No matter what sport you look at, there is no shortage of Russian athletes anywhere. After Moscow launched an invasion against Ukraine a year ago, there were fears that the embargo could be very counterproductive from a sporting point of view.
Today, almost two years after the invasion of Russian troops, nobody really cares anymore. With only one exception, no one misses Russian athletes on the world stage. Russia itself. And it will be the Russian athletes who will critically lack contact with the world.
It’s actually worse than all the pessimistic predictions. And the lesson from that is threefold. For a long time, Russia is no longer the dreaded superpower that attacked medals on all fronts in major competitions. Secondly, it turns out that there is so much competition in today’s sports world that the failure of a country whose athletes are only above the average for a long time does not bother anyone. And thirdly, the cruel saying also applies – out of sight, out of mind.
In addition, the ban on Russian athletes applies differently in different sectors, or better said, in some places it does not apply at all. Where Russians (and Belarusians) are particularly successful, they do not actually face any embargo.
Two examples for all. Russian hockey and tennis. The best Russian hockey players continue to play in the best NHL hockey league. You can count only seven of them in the first hundred best scoring hockey players. Just for comparison, there are four representatives of the Czech Republic there.
Similarly, the Russians play top tennis contentedly and also well. At the time of writing the article, there were six men in the top fifty, six women as well, plus two excellent players from Belarus (Sabalenková and Azarenková).
The fact that the Russian national hockey team does not participate in the World Cup in hockey does not mean the decline of the top competition. In the last ten years, the Russians have won the World Cup only once and were second once. Sure, it’s not bad, but it’s not amazing either. It is a shame that they are missing today, but even without them, the competition is so great that nothing actually happens.
There is no shortage of Russian athletes in most other Olympic sports either – athletes, weightlifters, wrestlers… So maybe the only exceptions are women’s pair figure skating and modern gymnastics. You can also add gymnastics and men’s cross-country skiing. But only in the first three sports did the Russians really dominate and set the trend.
In addition, the participation of Russian athletes in the last 20 years all too often reeked of violations of doping rules. The Russians had no intention of fundamentally purifying themselves. So – frankly – many of their opponents and competition organizers ended up welcoming them when they weren’t at the competition at all. Because there was always the threat of trouble. Rewriting the results and tables, taking away the medals and handing them over to the athletes who did not commit a crime, even after ten years, everyone was already tired.
So now you won’t find Russians at most sports competitions. And almost nobody really cares.
