Comment on the CAS decision: punch lines for Putin

DOh, there will be Russian athletes: Next summer in Tokyo at the Summer Olympics, provided the pandemic allows it to be held. At the winter games in Beijing a few months later, in February 2022. And, if you qualify, at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. But they are not allowed to start for Russia.

No anthem, no flag, every Russian athlete who is not proven to have been part of the state doping system has to start at the most important sporting events in the world, explicitly marked as a neutral athlete. And representatives of the Russian Federation, from Putin down, have formally banned the Olympic Games. That was decided by the three referees of the International Sports Arbitration Court Cas, in their 186-page verdict on Russian doping fraud. And have thus halved the four-year sentence provided for by the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) for the waiver of the flag and anthem.

The referees were even more lenient in other details. Wada had decided that Russia should be explicitly excluded from hosting the Olympic Games up to and including 2032. The ruling on Thursday said that until December 16, 2022, Russia would not be allowed to compete for the Olympic Games and World Championships and would not be awarded such an event.

Why? There is currently no answer to this question, it may never be. Because: The hearing in November was not public, the 186-page decision, according to Thursday’s announcement, “could be published after consultation with the parties”. No wonder that Jim Walden, lawyer for the former Moscow laboratory manager, doping architect and key witness Grigory Rodchenkov, who lives in the American witness protection department, speaks of “nonsense” after the announcement of the decision. “An already restricted suspension was only upheld in name,” writes Walden – and is right. A number of athletes’ organizations and national anti-doping organizations wanted to be excluded from the continued fraud until January 2019 without any ifs or buts.

Who should convince that the national soccer team will play the European Championship next summer in Saint Petersburg, if Corona allows it, then kick their way through the qualification for the World Cup in Qatar to slip into penitent clothes shortly before the sentence expires in the emirate ? The EM, which is spread over the whole continent because it was not a single organizer because of its size, followed by billions worldwide, is not a major sporting event according to Wada or Cas diction. A special punch line would be if the neutral kickers of Russian origin reached the final in Qatar, which will be played on December 18, 2022. Russia would be back in the game.

The sanctions, it is said by the Cas, reflected the nature and seriousness of the violations and were pronounced in order to “maintain the integrity of sport against the scourge of doping”. The reduction of the sentence should not be seen as a validation of Russian behavior, it is about proportionality and about bringing about a cultural change, “to encourage the next generation of Russian athletes to participate in clean international sporting events”. In view of the control system that was shut down in the pandemic, that is a very special punchline by the referees.