Three weeks before the start of the Olympic Games in Pyeongchang, Russian sports received another blow from the IOC. Applications of 111 athletes were rejected, which does not allow them to perform even under the Olympic flag. the site explains how the stars of the eastern neighbors were left without the Games and why Russia does not dare to boycott Pyeongchang-2018.
What happened to the Russian Olympians again?
As you know, Russia was not allowed to the Olympics in Pyeongchang, but "clean" athletes were offered to compete under a neutral flag. To do this, their federations need to send applications to the IOC. At the end of last week, consideration of about 500 such applications was completed. 111 of them were rejected and the athletes did not receive invitations. Among them are a number of contenders for medals: skier Sergei Ustyugov, short track skater Viktor An, biathlete Anton Shipulin, speed skaters Denis Yuskov and Pavel Kulizhnikov.
The list of banned athletes includes hockey players, figure skaters, and bobsledders. Teams in cross-country skiing, biathlon, speed skating and short track have suffered more seriously than others. In these types, more than half of the athletes were refused.
Ideally clean, according to the IOC, are curling, freestyle and alpine skiing teams.
How did the IOC screen out athletes?
Group led by the chairman Valerie Fourneuron, an independent doping testing organization, was guided by several criteria at once. Thus, athletes should not be disqualified or found guilty of any of the anti-doping rule violations (therefore skaters Yuskov and Kulizhnikov, hockey players Belov and Plotnikov were denied), must not be mentioned in the McLaren report (which is obvious, given the IOC lifetime bans) and must meet the requirements necessary to protect the integrity Olympic Games.
The last point does not seem clear, but Furneuron has already explained what it is about. The IOC must be 100% sure that the athlete is clean and does not violate the rules. It takes into account the data of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory, and the numbers of biological passports, and the testimony of anonymous informants, and complete information on compliance with anti-doping rules. For example, if doping officers decide to test an athlete, and his real location does not match the one indicated by the athlete in special system ADAMS, it is unlikely that the IOC will trust him. Or if the testing did not show the presence of prohibited substances, but abnormal deviations in the content of red blood cells are visible in the data of the biological passport, then this athlete also arouses suspicion in the commission.
Invitations to the Olympics were received only by athletes with an ideal reputation. Even small doubts among the members of the Furneuron group put an end to the athlete's prospects.
Russia explains such selectivity with political motives, the IOC - with the desire to be sure of the cleanliness of the athletes of the Olympic team.
Why does any commission decide who will play for Russia?
Not for Russia, but for the team of "Olympic athletes from Russia." This is a very important clarification. By and large, this is a team over which the IOC patronizes. If athletes want to compete under the Olympic flag, they must comply with the requirements of the committee. And the IOC can set any conditions, because, again, this is their team.
Yes, the suspensions of Anton Shipulin and Viktor An look strange, but Russia still has time to find out the reason for their exclusion and influence the decision of the group. Until January 28, the list is preliminary, not final.
Does the IOC specifically remove the strongest Russian athletes?
This is not entirely true. Yes, among the uninvited there are obvious contenders for medals. There are about 10 of them. Plus a few athletes from the ski and biathlon relay races. The IOC did not approve the applications of 111 athletes, so it is quite logical that there are real tops among them. As for the athletes who do not claim awards, officials and journalists simply did not pay attention to their names. Hence the erroneous feeling that only the elite were rejected.
For example, in biathlon, only Anton Shipulin belongs to the world leaders, but seven more shooting skiers of a lower level were not allowed to the Games.
Anton Belov. Reuters The hockey team lost Sergei Plotnikov, Anton Belov, Valery Nichushkin, Mikhail Naumenkov and Alexei Bereglazov. The last two were not seriously considered by head coach Oleg Znark, Belov was caught doping, Plotnikov violated anti-doping rules. Only Nichushkin remains, but he was not guaranteed a place in the team either. At the same time, the IOC allowed all the leaders of the hockey team - Ilya Kovalchuk, Vadim Shipachyov, Pavel Datsyuk, Vyacheslav Voinov and Nikita Gusev.
And most importantly: the representatives of the Furneuron group did not know exactly who was being weeded out. All cases were considered anonymously, that is, without indicating the name of the athlete.
What can the Russian team now count on?
Of course, it is not possible to repeat the success of Sochi-2014, but the team will not be left without medals either. Russia's position in figure skating is traditionally strong, where you can count on two or three awards. A good season is spent by freestylers, medals are real even in curling and alpine skiing, which were recently exotic for the country.
Finally, in the absence of players from the NHL, bookmakers consider Russia the clear favorite for the hockey tournament. Their chances are estimated twice as high as last year's finalists - Canada and Sweden.
