The Ukrainian conflict is exported to the field of the Olympic Games. For several weeks now, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been urging Emmanuel Macron and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from participating in the Paris 2024 Games, threatening to boycott the competition. “While Russia kills and terrorizes, the representatives of this terrorist state have no place in sports and Olympic competitions”, argued Volodymyr Zelensky again during a meeting by videoconference, Friday, February 10, in the presence of ministers Sports from several countries.
A position supported by kyiv’s traditional allies such as the United Kingdom and Poland. Emmanuel Macron, who assured a few months ago, on the occasion of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, that “sport should not be politicized”, remains discreet on this issue for the time being. As president of the host country, his position is eagerly awaited. “It is in the summer that we will have a review clause and that we will assess it depending on the circumstances, and depending on what is being held on the ground”, he ended up letting go on February 9. , after having received Volodymyr Zelensky at the Elysée, the day before.
For the experts interviewed by L’Express, the French head of state and the CIO are playing the clock, faced with a “Cornelian dilemma”. “A scenario cannot be excluded, namely a defeat of Russia in the coming months, at a time when we know that Western offensive weapons, such as tanks and potentially fighter planes, will arrive, explains Lukas Aubin, research director at the Institute for International and Strategic Relations (Iris) and author of Geopolitics of Russia (The Discovery, 2022). It’s not the most credible scenario, but it’s probably what the French presidency and the IOC are betting on today. And the reason why they don’t speak out definitively.”
“Games upside down”
Emmanuel Macron can, if he wishes, put pressure on the IOC to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from the Paris Games. On the other hand, the final decision will not be up to him: only the international federations have authority in the field and will decide, sport by sport. The latter will most likely follow the recommendations of the IOC, on which they depend financially via the organization of the Games (except for certain sports such as football).
“The IOC rents the Olympic Games brand to cities which are responsible for hosting the event and organizing it. It is not the organizing countries who choose who comes or who does not come, underlines Lukas Aubin. In the past , this could have given rise to rather incongruous situations. For example, we have seen Kosovar athletes perform in Russia, while Russia does not recognize Kosovo.”
However, “the Games come under the prestige of France, its authority and its influence are at stake. Emmanuel Macron can refuse Russian and Belarusian visas and announce a position of principle, abounds Patrick Clastres, historian of Olympism and professor at the University of Lausanne. He is currently following the evolution of the liar poker game between those who want to boycott and the others. But if the war lasts, France will have to think about having only the Russians and the Belarusians, and not the Ukrainians and their supporters. Which would give the Games a little upside down.”
In recent weeks, discussions have multiplied within the sports decision-making bodies. Slowly but surely, the latter are changing their tune as the qualifying events for the Paris Games are getting closer. On February 28, 2022, a few days after Russia invaded Ukraine, the IOC broke with its sacrosanct neutrality, recommending that international federations and competition organizers not invite or allow the participation of Russian athletes. and Belarusians. The invasion took place just three days after the closing ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, breaching the Olympic Truce which extends from one week before the start of the Olympics to one week after the end of the Games Paralympics.
Avoid Compromise Charges
A year later, the body, whose headquarters are in Lausanne, changed its tone: Russian and Belarusian athletes are now invited to compete under a neutral banner on condition that they “have not actively supported the war in Ukraine”. In a letter dated January 31, the boss of the IOC, Thomas Bach, even went so far as to scold Volodymyr Zelensky. He considered “extremely regrettable” the all-out pressure from kyiv, which goes “against the fundamentals of the Olympic movement”, while no decision has yet been taken concerning the Paris Games. “And as history has shown, previous boycotts have not achieved their political goals and have only served to punish athletes” from the countries concerned, writes the German, himself deprived of the defense of his Olympic title in team foil by Berlin’s boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.
“In 2022, the IOC made this recommendation to exclude Russian athletes reluctantly, under pressure from the Scandinavian countries, Germany, the United Kingdom, or Canada, in order to avoid boycotts and tensions during sporting events”, explains Patrick Clastres, recalling on the contrary the silence of the body during the invasion of Crimea by the Kremlin before the end of the Sochi Winter Games in 2014. This rapid and clear-cut position could can also be explained by the desire to avoid new accusations of compromising the Russians, as during the Russian state doping scandal.
“Today, Thomas Bach is backpedaling because he is under new pressure from Russia, its allies, and a number of countries which are waging wars and would not like to be excluded in turn”, confides the historian. The diplomatic and economic relations of Russia are sprawling and many Russian personalities are at the head of international sports bodies. “It is not a country that is easy to dismiss out of hand, it is really an actor on which the world of Olympism rests”, summarizes Carole Gomez, assistant graduate in sociology of sport, at the University of Lausanne.
Less spectacle without the Russians
“You have to bear in mind that the IOC is a private international company that sells sports entertainment and therefore in certain disciplines, I am thinking for example of gymnastics or synchronized swimming, not having the Russians means not having of the best world champions”, abounds Sylvain Dufraisse, lecturer at the University of Nantes, historian specializing in Soviet sport. Not to mention the threats of secession from Russia, ready to organize a sports counter-alliance with allied countries. A dissidence that the IOC wishes to avoid at all costs.
The President of the Russian Olympic Committee, Stanislav Pozdnyakov, recently expressed his disagreement with the “restrictions” and “sanctions” aimed at his athletes. On Saturday February 11, it was the turn of the Russian Minister of Sports, Oleg Matytsin, to rebel in the press against the call to ban Russian sportsmen from the Paris Olympics, launched the day before by the Ukrainian president, assuring that “no one “called for the exclusion of American athletes from the 2004 Olympics after Washington’s invasion of Iraq.
The Kremlin has every interest in using sport as a bridge to the normalization of the Russian regime. The Russian authorities are thus threatening to seize the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), as the Russian Football Federation did following sanctions from Fifa (the Russian football clubs, as well as its selection, are for the moment banned until ‘on new order of international competitions).
However, “the CAS is commercial justice, arbitration can be favorable to the Russians”, considers Sylvain Dufraisse. The Olympic charter stipulates that there can be no discrimination on the basis of the athlete’s passport. The reintegration of Russian and Belarusian athletes for the competitions of the current year will thus be on the agenda of the IOC Executive Board, this Wednesday, February 15 in Lausanne.
Don’t open Pandora’s box
Seeking a compromise to avoid the boycott of the allied countries of Kiev, the Polish Minister of Sports proposed Friday to include Russian and Belarusian athletes opposed to the war in Ukraine in the refugee team for the 2024 Olympics in Paris. “A great classic” since the 1950s and the question of exiles from popular democracies during the establishment of communist regimes, according to Sylvain Dufraisse, who believes little in this option.
For historian Patrick Clastres, Thomas Bach would greatly facilitate his task if he called an extraordinary session to modify the Olympic charter: “The IOC should adopt a rule which stipulates that any country which militarily attacks another country outside international law will not be able to participate in the Olympics. A way to avoid the body to operate a geostrategic weighing at each problematic event.
Many observers emphasize the obsolescence of this charter. “There is a real point of tension between the different myths that exist in Olympism (the question of apoliticism, neutrality, the non-mixing of sport and politics) and the reality of the situation”, says Carole Gomez, referring to the increasingly frequent speeches of athletes themselves on political, environmental or social issues.
“In my opinion, we are at a tipping point. The very delicate balance that the IOC and its charter are trying to maintain is increasingly criticized and contradicted daily, she abounds. But to attest that sport is political, it is a questioning of the fundamental principles of the IOC, which can potentially put the institution in mortal danger.” A Pandora’s box that Thomas Bach wants to keep closed for as long as possible.