“Chinese Taipei” instead of Taiwan, 23 mainland Chinese participants who breached anti-doping rules, a Ukrainian team shrunken by the war, and “neutral” athletes from Russia and Belarus who support it. Never mind the 10,000-plus contestants and the 329 gold medals: the real winners and losers at the Paris Olympics are clear.
The gold medal for “geopolitics in sport” goes to the Chinese Communist Party, which flexed its muscles and won. Not just by making athletes from Taiwan compete under a made-up flag and without their national anthem, but by evading the rules on doping. The toothless World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) accepted Chinese official excuses about 23 swimmers who in 2021 tested positive for the banned heart medicine trimetazidine. They supposedly ate contaminated food served in a shared hotel. A joint investigation by the German ARD television channel and the New York Times shows that to be outright untrue. Other swimmers may protest if the Chinese athletes win, but the damage to WADA’s credibility is done. It gets a gold medal for moral gymnastics.
Further rounds in this contest are already looming. The FBI this month, exercising powers under US anti-conspiracy legislation to investigate the scandal, subpoenaed the Switzerland-based Brent Nowicki, head of World Aquatics, the international swimming federation. In response, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) threatened to ban the United States from hosting the 2034 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, wins her gold medal for political bile. She ridiculed the opening ceremony as “ridiculous”, said Paris was clogged with homeless people and rats, and mocked the public transport difficulties. (She also derided claims that Russia was responsible for the sabotage that caused them.)
Fuming on the sidelines is a recent addition to Russian officials’ sporting arsenal, joining their traditional favorite category: rule-breaking. During the Sochi 2014 Olympics, the Russian hosts were found to have systematically falsified drug tests (again with the apparent collusion of WADA). The IOC responded only weakly, by allowing Russian athletes to compete at the Tokyo and Beijing games only under the “Russian Olympic Committee” tag, without the national flag or anthem.
That marked just the beginning of the IOC’s epic performance in its chosen sport: legalistic cowardice. After the 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine, it restricted Russian participation on the rather technical grounds that the attack violated the week-long “Olympic Truce” either side of that year’s games (a few days later, by implication, would have been just fine). Only in October 2023, after Russia formally annexed four Ukrainian oblasts, did the IOC say that Russia had violated the Olympic charter and suspended its membership.
But 32 Russians and Belarusians will still take part as “independent neutrals.” These participants have supposedly been screened to ensure they are not connected with the war machine and have not backed the invasion. Ukrainians complain that at least three (all tennis players) have liked or shared pro-war content on social media.
The independents complain too, about pressure from their own government (the top Olympic official in Moscow has described them as “foreign agents”) and about ostracism from other athletes. They should try training under Ukrainian conditions, with daily power cuts, persistent rocket and drone attacks, sleepless nights in shelters, and constant worries about loved ones at the front. Russia has destroyed 500 sports facilities, including 15 Olympic training bases. At least 487 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed since the start of the war, including some who should be in Paris right now.
The 140-strong delegation is the smallest ever sent by Ukraine. All of them deserve medals, and not just sporting ones.
Edward Lucas is a Non-resident Senior Fellow and Senior Adviser at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA).
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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