On Thursday it became known that the board of the World Athletics Association (World Athletics) restored the full-fledged status of the All-Russian Federation of Athletics (VFLA), which it was deprived of in November 2015 due to doping scandals. But in parallel, he also extended for the foreseeable future the removal of athletes from Russia and Belarus from international tournaments under his auspices, and this means that at the moment the path to the 2024 Olympics is closed for athletes from these countries.
A correspondent talks about why World Athletics goes against the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which recommended in January that Russians and Belarusians be allowed to remain neutral, and whether we can do something about it.
Thursday's news — exactly like in the song of Leonid Utyosov. The doping issue in Russian athletics is completely closed. ARAF is no longer a rogue federation. She can again hold international tournaments. Russian track and field athletes no longer need to apply for neutral status, which they have been doing for the past seven years.
The concept of the «Russian team in athletics» will again become real — the team will no longer consist only of those who were lucky enough to receive a neutral status from World Athletics, and the Russian championship will once again become a truly qualifying one.
There are, of course, some strict words in the decision of the World Athletics Council. Thus, the ARAF will have to comply with «35 special conditions» for its functioning for three years. Our federation will be determined in category A, where an increased number of doping tests is required. All oversight costs from World Athletics and the Athletics Integrity Unit will be borne by the ARAF, which is kind of funny — we paid the international athletics authorities millions of dollars and they won't get off our money. But in general, the above are trifles. Are you all right, fair marquise?
No, alas. The doping issue is closed — but the political one is not. The World Athletics Council has extended for the foreseeable future the suspension of Russian and Belarusian athletes from international World Athletics Series tournaments in any status due to the events in Ukraine. Important clarification: no, this is not a suspension from all tournaments en masse. World Athletics is responsible for world championships in various age categories and cannot directly influence commercial starts. But in the decision of the council there is a recommendation to the organizers of the Diamond League, the Continental Tour and other competitions to follow the same approach.
Most of them, no doubt, will make the same decision. Those who do not accept, theoretically can accept Russians, but in practice they will not do this, so as not to tease the geese, as they say. Unless they will accept applications from runners from Russia for mass international marathons — there are not so many of them now, for logistical reasons, and among the tens of thousands of participants, ours still don’t particularly flicker. And they don't compete with Africans for top prizes.
But the main thing that World Athletics President Sebastian Coe has already confirmed is that while the suspension of Russian and Belarusian athletes is in effect, they cannot participate in qualifying for the Olympic Games in Paris. And this is a total contradiction of the position of the IOC and a number of other international organizations, including the Special Rapporteur of the UN Council on Human Rights in the field of cultural rights, according to which the removal of athletes based on nationality is discrimination.
Of course, Coe was asked at a press conference on Thursday — how does the decision of the World Athletics Council on the issue of Russians and Belarusians correlate with the position of the IOC, which was repeatedly voiced by the organization's president Thomas Bach and which was reinforced by a special decision at the Olympic summit? «The right to decide on admission belongs to international sports federations, this was determined by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and the IOC agreed with this. We determine who can be admitted to World Athletics tournaments. We have decided not to allow Russians and Belarusians in the near future,» said without a tremor in his voice, IOC member Kou.
Why isn't Kou afraid to go against his boss? There may be various reasons for this. For example, this: the hypocrisy of Bach, when he spoke about «protective measures», calling them recommendations on the suspension of Russian and Belarusian athletes a year ago, was so obvious that now his position on the inadmissibility of discrimination is simply not taken seriously. Yes, Bach wants to correct his mistake by returning Russia and Belarus to the international sports arena, even if in a neutral status. But when you try to sit on two chairs, there is a chance of falling from both. So, roughly speaking, the president of World Athletics and a member of the IOC, Sebastian Coe, puts it on the head of the IOC with the device. With all the rejection of the radical position of the Briton, it is worth recognizing: at least he does not rotate like a weather vane.
But the reasons for this position of Coe, of course, are not as important now as the participation of Russian athletes in the Paris Olympics. Yes, the IOC has the right to give a wild card to individual athletes, that is, for example, to invite Olympic champion Maria Lasitskene to perform without the sanction of World Athletics. But we emphasize once again: while the suspension of Russians for political reasons is in effect, they cannot qualify for the 2024 Games. Yes, in the near future World Athletics will create a working group that will determine the conditions for their return. But there is a feeling that nothing good will be contained in them. Even if the IOC executive committee finally withdraws its recommendation to exclude Russians and Belarusians next week, the World Athletics Association will almost 100% not follow suit.
The head of the Russian Ski Racing Federation, Elena Vyalbe, recently said that the International Ski Federation offered to return our people on the condition that they condemn a special military operation. World Athletics in its own terms, for example, may prescribe the same requirement. Or even more so: just to state that the suspension is valid until the end of the CBO, as the European Athletics Association did a week ago. There are many options, and they are all pessimistic.
But does this mean that the Russian sports authorities should give up? In no case. There is an important precedent: having come into conflict with the International Boxing Association, headed by Umar Kremlev, the IOC deprived it of the right to conduct selection for the Olympic Games and the tournament itself. The reasons for the conflict there are completely different, but the decision of the IOC in relation to World Athletics may be exactly the same — to select the Olympic athletics tournament if Coe and his henchmen continue the hard line of discrimination against Russian athletes. the creation of a World Athletics working group, which will formulate the conditions for the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes, but almost certainly they will be hardly feasible, so the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) needs to prepare to fight for ours in court right now. Qualification for the Paris Olympics will last until July 2024, there is still time, but it is better not to waste it.