Russian athletics is still in hell

Angélica Sidorova won the silver medal in pole vault, a figure destined to occupy a footnote if it were not for the fact that she is a member of the ROC, a team that represents the interests of Russian sport in the Games.

It is Russia's first medal in athletics competitions.

For a country whose athletes had won 274 medals since the 1948 Games - second in the world, behind the United States - Sidorova's silver represents a drop in the ocean.

Its significant value, on the other hand, is enormous.

It describes the fall of a colossus in the midst of the blemishes of its model and also of a political network to which sport does not escape.

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• All articles by Santiago Segurola

Under the ROC (Russian Olympic Committee) banner, 330 Russian athletes have attended the Games. It is one of the most numerous delegations and that has achieved the most medals: 58 with three days remaining to close the Tokyo edition. It is not in its old numbers - it topped the

ranking

by nations in 1972, 1976, 1980 and 1988, then as a main member of the Soviet Union - but it maintains its enormous power on the world scene. It only suffers from the collapse of athletics.

Except for the men's 1,500-meter category, Russia has won medals throughout the athletics arc.

His men have only missed the gold in the marathon, 110 meters hurdles, 400 meters hurdles, 3,000 meters hurdles and long jump.

Russian athletes have failed in three events: 200 meters, triple jump and 4x100.

Fidorova's lonely medal cannot be explained by Russia's sudden disaffection with athletics.

Under normal circumstances, his team would challenge the Americans for supremacy in the Games.

The situation is not normal for two reasons: the review of retroactive doping tests and the 2014 Winter Olympics scandal, held in the Russian city of Sochi.

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The new detection systems for banned substances have swept a good part of Russia's presence from the podiums. From 2002 until now, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has disqualified 43 Russian medalists (12 gold, 20 silver and 11 bronze), 21 of them —49% of the total penalties— corresponding to their athletes, with a disastrous effect on the reputation of the country and the general credibility of the sport. Sending medals to the injured, with years of delay, will never pay for the damages committed.

The list of disqualified medalists revealed a very serious problem, of which there were more than considerable suspicions, but with no consequences other than the individual ones. The JJ OO of Sochi, a stunning demonstration of the political and sporting power of Putin's Russia, established the definitive connection with a state model of doping, in the manner of the old GDR.

This time the revelations emerged from the deepest core of the system. Grigory Rodchenkov, former director of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) and currently a protected witness for the FBI, unveiled a gigantic montage of organized fraud from the highest levels of the Government. Since then, two summer Olympic editions have been held (Rio and Tokyo), between sanctions, entanglements and more or less lukewarm decisions that have led to a ridiculous game of masks, with a false anthem and flag, but with Russia throughout. its fullness. Not in athletics, whose top world body, World Athletics, maintains its tight watchdog filter on the Russians. The result is obvious: a bare team of 10 athletes, the lonely silver of Sidorova and Russia in 25th place in the medal standings in athletics.

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