divan
Well-Known Member
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I want to write my personal take on why russia doesn't deserve to be in international sport at all.
Disclaimer: I'm Ukrainian, founder of Skate Ukraine and working on reforming sport system in Ukraine. We basically try to end the disfunctional Soviet model and switch to the european grassrots-club model. The last one requires a lot of research on sport governance and history.
TL;DR "Sport" means different things in russia and the rest of the world. Russia is playing different game, hence all these conflicts (doping, cheating, disrespect to fair-play etc). But they're symptomatic and not the root of the problem.
In Europe sport orgininated from the free-play activities. It's a natural thing in non-authoritarian settings for people to unite into larger groups (clubs). One level higher it's natural for clubs to unite into larger orgs (federations) to coordinate their activities and plans regarding their sport. Govt is interested in sports too for many reasons, so helps society to develop sports further. There is a mutually beneficial relations between sports society and govt, but it's important that sports has autonomy (from govt). Autonomy is foundational to the concept of sport in this model.
In pre-USSR lands there were some growing grassroots sports movement (poorly documented & studied though). At least in Lviv there was a Lviv skating association, pretty famous in Europe by that time. After foundation of USSR all grassroots movements were destroyed, as they were threat to the communist party ("...allowing people to gather freely is a recipe for counter-revolution movement..." – from the autobiography of Stalin's secretary). Grassroots clubs were demolished as a concept.
Sports in early USSR was largely seen as a mean to make muscles for army and factories. Show strength of the communism. There were few attempts to build top-down system for "mass sports" – forcing labourers into organized "physical excercies" activies at plants. That's how the concept of "real sport" and "physical cutlure" was born ("настоящий спорт" vs "физкультура").
USSR wasn't a member of ANY international sport organization up until late 1940-s. No soviet athletes participated in any world championships back then. Olympic Games were portrayed as "capitalist evil" and were of no interest to party.
Situation changed after WWII. It became a critical for Stalin to show who's dominating a new world, and sport was brought as one of the non-military tools for achieving it. USSR was admitted to IOC, and participated in OG in Helsinki at 1952. Decision to accept USSR was incredibly difficult for IOC, specifically for the reason of the lack of autonomy. They knew that sport in USSR is purely state-run and had strong anti-communist views. Yet, willinnes to be open to all countries won the fear of destroying the foundation of autonomous sport.
During these years, every soviet sports team who participated in international competitions, had to personally sign the promise to Stalin that they will win. Those who lost, often ended up in concentration camps or killed (few "sports ministers" were executed). That's how "win by all means" narrative was born.
Over the years, killings stopped, but the idea that sport is about medals for the supreme leader became a central dogma in soviet sport. Win by all means. Medal is an ultimate goal. Sport belongs to government. Sport is about medals.
Of course it's oversimplification, but it captures the gist. While in normal society, competition is seen as a tool that helps to boost sports and achieve excellence, in USSR competitions and its rules is seen as an obstacle to get the medal.
It's also important to understand that in USSR all rules where imposed from the top. There were no concept of civil society, of election, of choosing your country future. Everything was imposed from the top, and rules often went againts basic human needs or desires.
So it became a common sense that "cheating the system is good". It reflected in a phrases known to every russian even today: "You can steal, but you cannot be caught", "You're not a thief until you're caught" ("Не пойман - не вор"). People think USSR had planned economy, but in reality 80% of it's economy ran in shadow, built on stealing from factories, corruption and network of personal connections. Cheating system was the only way to survive in planned economy.
That translates perfectly into the sports. Rules of sports in that mentality is just another system imposed to prevent winning and there is no question it should be chated by all means. Hence all these pro vs amateur story, doping scandals etc. Sport is about medals to the supreme leader.
Fast forward to modern day russia – nothing changed that much. Most of eastern post-soviet countries also didn't change much, but they didn't have enough money to continue financing that corrupt sports machine. So they see that system is not working in market economy and need to be changed. Russia keeps pouring billions into sport, and from the distance it looks like communist sport model is working.
Yet, in russia there are no grassroots non-profit clubs at all. Most russians will not understand what you mean by that. Sport is taught in state schools. Or there is some rise of commercial clubs. Non-profits? Grassroots? Self-organizing and autonomy? Never heard of.
Instead of developing mass sports and sports market, post-soviet countries keep running soviet incentive system – sport titles awarded by state – "Master of Sports", "Candidate to the Master of Sports" and so on. Instead of fostering grassroots sports, more money is flowing to the state schools.
Abuse in state schools is rampant. It's rarely captured on camera, but humilating and yelling are the most common tools in state shools of figure skating. Parents quickly learn that "if coach doesn't scream at your kid, that's bad – proably they don't see them as a talent and ignore". Emotional and physical abuse is normalized to the insane levels. Needless to say, sexual abuse is normalized (and tabooed) too.
Anyway, the point is the word "sport" means different things in russia vs civilized world. Focusing on doping scandals or fair play violations or athletes supporting the war with this new z-swastika misses the point. Those are symptoms, not a cause.
Thomas Bach in his 2009 speech told that due to the way how Olympic Movement is structured, attack on the autonomy of sport of one federation means attack at NOC, and attack at NOC means attack to the whole international federations, and thus to the whole Olympic Movement.
Russian's concept of "sport" is in direct vlolation with Olympic Charter and has always been. Fixing sympthoms just creates tensions and doesn't help to understand or fix the root of the problem.
Including russia into the IOC was painful decision back then. Almost 75 years later it has clearly undermined the whole concept of Olympism and poses direct and systemic threat to it. Excluding russia from IOC will be a painful decision too.
