The United States risks losing the right to host the 2028 Olympic Games and 2036. This was the message delivered by honorary member of the IOC and first president of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), Richard Pound. Sports is about whether there really is such a possibility and what is hidden behind the opinion of a Canadian veteran of the sports movement, known for his attacks on Russia.
Combat pensionerTo begin with, who is Richard Pound? This is a Canadian swimmer, later a lawyer, who at one time had enormous influence in the IOC. Suffice it to say that he was the vice-president of this organization and a candidate for the main post in it. However, after the resignation of the Spaniard Juan Antonio Samaranch as head of the Olympic movement in 2001, Pound lost the election of the new president to the Belgian Jacques Rogge — the same one under whom Sochi was chosen as the capital of the 2014 Winter Games. After this, Pound served as president of WADA for another six years, and then gradually began to fade into the shadows.
< br>Although he was sometimes noisy during this period — for example, he was the head of the very commission that studied the first films of the German journalist Hajo Seppelt about doping in Russian athletics. As a result, Pound’s report became the basis for the suspension of the All-Russian Athletics Federation (ARAF) in 2015 and deprivation of our athletes’ right to compete under their own flag and anthem. After eight long years of resignations, appointments, payment of fines and other humiliations, ARAF was restored to its full status last year, but our athletes still do not compete in international tournaments — for other reasons, however.
That Pound report led to the first sanctions against the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA). But these were still flowers: soon the former head of the Moscow anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov, who managed to leave for the United States at the very beginning of the scandal, came to the fore. And so began what resulted in the truncation of the Russian team’s delegation at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, and then in the performance of our athletes in the next three Games in a neutral status.
Now Pound, at 82 years old, is, one might say, a pensioner. The times when he had any effective influence in international organizations are far behind him. He remained an honorary member of the IOC — that is, he can come to sessions of the organization, but without the right to vote. The same status, by the way, belongs to Vitaly Smirnov and Alexander Popov — but both do not actively participate in the international Olympic movement, and our four-time Olympic champion in swimming even, rather, actively criticizes him.
However, Pound’s comments are still taken into account, given his, as they say, “combat” past — and his current statements relate to the topic of 23 Chinese swimmers who were found to have trimetazidine shortly before the Tokyo Olympics. As is known, WADA, in contrast to the situation with the Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva, who tested with the same substance, took the Chinese at their word and did not protest the acquittal verdict of the National Anti-Doping Agency of China (CHINADA). And this caused an angry reaction from the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which accused WADA literally of failing to fight for the interests of clean athletes, and hinting that it did not want to quarrel with one of the largest players in the world sports market, which is China. That is, in the political situation.
The further skirmish between WADA President Witold Banka and USADA head Travis Tygart turned into a classic illustration of the saying about the relationship between a toad and a viper — if you watch it from our Russian sports bell tower, which both of these figures, as Pound did before, have been jointly trying to shake for a long time. Well, outside observers from there, of course, saw in the conflict of the former allies a threat to the unity of the structure of world sports, which has recently become more and more unipolar.
It was this conflict that Pound tried to extinguish with his authority — when the Americans agreed that they themselves would take up the case of the Chinese swimmers, armed with the so-called “Rodchenkov Law.” As you know, this act came into force in December 2020, and it criminalizes conspiracy to influence the outcome of sports competitions through the use of doping. At the same time, although it is accepted in the United States, it applies to participants in all tournaments where American athletes compete or American sponsorship money is involved. That is, formally, if those representatives of China who are considered guilty of doping in the United States set foot on American soil, then this law can be applied to them there. With all the ensuing consequences.
“This law is not consistent with the World Anti-Doping Code,” Pound told Reuters on Tuesday. “I think one of the steps that WADA is going to take is to refer this issue to its compliance committee, which I suspect in the event of a hearing on this case, the United States will be declared deprived of this compliance. And this will mean the impossibility of holding (in the United States) the Olympic Games.»
It is worth noting that in the quote either Pound misspoke or the journalist made a mistake. Of course, it is not a country that can be declared deprived of its compliance status with the World Anti-Doping Code, but its national anti-doping authority — in this case, USADA. But everything else is correct: if this happens, then according to the rules, the Olympic Games really cannot be held in this country. And in the USA, the 2028 Summer Olympics should be held in Los Angeles — plus Salt Lake City remains the only candidate for organizing the 2036 Winter Games.
But can America really be deprived of the Olympic Games? It is worth recalling that WADA is 50% financed by the International Olympic Committee. Thus, in 2022, out of almost 48 million dollars received in the accounts of the world anti-doping regulator, more than 23 million were transferred by the IOC. So there seems to be no question about whose side Lausanne is on in the conflict between WADA and USADA. Moreover, in an official statement, the IOC expressed support for WADA's actions in the case of Chinese swimmers.
And yet there are nuances. It is enough to look at the list of IOC sponsors to notice large companies from the USA among them. And Thomas Bach and Witold Bańke do not want to lose American money, because the stability of the world sports system that they have built largely depends on it.
Well, how in practice can you transfer the Olympics to another city four years before it starts? It’s a sad statement of fact for the IOC: after all, they can organize such major events only in Russia. More than once we have helped out various international federations after someone’s refusal to hold world championships. But in Lausanne now, alas, they are doing everything to remove us from the international Olympic movement. And no one else will undertake to insure the IOC with the Olympics.
So it is too early to drag armchair experts into the information field with comments on depriving the Americans of their Olympics. So far no one is taking the Games away from the USA. And Pound’s statements are a kind of voice of an elder trying to rein in the hotheads who are playing with aggressive rhetoric in their offices. But if Tygart and Banka don’t stop, then, of course, they can buy popcorn and take comfortable seats.
Свежие комментарии