Last Saturday, just 48 hours after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Mariya Lasitskene's agent telephoned the Spanish athletics federation.
"I'm sorry," she said.
“But my athlete will not participate in the athletics meeting that you organize in Madrid on Wednesday.
She does not feel strong or moral enough to compete”.
And as the Olympic high jump champion, one of the great stars expected in the event, her compatriot Polina Miller, the revelation of the year, also dropped out of the Gallur track competition that puts an end to the World Indoor Tour in the 400m.
Their voluntary choice, dictated by the fear of being rejected by the other athletes or the fans or the media, who could remind them that the great Ukrainian jumper Yuliya Levchenko would like to be in Madrid but cannot participate because she is isolated in the bombed-out Kiev, He advanced 72 hours to the decision of the international athletics federation (World Athletics, WA) to exclude all Russian and Belarusian athletes from their next official competitions due to the invasion of Ukraine that began in the early hours of February 24, Thursday.
On Friday the 25th, in the stage of the Tour de la UAE, a race on the cycling WorldTour circuit, there was a breakaway by six riders.
Three, half, belonged to the same team, the Russian Gazprom, a usually transparent second division team in major races.
Coinciding with the Russian offensive in the Ukraine, the three led the breakaway to success, surprisingly on a very flat course.
And one of them won the stage.
It was Gazprom's second win of the season.
Also the last of the team that bears the name of one of the largest Russian companies on the
jersey
, owned by the oligarch Alexei Miller, a close friend of Putin and financier of his army, considered a state within the state so much is the greatness of its holdings of gas and oil.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) decided on Tuesday to suspend all Russian and Belarusian international men's and women's road and track teams, as well as all international competitions, mostly track, planned in both countries allied in the invasion of Ukraine. .
Russian cyclists in teams from other countries – there are two in the WorldTour, Sivakov, from Ineos, and Vlasov, from Bora – will be able to compete as long as the countries in which the races take place admit them and grant them a visa.
In a meeting of its board of directors in which the Russian oligarch Igor Makarov, the power in the shadow of president David Lappartient, did not participate, the UCI also decided not to suspend the national federations of both countries.
The UCI explains that it only suspends the teams and not the Russian riders in foreign teams because it would be complicated since they have contractual rights with their teams that they should respect, so they would be the last to suffer.
In addition, the UCI is committed to accelerating the processes of changing the national federation for those Russians and Belarusians who have several nationalities (Sivakov, for example, was born in Italy, lives in France and chose to compete for Russia because his parents are Russian) since open new contracting periods so that those affected by the closure of their teams can run in others.
and prohibit the
the UCI is committed to accelerating the processes of changing the national federation for those Russians and Belarusians who have several nationalities (Sivakov, for example, was born in Italy, lives in France and chose to compete for Russia because his parents are Russian) and to open new contracting periods so that those affected by the closure of their teams can run in others.
and prohibit the
the UCI is committed to accelerating the processes of changing the national federation for those Russians and Belarusians who have several nationalities (Sivakov, for example, was born in Italy, lives in France and chose to compete for Russia because his parents are Russian) and to open new contracting periods so that those affected by the closure of their teams can run in others.
and prohibit the
Russian sponsors,
which give a bad image.
They are those of athletics and cycling, and also badminton, handball, rowing, volleyball, swimming, the last forces of sport that join the movement that wants to isolate Russia, and all its speakers, from the rest of the planet , and its athletes, sponsored by their oligarchs and used by Vladimir Putin regularly as a propaganda weapon, the so-called
soft power,
to affirm Russia's greatness before the world.
Hours earlier, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) made a decision similar to the one FIFA and UEFA had agreed on for Russian national teams and soccer teams.
Adidas, for its part, has canceled the agreement it had to dress the Russian soccer team.
And little by little, all international sports organizations join the call made by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to isolate Russian sport in a global boycott of the same magnitude as the diplomatic one and much more intense than the one that was organized disorganized between 1960 and 1992 against South Africa for the
apartheid
policy that was crudely displayed in its official sport and in its national teams, exclusively for white athletes.
Before announcing their measures, all the federations met with the president of the IOC, Thomas Bach, to harmonize their decisions.
In the boycott of South Africa, the UN kept a record of all those countries and athletes who skipped the dictation and competed in the prohibited country.
In the case of the offensive of the world sports movement against the Kremlin and its war, the UN acts as guarantor of the Olympic truce (the period of peace to which all countries commit themselves during the celebration of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, still in force, since the seconds begin precisely on Friday), whose rupture has been the trigger for a unanimous response.
If the boycott did not bring down the South African regime, it at least destabilized it, and the same is sought against Putin.
“Anyone who knows me knows that I have never agreed with the policy of imposing sanctions against individual athletes to punish their governments, while other sectors go about their business,” said Sebastian Coe, president of WA, an organization in which a of the vice-presidencies is occupied by the Ukrainian ex-athlete Sergey Bubka.
“But in this case it is different.
All sectors, governments, companies and international organizations have imposed sanctions.
Sport has to join the efforts to end war and restore peace.
We cannot and should not look the other way.
“No coach, manager or athlete from these countries will be able to participate this weekend in the Walking World Cup or in the Indoor World Cup in Belgrade, from March 18 to 20, nor, in July, in the Outdoor World Cup. from Eugene, Oregon, ”said the WA, which recalls that the Russian federation has been suspended since 2015 for its doping plots.
Since then, Russian athletes have participated without a flag or anthem, under the acronym ANA (Authorized Neutral Athletes), 55 athletes this year, who have seen their authorization revoked.
The badminton federation has also suspended Russian and Belarusian athletes, but will allow several of them to participate this week, without a flag or anthem, in a para-badminton competition in Spain because they are already at their destination.
Skiers, rowers and volleyball players from all international competitions are also suspended.
The volleyball federation has also withdrawn the organization of the next World Cup from Russia.
And FINA, the swimming federation, has suspended the Junior World Cup that was to be held in Kazan and will only allow Russian and Belarusian swimmers to participate as neutral athletes, and, as if that were not enough, it has stripped Putin of the highest decoration of the federation that imposed him in 2014 for his services to swimming.
The warmth of tennis
On Monday, the official ATP website opened spectacularly celebrating the new number one: a large photo of Daniil Medvedev and, next to him, a large flag.
On Tuesday, the flag had disappeared, but the portrait of the Russian, a resident of Monaco and a peace advocate on his social media, continued.
And a little more.
Unlike other big sports organizations, just a space for a
light
statement in which they condemn Russia's violence, sympathize with Ukraine, and, they add, they have thought a lot and talked a lot before making a decision.
And its female version, the WTA, which has two Belarusian tennis players and a Russian among the top 20 in its ranking, does not go much further.
Both organizations suspend the October tournament in Moscow, but allow players to continue participating in the rest of the events, starting with the one in Indian Wells, so close, and in the Grand Slams.
"Of course, without wearing the name of Russia or Belarus or its flag," they specify.
At least, the WTA website has removed the flag next to Sabalenka, Azarenka and Pavlyuchenkova, those affected by the measure.
His lukewarmness contrasts with the firmness of most federations and organizations, including the International Tennis Federation (ITF), which has suspended the federations of Belarus and Russia, which means that their tennis players cannot participate in their team competitions. —after having won the Davis Cup and the Billie Jean King Cup last year—, and has canceled the tournaments it organizes in its territories.
Ukraine's Elina Svitolina threatened not to play against Anastasia Potapova in Monterrey, Mexico, but with the Russian references gone, she finally will.
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