In 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) made an unprecedented move. They banned athletes from the Russian Federation from participating in Olympic competitions for four years. This verdict was the culmination of a scandalizing investigation that determined Russian athletes in more than 30 different sports had benefited from a state-sanctioned doping program. They also stripped 50 medals from various athletes participating in this scheme.
Originally, Russia was not supposed to set foot into an Olympic competition until 2024. However, the nation appealed against the WADA decision and won a sort of loophole. While the athletes couldn’t compete for the Russian Federation they could compete as part of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC). The ROC had its own flag and its anthem (Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s “Piano Concerto No. 1”), but at the end of the day, it allowed Russian Olympians to play in Russian colors. The ROC particiapted in the 2021 and 2022 Olympics.
However, the situation changed once again following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) prohibited Russian and Belorussian teams, as an extension of international sanctions against those countries for their part in the ongoing invasion. The IOC did make provision for athletes from those countries to participate as “Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs).”
AINs play under a strictly neutral banner, with a strictly neutral anthem for awards ceremonies. Gone is the thin veneer of the ROC.
Russia’s response to this appears to have been to make their own “Olympics”—called the 2024 World Friendship Games. According to a report from the Russian agency TASS, 5,500 people are expected to participate in the Games, which will offer prize money comprising a total purse of 4.6 billion rubles (52,000 USD). Of course, the IOC denounced the so-called World Friendship Games as a “blatant violation of the Olympic Charter” and “purely politically motivated” move.
Time will tell if this freezes over into a new cold war in the sports world. Will Russia successfully set up a parallel international game in opposition to the Olympics? Or will this prove to be merely a hollow, cynical gesture?