So the team of "Olympic athletes from Russia" may well bring about 10 awards from Pyeongchang.
Why is Russia not boycotting this Olympics?
On the eve of the IOC, there were indeed calls for a boycott of Pyeongchang 2018. Moreover, even Vladimir Putin said that speaking under a neutral flag is a humiliation for Russia. But gradually the opinion began, which is most clearly seen in the example of the head of the Russian Olympic Committee, Alexander Zhukov.
There are several reasons for this. First, the IOC made a nod to Russia, noting the name of the country in the team's name. This is unprecedented in the history of the Games. It's one thing to be a neutral athlete, but quite another to be an "Olympic athlete from Russia." Look at the uniform of the hockey team. Is it not clear that this is the Russian team?
Secondly, the official boycott of the Olympics threatens with exclusion from the IOC for a period of eight years.
It was possible to offer the athletes themselves to refuse to participate, but, contrary to rumors, they did not agree to this in Russia.
However, we still need to wait for the approval of the list of invited athletes. Back to top next week the final version will be published. It is possible that it will bring new shocks to Russia.
This is already politics - this is how the head of the National Olympic Committee of Bulgaria, the current world record holder in high jump Stefka Kostadinova, commented on the situation around the non-admission of leading domestic athletes to the Games. The famous athlete emphasized that those who were caught doping should be punished. But it is unfair to deprive "clean" athletes of the right to compete at the Olympics who have worked for many years to get to these competitions.
The French edition of Ski-Nordique on its official website wished our athletes through the court to achieve justice and the right to compete in South Korea. Journalists called the decision of the IOC a violation of justice.
And the Le Monde newspaper, citing its sources, reported that some manipulations were carried out with the doping tests of Anton Shipulin and Viktor An. And this could be the reason for the refusal of the Olympic champions the right to compete in Pyeongchang.
The IOC initially set the main condition for the participation of neutral Russian athletes in the Olympic Games: the organization itself will invite Olympians who have not had a doping problem. However, at the exit of the IOC and explained that "non-listing for the Games does not necessarily mean that the athlete was convicted of doping."
On December 5, in Lausanne, the International Olympic Committee made a decision on the participation of the Russian team in the Olympics in Pyeongchang. Probably everyone remembers what kind of decision it was - a trip, but in a neutral status. The essence of one of the points voiced by IOC President Thomas Bach was as follows: only those Russian athletes who are approved by the International Olympic Committee itself will go to Korea. On the eve it became completely clear: the invitation system from the IOC is tough and even cruel. So it turns out that those Russian athletes who in Pyeongchang could claim medals of any denomination are not invited to the Olympics.
“It was a shock for me. Everyone understands that these are the leaders of our teams, titled athletes,” says Dmitry Svishchev, President of the Russian Curling Federation
It all started on the evening of January 22, when the most titled short-track skater on the planet, six-time Olympic champion Victor Ahn and his teammates.
Disappointing news has been coming in throughout the day yesterday. It all started in the morning with shocking information that Anton Shipulin, the leader and top Russian biathlete of many recent years, would not receive an invitation to Korea. About Shipulin, we can say that he is the Russian biathlon. In total, almost the entire Russian biathlon team was denied. So far, only three have been admitted: the press names Anton Babikov, Tatyana Akimova and Uliana Kaisheva.
Also past Pyeongchang is the best Russian skier Sergey Ustyugov. Tour de Ski winner, multiple world champion and medalist. Toward evening, when emotions subsided a bit, Sergei Ustyugov appeared on Instagram with an appeal in which he clearly and.
"As a person who enlightens his life with sports, I wanted and was motivated to go and win the Olympic Games. But the story of my friends and colleagues disqualified by the IOC made me think. I am sure of their purity, as of mine. I was surprised by today's news and I was much less upset than in November about the disqualification of the guys. And this time I will not worry, but will continue to do my job and enjoy it. Life does not end at the Olympic Games, there will be other competitions where we will win and prove that we are Russians, we are strong, we are clean," Sergei Ustyugov wrote on his Instagram page.
Next Federation figure skating Russia received notifications that Ksenia Stolbova and Ivan Bukin were not allowed to Pyeongchang. Thus, we automatically lose two pairs at once. Ksenia Stolbova, the winner of the Sochi Olympics in team competitions, performs in sports pairs in a duet with Fedor Klimov. Ivan Bukin is dancing on ice. In Pyeongchang, we will not see a beautiful couple who just a couple of days ago took the bronze of the European Championship.
"We have two numbers of the main team knocked out. For us, this was a shock. All the athletes who are now in the national team undergo the necessary doping tests, there were no complaints against any of them either in recent years or before that" , - says Alexander Gorshkov, President of the Figure Skating Federation of the Russian Federation.
