SThe Fencing Federation of Russia lists fifty-six member organizations on its website. Among them: the Republic of Crimea, the city of Sevastopol, the People’s Republic of Luhansk and the People’s Republic of Donetsk – Ukrainian territory occupied by the Russian army, annexed by the Russian state in violation of international law.
The people who stayed there, held a referendum with the muzzle of a gun to their heads and were given Russian passports, should certainly have other concerns than whether, if they played sports, they would be attributed to Russian organizations or not. They are threatened with murder and manslaughter, torture, rape and kidnapping.
Fencing is making political headlines right now. Against the will of the European federation and to the surprise of its athletes, the world association FIE has separated the Olympic qualification from the European Games in Kraków and scheduled an independent European Championship in Plovdiv at short notice. The only goal of the operation: to pave the way for Russian fencers to the Olympic Games in Paris 2024. Thomas Bach, the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), subscribes to the idea that there are athletes in Russia who are not involved in Putin’s murderous regime and who are in all innocence and without the trappings of the warmongering at the Olympics should attend.
It is impossible that the former fencer Bach, lawyer and power man, does not recognize what the behavior of the association leadership means in his sport. Other Russian federations will follow the fencers and take on member organizations in the occupied parts of Ukraine.
The leader: Stanislav Pozdnyakov, President of the National Olympic Committee of Russia
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Image: AFP
In taekwondo, the world association is already investigating the membership of a regional association in Crimea in the Russian organization. When the Duma, the parliament devoted to Putin, passed a law on the integration of sport in the annexed areas two weeks ago, it also made the equivalent of 36 million euros available for it. The money will be the prey of those who create absorbing structures the fastest
By creating seemingly independent structures, Russian sport is actively supporting Putin’s violent conquest. He is led by the multiple Olympic and world champion in saber fencing, President of the Russian National Olympic Committee (ROK), Stanislav Pozdnyakov. It was he who welcomed the prospect of mobilization in September last year with the sentence that, from the ROK’s point of view, serving the fatherland was an honorable task for every citizen, including members of the national teams.
This ROK represents Russian sport and its associations towards the IOC and is also considered to represent Olympia in Russia. When the big doping scam was exposed after the Sochi 2014 Winter Games, it was suspended for exactly 86 days. Like the robbery of Crimea between the Winter Games and the Paralympics in 2014, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had no consequences for the ROK. Now it is representative of the Russian annexation in sports. And hopefully Bach, like his IOC, will answer the question of whether the admission of athletes from Russia should continue to be a sport-political priority.
