Deutsche Welle (English edition)
Olympic Games: After doping scandal, Russian athletes take Tchaikovsky to Tokyo
The Olympic Games in Tokyo will be a new experience for Russian athletes competing under a neutral flag. The country's doping scandal has cast a shadow over their preparations – and will continue to do so in Japan.
No national anthem, no national flag, not even the famous image of a bear on the costumes of the synchronized swimming team: such is the reality for Russian athletes traveling to the Olympic Games in Tokyo this month.
Until December 16, 2022, Russian sportsmen and women must compete in international competitions under a neutral flag, according to the sentence handed down by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in December 2019 for the manipulation of doping data.
Russian athletes permitted to compete at the Games in Tokyo will instead compete as part of team "ROC" – Russian Olympic Committee – under a flag with a torch and three flames in the colors white, blue and red, the colors of the Russian flag, plus the five Olympic rings.
"Despite our neutral status and the difficult preparation due to the pandemic, we're optimistic and traveling to Tokyo in good spirits," says Shamil Tarpishchev, president of the
Russian Tennis Federation and member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
The team's neutral status has been the subject of much discussion in Russia, where the country's sporting bodies have frequently referred to Rule 6.1 of the Olympic Charter which states that "the Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual or team events and not between countries," in order to calm unrest. The Russian athletes in Tokyo will feel the impact of that rule more than most.
No flag, no anthem – but at least some Tchaikovsky
"It's psychologically difficult to compete at big events like the Olympics without your country's symbols," says Sergey Shavlo, a former Spartak Moscow footballer who won bronze with the Soviet Union national team at the 1980 Olympics in Moscow. "For
me, it was always special to hear the anthem of the USSR before games."
Elena Vaytsekhovskaya, on the other hand, doesn't think it's that bad. The former Soviet Olympic diver, who won gold in Montreal in 1976, tells DW: "Athletes train for four years, indeed their whole lives, to perform at their best at such a huge sporting event. For them, it's not a big deal whether they see a flag or hear an anthem or not. They're focussing on their own performance."
And anyway, adds the 63year-old, it's not as if everyone doesn't know which country the "neutral" athletes are representing.
Still, team "ROC" will not be completely without musical accompaniment. At the opening ceremony, they will enter the stadium to an excerpt from Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 after the IOC granted a request from the Figure Skating Federation of Russia.
Doping: zero tolerance
Inevitably, however, the Russian athletes will also be accompanied by the shadow of their country's doping scandal. Russia wasfound guilty of manipulating doping data in December 2019 and its athletes are now paying the price – not that one would know by reading or listening to Russian media, where the whole affair has been quietly brushed under the carpet.
Instead, column inches are dedicated to COVID-19, vaccinations, tests and the general health and wellbeing of the Russian athletes.
Asked at the end of June whether there could be more doping problems as a result of the lack of tests during the pandemic, the President of the Russian Olympic Committee (OKR), Stanislav Pozdnyakov, told DW he was confident that that won't be the case.
"It's true that it was almost impossible to test athletes at the height of the pandemic, but RUSADA [the Russian AntiDoping Agency] has been working closely with WADA [the World Anti-Doping Agency] since autumn 2020 and we are hopeful that there will be no cases of doping in Tokyo," said the four
time Olympic fencing champion (1992-2000).
"We want to prove our zerotolerance stance when it comes to the use of banned substances," he added.
Previously, Pozdnyakov had addressed young Russian athletes, making it clear to them that "the doping control officer is not the enemy! They are just as much a part of the Olympic Games as everyone else."
But not everybody has received the message. Only recently, rowers Nikita Morgachyov and Pavel Sorin were withdrawn from the Olympic team following positive doping tests. Pozdnyakov was visibly irritated and said he was grateful that RUSADA was "dealing with the alleged problems with banned substances and taking the relevant measures."
Difficult decisions in athletics
The situation for Russian track and field athletes has been