Opposing view: Banning entire Russia team is bad politics

Last week, the International Olympic Committee announced that Russia would be banned from fielding a national team at the Winter Olympics in South Korea in 2018.

No one who has watched the fascinating documentary Icarus can have any doubt that Russia cheated at the Sochi Winter Olympics in 2014 to ensure that Russia topped the medals table. In the film, Dr. Grigory Rodchenko, the former head of the Russian testing laboratory, explains how clean urine samples were switched through the famous “hole in the wall” to enable Russian athletes to pass the drug tests.

However, is banning Russia the most appropriate response? One can understand why the IOC wants to demonstratively punish Moscow. For years, officials sat on their hands while reports of Russian doping trickled in. But when presented with incontrovertible evidence from Dr. Rodchenko, the IOC was forced to act or face a total collapse in credibility. However, the IOC does not have to deal with the political ramifications of its decision.

The problem is that banning Russia plays right into the narrative that the Kremlin has been pushing since 2012 — that Russia is an embattled fortress, surrounded by enemies out to destroy her. Humiliating Russia and painting it as a rogue nation will strengthen the hand of the war party in the Kremlin, already in the ascendant due to the perceived “success” of its aggressive strategy in Ukraine and Syria.

Another cycle of diplomatic feuding will drive Russia into even greater political and economic dependence on China — something that is not good for Russia and not good for the West, either.

The answer to the problem of pervasive doping lies in improved testing and monitoring, and not in grand political gestures. Banning individuals involved in the doping scandal, including former sport minister Vitaly Mutko, makes sense, but not the unprecedented collective punishment of barring the entire national team.