Less painful than the pain from russian rockets though, for sure.
Disclaimer: I'm Ukrainian, founder of Skate Ukraine and working on reforming sport system in Ukraine. We basically try to end the disfunctional Soviet model and switch to the european grassrots-club model. The last one requires a lot of research on sport governance and history.
TL;DR "Sport" means different things in russia and the rest of the world. Russia is playing different game, hence all these conflicts (doping, cheating, disrespect to fair-play etc). But they're symptomatic and not the root of the problem.
In Europe sport orgininated from the free-play activities. It's a natural thing in non-authoritarian settings for people to unite into larger groups (clubs). One level higher it's natural for clubs to unite into larger orgs (federations) to coordinate their activities and plans regarding their sport. Govt is interested in sports too for many reasons, so helps society to develop sports further. There is a mutually beneficial relations between sports society and govt, but it's important that sports has autonomy (from govt). Autonomy is foundational to the concept of sport in this model.
In pre-USSR lands there were some growing grassroots sports movement (poorly documented & studied though). At least in Lviv there was a Lviv skating association, pretty famous in Europe by that time. After foundation of USSR all grassroots movements were destroyed, as they were threat to the communist party ("...allowing people to gather freely is a recipe for counter-revolution movement..." – from the autobiography of Stalin's secretary). Grassroots clubs were demolished as a concept.
Sports in early USSR was largely seen as a mean to make muscles for army and factories. Show strength of the communism. There were few attempts to build top-down system for "mass sports" – forcing labourers into organized "physical excercies" activies at plants. That's how the concept of "real sport" and "physical cutlure" was born ("настоящий спорт" vs "физкультура").
USSR wasn't a member of ANY international sport organization up until late 1940-s. No soviet athletes participated in any world championships back then. Olympic Games were portrayed as "capitalist evil" and were of no interest to party.
Situation changed after WWII. It became a critical for Stalin to show who's dominating a new world, and sport was brought as one of the non-military tools for achieving it. USSR was admitted to IOC, and participated in OG in Helsinki at 1952. Decision to accept USSR was incredibly difficult for IOC, specifically for the reason of the lack of autonomy. They knew that sport in USSR is purely state-run and had strong anti-communist views. Yet, willinnes to be open to all countries won the fear of destroying the foundation of autonomous sport.
During these years, every soviet sports team who participated in international competitions, had to personally sign the promise to Stalin that they will win. Those who lost, often ended up in concentration camps or killed (few "sports ministers" were executed). That's how "win by all means" narrative was born.
Over the years, killings stopped, but the idea that sport is about medals for the supreme leader became a central dogma in soviet sport. Win by all means. Medal is an ultimate goal. Sport belongs to government. Sport is about medals.
Of course it's oversimplification, but it captures the gist. While in normal society, competition is seen as a tool that helps to boost sports and achieve excellence, in USSR competitions and its rules is seen as an obstacle to get the medal.
It's also important to understand that in USSR all rules where imposed from the top. There were no concept of civil society, of election, of choosing your country future. Everything was imposed from the top, and rules often went againts basic human needs or desires.
So it became a common sense that "cheating the system is good". It reflected in a phrases known to every russian even today: "You can steal, but you cannot be caught", "You're not a thief until you're caught" ("Не пойман - не вор"). People think USSR had planned economy, but in reality 80% of it's economy ran in shadow, built on stealing from factories, corruption and network of personal connections. Cheating system was the only way to survive in planned economy.
That translates perfectly into the sports. Rules of sports in that mentality is just another system imposed to prevent winning and there is no question it should be chated by all means. Hence all these pro vs amateur story, doping scandals etc. Sport is about medals to the supreme leader.
Fast forward to modern day russia – nothing changed that much. Most of eastern post-soviet countries also didn't change much, but they didn't have enough money to continue financing that corrupt sports machine. So they see that system is not working in market economy and need to be changed. Russia keeps pouring billions into sport, and from the distance it looks like communist sport model is working.
Yet, in russia there are no grassroots non-profit clubs at all. Most russians will not understand what you mean by that. Sport is taught in state schools. Or there is some rise of commercial clubs. Non-profits? Grassroots? Self-organizing and autonomy? Never heard of.
Instead of developing mass sports and sports market, post-soviet countries keep running soviet incentive system – sport titles awarded by state – "Master of Sports", "Candidate to the Master of Sports" and so on. Instead of fostering grassroots sports, more money is flowing to the state schools.
Abuse in state schools is rampant. It's rarely captured on camera, but humilating and yelling are the most common tools in state shools of figure skating. Parents quickly learn that "if coach doesn't scream at your kid, that's bad – proably they don't see them as a talent and ignore". Emotional and physical abuse is normalized to the insane levels. Needless to say, sexual abuse is normalized (and tabooed) too.
Anyway, the point is the word "sport" means different things in russia vs civilized world. Focusing on doping scandals or fair play violations or athletes supporting the war with this new z-swastika misses the point. Those are symptoms, not a cause.
Thomas Bach in his 2009 speech told that due to the way how Olympic Movement is structured, attack on the autonomy of sport of one federation means attack at NOC, and attack at NOC means attack to the whole international federations, and thus to the whole Olympic Movement.
Russian's concept of "sport" is in direct vlolation with Olympic Charter and has always been. Fixing sympthoms just creates tensions and doesn't help to understand or fix the root of the problem.
Including russia into the IOC was painful decision back then. Almost 75 years later it has clearly undermined the whole concept of Olympism and poses direct and systemic threat to it. Excluding russia from IOC will be a painful decision too.
Less painful than the pain from russian rockets though, for sure.
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