Sergei Bubka’s plan was to take the International Athletics Federation under his iron grip. Thank God this never came true, writes Pekka Holopainen.
Pekka Holopainen Sports journalist
On average, a person is held accountable much more often for what he has said than for what he has left unsaid.
Ukrainian high jump legend, world champion Bogdan Bondarenko told though to the one who signed at the beginning of March 2022 that he had been waiting a lot for a certain countryman to open his mouth and say something.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine had begun about a week before, and the sports heroes of the country that had fought a desperate defensive battle Klitschko boxing brothers Vitaly and Vladimir had already become symbols of the will to defend the country.
But on the other hand, nothing was heard from the direction of the big man who left the pole vault set to 605 centimeters or higher 23 times. A six-time world champion Sergei Bubkan low-profile activity was interpreted in Ukraine in a merciless way.
The man sniffed cynically and calculatingly the winds of war. The Ukrainian patriot in him emerged again when he had decided that he would not even see the Russian victory parade in Kiev.
Bubka, who comes from the heavily Russian-speaking and partly pro-Russian region of eastern Luhansk, is now paying a heavy price for his slyness in the early days of the war and his business with Russia. He is a man who has lost his reputation and is tied to the stake.
History in Kuortane
Bubka, who won the World Championship gold at the World Championships in Helsinki in 1983 when he was only 19 years old, is the only all-around athlete in field sports who has achieved six World Championship golds. Even from 605 or higher no less than 26 times gone Armand Duplantis was not yet a world champion at such a young age.
In 1994, Bubka wasn’t interested in the European Championships held in Helsinki without a prize money, but instead arrived in Kuortane in June. The starting money was the biggest in Finland until then, but Bubka gave it value by jumping more than six meters for the first time in the Finnish chamber.
Bubka probably also thought about money at the turn of February-March 2022, but this time it had a price.
There was one very interesting piece of news from the congress of World Athletics, the international umbrella organization, held before the World Championships in Budapest: the organization’s vice-president Sergei Bubka would withdraw immediately from all his positions of trust after 22 years since the beginning.
With Bubka, he has had an impact in the same WA government cabinets for a long time Antti Pihlakoski could have told you this big news already last winter.
My union refused
At that time, the Ukrainian Athletics Federation announced that it would no longer offer Bubka the next season in any positions at World Athletics. The reason doesn’t have to be guessed for a long time: Bubka is said to have, among other things, been caught in the fuel business with the Russians in the areas of Eastern Ukraine occupied by them. Someone would come up with other names for this kind of activity than “fuel store”.
President Vladimir Putin Bubka, who is known as a friend, is still sitting as Ukraine’s representative in the International Olympic Committee, but this stage too will probably be at the IOC Congress held in connection with the Paris Olympic Games on the eve of 2024.
When Bubka’s morals have been very critically evaluated in his home country for a year and a half, it is also worth remembering the presidential election of the International Association of Athletics Federations in 2015. Bubka and the mailer legend faced each other Sebastian Coe. The previous management of the association had just been revealed to be corrupt to the core, including anti-doping activities.
Coe won the election with 23 votes. Under British leadership, the union has been healed and cleansed in many and hard ways.
If the result had been different, it should be clear that Sergei Bubka would have rolled out the red carpet for Russia and Belarus in Budapest and done everything he could to ensure that these countries would participate in the track and field events in Paris next year.
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