluctantly parted company with its president, the widely sanctioned Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, when the war broke out last year.

There will be those who say a boycott punishes individuals, not nations. This is a flimsy argument at best as most of the Russians who compete at international level have been generously supported by the Russian government, often to the extent of willingly using illegal methods to boost performance. Many are members of the Russian military.

Compare that to Ukraine where Russia has destroyed endless sporting facilities and where training is impossible. Where do the rights of the hundreds of Ukrainian athletes who have died or been injured courageously defending their country sit in this debate?

Neutrality is meaningless in this conflict
There will be talk of allowing Russians to compete under a neutral, white flag. Tennis has indulged in this pretence but saw it exposed for the deceit it is at the Australian Open when Russian spectators displayed Russian flags with the now sinister Z emblem.

Neutrality is not a defensible stance in the face of tyranny and brutish unhumanity. It is often a sham, hypocritical at best, deceitful at worst. Switzerland – ironically where the International Fencing Federation and many international sporting organisations are based – has practised this hypocrisy for years. It pleads neutrality, yet it hid the plunder of Nazis for generations and now does the same for Russian oligarchs. That is lining up on the side of evil, not neutrality.

The white flag is also the flag of surrender: surrender of principles, surrender of integrity and surrender to tyranny.

Olympics: Russia or Ukraine
The focus will soon switch to the Olympics, raising the prospect of boycotts.

Ukraine has already said it will not go to Paris if the Russians are allowed in. Nobody can blame them. You cannot ask Ukrainians to compete against Russians. Admitting Russians would mean effectively banning Ukraine from the Olympics. If those Russians who really decry the Russian regime and its brutal war want to compete they can renounce their Russian cititzenship and ask to compete for another country.

If Russia is in and Ukraine is out, we have a simple question to answer: whose side are we on? Do we stand with Ukraine or do we stand with Russia? There is no middle ground. To send GBR teams to an Olympics with Russia represented and Ukraine absent would be a betrayal of Ukraine and its people.

Slava Ukraini