A separate story is speed skating. Invalid for 90 percent of the skating team. In Pyeongchang, we will not see Denis Yuskov and Pavel Kulizhnikov, multiple winners and world champions, and Denis Yuskov recently set a new world record at 1,500 meters. In Pyeongchang, they were supposed to at least compete, and most likely beat the Dutch. Now this won't happen. Pavel Kulizhnikov said that one can only hope for a miracle and wait for the official announcement on January 28.
The women's skating team also suffered heavy losses. So far, only three have been admitted: Olga Graf, Angelina Golikova and Natalia Voronina. Golikova has already stated that in such a situation she cannot rejoice at the admission.
On January 25, the Russian national hockey team, which will perform at the Olympic Games in Korea in a neutral status without a flag and an anthem, will announce the composition for a trip to Pyeongchang. There is talk that the 20-year-old CSKA striker Kirill Kaprizov, whose performance in recent times seriously fell, seriously risks being left out of the application. We remember other Russians who were not taken to the Olympics at the last moment.
With Soin, it was a different story. Initially, he was on Bilyaletdinov's list for a trip to the Olympic Sochi, but after an injury, Sergei's place in the team was taken by Alexander Semin. According to the coaching staff, there was a preliminary agreement with Semin to call him to the team if necessary. This is precisely the need. It turns out that Soin was not taken to Sochi at the very last moment, but for objective reasons. Alas, Soin's health problems continue to this day. This season at Lada, he was treated more than he played.
During the time of Vyacheslav Bykov and Igor Zakharkin's work in the national team, the most experienced defender Sergei Zubov remained without the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver. The hockey player, after a long performance in the NHL, returned to his homeland and defended the colors of SKA. The coaching duo decided that Zubov would not be able to strengthen the Russians at the Games. Bykov and Zakharkin were later criticized by the legendary Viktor Tikhonov. According to Tikhonov, Zubov, despite his age (at that time 39 years old), still played great. Before the Olympics, the SKA defender was included in the number of spares, but refused to go to Vancouver in this capacity.
Announced the official composition. There was only one surprise - goalkeeper Maxim Sokolov, who ended up in the nearest reserve, did not get into the base. As a result, it turned out that Maxim nevertheless flew to Italy, and Nikolai Khabibulin was unhooked at the last moment. The Chicago goalkeeper's knee injury did not allow him to help the national team.
In Korea, it was published on Thursday afternoon, and it seems that everyone has already spoken out on it. Nevertheless, the question "why did they take this one and not that one" in the Russian media is still relevant today. RIA Novosti correspondent Alexander Rogulev in an editorial blog evaluates the choice of his staff.
"Bring ammo"
The two main alleged claims to Znark and everyone else are the absence of the main team of Vladimir Tkachev and. Another indirect one is the presence of Sergei Mozyakin in the composition.
The coaching staff is responsible for the result at the tournament, they are also responsible for those whom they called up to the national team. Each of the hockey players will have their own task at the Olympics and, in the opinion of the coaching staff, they will perform these tasks better than the same Tkachev and Tryamkin. It was the same in all previous tournaments. Therefore, it will be relevant to talk about the choice of Znarok and co after the Olympic Games.
"No one is safe from injury"
One of the most famous "pictures" of the Olympics in Sochi. After the defeat from the Finns in the quarterfinals of the Olympic tournament, Zinetula Bilyaletdinov was literally pressed against the wall of the press center after a short press conference, a crowd of 30-40 journalists formed around the head coach of the Russian national team. Bilyaletdinov fought back as best he could, but in response to another question about not being challenged by Sergei Mozyakin, he let it slip: "At the Olympics, he would not have reached the goal."
Almost four years have passed, but Bilyaletdinov remembers this phrase every time Mozyakin breaks a scorer's record, takes a title or is called up to Oleg Znarka's team. And for these four years, there were enough reasons to remember "I would not have reached the gate." Maybe this year, after the departure of Danis Zaripov from Magnitogorsk, Mozyakin plays differently. Zhamnov also said about the same about Mozyakin.
“He is an experienced player,” the scout said on Thursday. “Of course, we also took into account the fact that this is Mozyakin’s last chance to play at the Olympics. The man has done a lot for our hockey, I’m sure he will be useful at the Olympics in some matches.”
Don't forget, the Russian team has three more test games to go, in which anything can happen. We all know about the increased traumatism of Russian hockey players at Znark during preparation for major tournaments. Remember the story with Nail Yakupov before the 2016 World Cup?
So I would suggest waiting until the hockey players go to Korea. Who knows, maybe the same Vladimir Tkachev will fly to the base in Korean Anyang as the main player of the "Olympic athletes from Russia"?
