We still don’t know how close the IOC really was to helping the Russians back into international sports already now, including skiing. But it may have been closer than we like to think is possible. Sport obviously means a lot to President Putin and his regime. The sanctions against the sports nation Russia can therefore be thought to have had a significance beyond what sport would normally have when it comes to something as serious as war. POSED: Vladimir Putin received the Olympic medalists from Beijing in April this year. Here with cross-country runner Veronika Stepanova. Photo: Vladimir Astapkovich / AP The IOC still seems willing to find ways around this. Concern for the security of the Russians Just so that no one misunderstands: The International Olympic Committee, IOC, has no formal power over whether or not Russian and Belarusian athletes should be on a starting line, in a starting box or on a barrier in international skiing competitions. That decision is taken by the FIS Council, the highest council in the International Ski Federation. There are 21 representatives, among them Norway’s former ski president Erik Røste. Russia’s former representative, the controversial skiing president Jelena Välbe, received far too few votes when she tried to be re-elected at the FIS congress this summer. For incomprehensible reasons, however, Russian and Belarusian leaders have not refused to participate in the FIS context while the war in Ukraine claims. However, it is the athletes. For their own safety, absurdly. On Saturday, the highest council of the International Ski Federation, the FIS Council, will decide whether the ban on Russia and Belarus should be extended throughout the coming winter. That is, whether Aleksandr Bolsjunov and Veronika Stepanova will be allowed to sit on the starting line in the World Cup opening in Ruka at the end of November. While they are free to continue their praise of President Putin. For us Norwegians, the decision seems obvious. ON THE FIS BOARD: Erik Røste. Photo: Annika Byrde / NTB What did Vion really know? But it’s actually not as simple as exactly this should be, in an otherwise overly complicated world. Because the uncertainty that was planted by the FIS’s own general secretary, Michel Vion, four weeks ago still partly lingers. At a conference in the coming winter’s World Cup city of Planica, Vion said completely uninvited that the Russians could be back on the ski slopes as early as December. Vion was exposed to massive criticism. Not only was his message startlingly tactless in itself – it also came on the same day as Russian President Putin announced a large-scale mobilization of new troops for the war of aggression against Ukraine. But what signals had Vion and the rest of the FIS management actually received from the IOC? RECEIVED CRITICISM: FIS’ general secretary Michel Vion. Photo: FABRICE COFFRINI / AFP To return to our starting point: No one doubts who rules the great world of sports. What the IOC and its all-powerful president Thomas Bach decide on will be followed up by the FIS as well as other confederations – with very few exceptions. Vion then also referred to meetings with the IOC, where the possibilities of allowing Russia and Belarus to return under a neutral flag had already been discussed in the autumn. Sport’s strong counter-forces And although the Russians have long provoked the IOC through their systematic cheating, there are still many other considerations to take into account than those we in the Nordics believe are absolutely the most important. Because there are stronger forces among the 206 member states than we like to admit who do not understand how the war in Ukraine differs from armed conflicts elsewhere in the world. Or does exclusion seem to serve any purpose at all. Or even care. Therefore, it is still not entirely surprising that the IOC may have come a long way in the process to allow Russia and Belarus to return to international sport already this autumn, albeit under neutral flags. Which in any case is a form of sanction without any real meaning whatsoever. But this time, Putin finally removed all doubts. First by mobilizing. Later by escalating the bombing of civilian targets in Ukraine. It doesn’t stop there. And then the sport has no choice after all. But the situation could very quickly have been different. What Bach decides For the new FIS president, Johan Eliasch from Stockholm and London, has made it very clear that the FIS will follow all the signals the IOC sends. So the day IOC President Thomas Bach again thinks the time has come to pull the sport-and-politics-don’t-belong card, Eliasch will follow obediently. Simply because it suits him and FIS remarkably well. Because the inevitable exclusion of Russia in particular has a price. Economically – through the loss of Russian sponsorship money and markedly lower viewing figures. But also sporty. This is particularly true in cross-country skiing, where the Russians have had an increasingly strong position in recent years – to the extent that several of them believe that the sport will not survive without them. And it’s actually possible they could be right. But for cross-country skiing, there is no real alternative. Heat out of ice In any case, it does not manage with the Russians on the starting line in international competitions, as the war in Ukraine is developing. After Eliasch had a meeting with the outspoken Russian ski president Jelena Välbe, she herself apparently resigned. That is why there will be a World Cup and WC in the coming winter without runners from Russia and Belarus on the starting line. But the uncertainty surrounding what the sport’s top leaders really want will not be voted out by the FIS Council in Zurich. No one can come and say they are surprised the day sports let Russia back into the heat. Which should really be the type of forces that sport must fight against. Then, more than anything else, you need proper mobilization.
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