Athletistic / Combat. The International Olympic Committee continues to trample on the Olympic Charter. Much has already been said on the issue of the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris (France), but the IOC continues to add fuel to the fire. It seems that the organization revels in power and no longer thinks about the consequences and future resonance of its decisions.

April 4, 2024 can be considered another dark day in the history of world sports. Today we learned of the IOC’s decision not to allow double Olympic freestyle wrestling champion, Russian Abdulrashid Sadulayev, to participate in the qualifying tournament in Baku. The reason for this decision, as usual, is not indicated, but from a purely technical and legal point of view, everything seems ideal for the IOC – Sadulayev simply was not on the list of participants in the competition in the capital of Azerbaijan.

This was hardly a surprise. Something like this was to be expected, because the IOC expressed its position towards Russia and Russian athletes long before the start of the SVO in Ukraine, accusing our sport of all mortal sins. Much became clear about Sadulaev in February 2024, when he did not receive a visa to participate in the European Championships in Romania. Interestingly, the Russian tank (the generally accepted nickname of Abdulrashid) did not give up and applied for a Schengen visa through the representative office of another country. There, the Russian received the necessary documents and, after making a transit flight, attempted to enter Romanian territory. But Romanian customs officials, in violation of every law imaginable, did not allow him to enter their country. Romanian authorities said they had doubts about the authenticity of Sadulayev’s visa.

Photo source: OKR

Sadulayev had no problem entering Azerbaijan. But then the IOC decided to take action and simply removed the legendary wrestler from the list of participants in the final qualifying competition for the 2024 Games in Paris.

We can now say with certainty that the IOC has developed two main levers which allow it to deny Russian athletes access to the Paris Olympic Games. The first is that the host country simply does not allow a Russian athlete on its territory, citing excuses. Secondly, the IOC does not include an athlete it does not like in the list of participants in the competition, motivating its decision by the results of a “neutrality check”. The most interesting thing is that there is no way to know the reasons for not meeting the admission criteria. Perhaps this was not achieved at all. Just a formal unsubscribe and that’s it. Will anyone be surprised by this?

Either way, Russia won’t be able to do anything. The membership of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in the IOC was temporarily suspended, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Lausanne (Switzerland) ceased to be an honest and neutral body, and the UN can only “ express your concerns. on discriminatory decisions against athletes from Russia and Belarus.

Photo source: UWW

In Sadulayev’s story, the IOC demonstrates its power. The organization is waging an undeclared war with Russia, wanting to eliminate even the possibility of creating a replacement for the current sports system. The IOC was very scared because of the World Friendship Games held in Russia and will now “spoil” it in every possible way.

It is important to understand that in modern politics the adversary only understands force. Even if we agree to cancel the 2024 Friendship Games and withdraw from the IOC again, the situation will only get worse. There is no going back. We did not start the war with the IOC, but we must end it amicably.

The only downside is that ordinary athletes suffer from this situation. Although one would hesitate to call Abdulrashid Sadulayev an “ordinary athlete”. At just 27 years old, he is already one of the greatest wrestlers in the history of the sport. And this CIO cannot be taken away from him!

Nikita Serbakov, Athletistic



Athletistic