Athleten Germany are once again proving to be pioneers. With their demand that Russia and Belarus be consistently excluded from international sport because of the attack on Ukraine, they are ahead of associations and sport politics. On the night of Sunday, the organization, which was only founded in 2017, published a text under the photo of a waving Ukrainian flag with the headline: “Aggressive war against Ukraine: Complete exclusion of Russia and Belarus from world sport demanded”.
Russian teams and athletes are to be excluded from competitions, officials from the associations and Russian donors are to be excluded from the sport, and competitions and training camps in Russia and Belarus are to be canceled or relocated. The first of the athletes’ ten demands already goes beyond what some associations, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC), are currently willing to do: to call Putin’s war a war.
Broke the Olympic Truce
The athletes’ representatives give the reasons for the failure: “The Putin system has used sport for its own purposes for many years: International associations and clubs depend on money from Russian oligarchs and sponsors, Russian people hold influential positions in global sport. A large number of international sporting events are regularly held in Russia.”
Russia has been monopolizing sport for its political goals and has been damaging the integrity of sport for years, writes Athlete Germany. Athletes are used to produce sporting successes as a sign of national strength and superiority – in violation of human and children’s rights and the use of a state-orchestrated doping system.
Mo. – Fr. at 4 p.m.; Sa. – So. at 6 p.m.
SIGN IN
As in 2008 and 2014, Putin has now broken the Olympic Truce for the third time, thereby trampling on the values of sport – peace, non-discrimination, human dignity and international understanding. This could no longer remain without far-reaching consequences. In the long term, therefore, the targeted Russian appropriation of international sport must be addressed and defensive measures against sports washing, the inadmissible appropriation of values associated with sport, should be developed.
Athletes Germany has 1,400 members, all of whom must be or must have been members of a national or Olympic team. Last year, beach volleyball player Karla Borger took over the presidency from fencer Max Hartung. The organization is headed by former basketball pro Johannes Herber as managing director at its headquarters in Berlin. Maximilian Klein is officially responsible for international sports policy. As a former political advisor in Berlin and current Masters student at Harvard, he is responsible for the most ambitious projects. The Center for Safe Sport, the realization of which the governing parties promise in the coalition agreement, goes back to a draft by Klein. These demands associated with an analysis also bear his signature.
Athletes’ demands also include the provision of support and assistance to Ukrainian athletes and their coaches and coaches. And even for the athletes, for whom they are currently demanding a ban on starting, the athletes from Germany show compassion. “It is with a heavy heart that we are aware that such measures will also affect Russian and Belarusian athletes,” they write: “The Russian war of aggression leaves no other choice but for sanctions to harm innocent third parties.” That is why they are calling for the ban only for the duration of the aggressive war. After that they should be allowed to start under a neutral flag.
However, the list of demands is also very strict. The complete exclusion of Russian and Belarusian federations from the international sports federation system should also include the National Olympic and Paralympic Committees of Russia and Belarus. The damage caused by the unilateral severing of relations with Russian sponsors and other donors should be “cushioned” by the IOC with bridging payments. Relevant donors and officials should be included on government sanctions lists. German officials in national and international organizations are being asked to use their influence to achieve rapid and complete isolation of Russia and Belarus. The demand is formulated so extensively that it could also apply to the most powerful sports official in the world, IOC President Thomas Bach.
