OLYMPIC BUSINESS AS USUAL

Cole: IOC caves on Russian ban

For all its championing of “higher, faster stronger,” the one comparative that few have had occasion to attach to the International Olympic Committee is “braver.”

Rooted as it is in old world bluebloods and augmented by former sportsmen and women co-opted to further the mythology, the membership of the IOC has whistled past many a graveyard over the years in order to maintain the franchise’s iconic status.

Sunday, it whistled past Russia and Vladimir Putin, and his twisted ministry of sport and his government-corrupted dope testers — giving new meaning to the term “laboratory rats” — and his sample-switching spy agency and his master plan to make world athletic dominance, by whatever means, an extension of his state’s arrogant trampling of all opposition in the political arena.

COLE

In the end, the IOC caved, as it always does, defaulting to whatever compromise it could safely adopt without offending a superpower.

The executive board voted against a blanket ban of Russia from the Rio Olympics, instead leaving the issue of sanctions against Russian athletes up to the individual sports’ federations.

Track and field has already tossed the Russians. Other sports are to evaluate on a case-by-case basis, but if history teaches us anything, it is that no sport’s administration will ever look very hard to find evidence against a star player. Business comes first.

In evaluating Russian athletes who petition to compete, said the IOC statement, “the (federations) should carry out an individual analysis of each athlete’s anti-doping record, taking into account only reliable adequate international tests, and the specificities of the athlete’s sport and its rules, in order to ensure a level playing field.”

There is a fairly significant list of federations that have a terrible record of catching and enforcing bans on dopers, by the way.

The IOC had a chance here to go beyond the vested interests of the individual federations and make a bold statement against statesponsored cheating, but when push came to shove, it shied away.

Maybe the board members were reminded of the secrets buried in the IOC’s own shameful file — acting surprised when East Germany’s State Plan 14.25, the Stasi-monitored steroid programs of the 1970s, was revealed; looking the other way on the United States’ coverup of positive tests prior to the Seoul Olympics; inaction on China’s systemic doping transgressions — and decided it was a little late to take a holier-than-thou stance just because this time, it was the defiant Russians doing the lying and cheating.

Thomas Bach, the IOC president and theoretically its leader, had a chance to grow a conscience and stand up to a bully that evidently has none. He punted. The great compromiser this time compromised the values of Olympism.

Yes, a blanket ban would have meant throwing the baby out with the bathwater, punishing those Russian athletes who compete clean, as if we could trust in their cleanliness. But representing, as they do, an athletic system built on deception and lies, those who compete in Rio will never be free of the taint, anyway.

No Russian medallist will be celebrated in Brazil for his or her excellence without an accompanying rolling of the eyes by the viewer, unless that viewer is living in Putin’s carefully crafted “us against the world” environment, in which everyone else is just jealous, making up lies about the Russians because they are too powerful.

The extent of the IOC’s tough stance against doping on Sunday was to refuse to allow any Russian athlete ever guilty of a doping violation — whether or not the athlete had served his or her suspension — to compete in Rio.

The decision of what do about Russian athletes came down to a vote by an executive board, and notably a president, Bach, whose bread is buttered by hobnobbing with the Vladimir Putins of the world.

Banning a corrupt sports system, when that system puts money and plenty of it in the IOC’s coffers, was always a long shot.