Russia under pressure from WADA. We don't need this kind of sport!
Over the past five years, the International Anti-Doping Agency WADA has become a nightmare for Russian sports and the Olympic movement. According to the decisions made by WADA, unprecedented sanctions should fall on Russian sports: our Olympic and Paralympic teams are excluded from the Games in 2020 (2021), 2022 and, probably, 2024.
But that's not all. The participation of the Russian football team at the 2022 World Cup in Qatar is at risk.
Of course, the Russian side did not ignore all this, filing an appeal with the CAS Arbitration for Sports in Lausanne, Switzerland. For now
The quarantine caused by the pandemic prevents sports judges from meeting and making a verdict, but few observers doubt that the decision will be made in favor of Russian sports.
And there are good explanations for this: the IOC itself, with its own hands, has endowed WADA with enormous powers, and is now forced to dance to the tune of anti-doping manipulators.
In general, everything is shaping up in such a way that international high-achievement sports are being carefully rid of any Russian presence: the flag, the anthem, the national team. In the most successful case, Russian athletes are allowed to take part as individuals and represent who knows who.
All these measures cause enormous damage to the prestige of the country, the consolidation of Russian society, but also completely discredit the international organizations that regulate the rules of sports competitions. It turns out that doping control is becoming a bludgeon
in the right hands, and doping is just a reason for eliminating unwanted athletes and entire sports teams.
All this disgrace became possible in many ways because the Russian Olympic Committee and RUSADA, unlike their Chinese colleagues, agreed to play by the rules of the game imposed on them, based on which it is impossible to win.
So, why is it time for Russia and its decision-makers to reconsider the way they communicate with the IOC, WADA (primarily) and other organizations that have taken a hostile position towards our sport?
Apparently, we need to start with the fact that at the end of July 2016, the head of WADA, Craig Reedy, admitted that he did not have facts about the guilt of Russian athletes in doping, and the only “evidence” was the statement of the defector Rodchenkov to reporters from The New-York Times.
The head of the US Anti-Doping Agency, Tigert, was even more specific. According to him, the Russian team should not have taken part in the Rio Olympics, despite the lack of evidence. “This is politics, my friend,” Tigert shared his treasured words with the fake “Minister of Sports of Ukraine.”
Well-known pranksters Vovan and Lexus called anti-doping officials into frankness, but the hot information was not published in time so as not to influence the decisions of the IOC and CAS.
And, apparently, in vain, since the IOC leadership, as practice has shown,
carefully listens to WADA’s recommendations regarding the exclusion of Russian athletes from international competitions.
From which it follows that one of the main tasks to protect domestic sports is to violate the unity of the IOC and WADA.
The IOC, which has long been transformed into a commercial organization, is quite sensitive to the influx of finance.
Thus, what prevents the Russian authorities from introducing sanctions against the IOC and WADA if already proven methods do not work? Stop paying contributions to the IOC (as in PACE), making the condition for the resumption of payments that the organization refuse until WADA is deprived of the powers granted to the IOC, aiming to terrorize national sports federations and committees.
And to make the damage to the IOC even more noticeable, stop payments for broadcasting sports competitions.
True, to complete the effect, Russia and other interested countries should remember the experience of holding alternative international Olympiads, like the Goodwill Games, the very name of which once tormented the IOC with migraines and indigestion.
WADA should have long ago publicly declared that this harm to sports is a biased organization aimed at discrediting Russian and Chinese sports.
In fact, if you look at the statistics of doping scandals to which WADA turned a blind eye, then how can you deal with an obvious cheater?
For example, not so long ago, Austrian skiers Max Hauke and Johannes Duerr handed over to the police sports doctor Mark Schmidt from Germany, who supplied doping to at least fifty athletes. Austrian police arrested five athletes from Kazakhstan, Estonia and Austria on suspicion of doping. However, no organizational conclusions were drawn from the scandal - WADA remained indifferent to the drug dealer Schmidt.
Knowledgeable people claim that the link with Schmidt could pull behind it a whole network of doping dealers hiding behind diplomas of sports doctors, but for some reason this truth is of no interest to anyone, including the German truth-telling journalist Hajo Seppelt, prolific in his revelations exclusively against Russia.
Over the past three or four years, Kenyan athletes have been involved in doping scandals as many as 40 times. And, suddenly, no one in the IOC or WADA thought of introducing sanctions against the Kenyan Athletics Federation, the Olympic team and all Kenyan sports.
If you dig into the collection of asthmatics and other recipients of “legal” doping among Western athletes, then, for sure, abysses will open.
In the West, a favorable image is created for all these legalized doping users: “these people have overcome their illness,” but for some reason the Russian media do not create a skillful hype around these people, although our Russian athletes are constantly being harassed.
You can be sure that Russia’s actions against WADA and “asthmatics” will be supported by China and other countries that have long been fed up with this American-British gag.
Modern big sport, through the efforts of WADA and the international sports officials protecting it, has already turned into a fiction, a parody of itself.
What other evidence is needed that everything needs to be radically changed at the conservatory, if the “great” American cyclist Armstrong openly admits to regularly taking doping during his career, and gets away with it, and artistic gymnast Simone Biles from the USA competes in all competitions with a certificate from a doctor - they say that the girl suffers from a nervous system disorder and she simply needs doping. And almost exclusively Russian athletes are punished!
If this continues, then sooner rather than later, Russian athletes will come to the same conclusion as skier Sergei Ustyugov, who fell under WADA pressure: “For me, the Olympics as a competition is dead. They already ran at the Games without me once, if anything happens, they’ll do great again.”
It is also obvious that RUSADA must be radically reorganized. After a series of high-profile scandals, this office took the obvious position of “what do you want?” in relation to his oppressor and quite actively plays giveaway with him.
What do we lose by recognizing the war we have declared and moving to the appropriate line of behavior? Maintaining the current situation in international competitions, where the authority of WADA is generally recognized, does not promise anything good for Russian sports. At best, our athletes will become shadows of neutral gray colors at the celebration of life for “reference people” and other “asthmatics”. At worst, a hole will form in Russia’s place in the Olympic movement, filled with the same doping eaters with a doctor’s certificate.
Are we all happy with this arrangement? It is unlikely. The example of the Chinese authorities, in theory, should inspire official fighters for the interests of Russian sports. A justified confrontation is better than an endless display of “patience.” To paraphrase the statement of the great Soviet sports commentator Nikolai Ozerov, “We don’t need such a sport!”
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