Patience is beginning to wear thin on Vladimir Salnikov, as the All-Russian Swimming Federation President’s tone has shifted in recent days as his athletes remain ineligible to compete internationally.
Salnikov, who has generally been pretty accepting of the situation Russian athletes find themselves in amidst the country’s war with Ukraine, has grown increasingly frustrated with the delay in progress made by World Aquatics and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in developing a path for his swimmers to compete.
Salnikov recently told Russia’s official state news agency TASS that he was resigned to the fact that Russian swimmers would be ineligible to compete at this summer’s World Aquatics Championships due to World Aquatics extending its ban on Russian and Belarusian participation into 2023.
“The International Federation has extended the restrictions imposed last year on the participation of our athletes in its events.” Salnikov said.
Last week, World Aquatics announced that it had established a task force to begin pursuing a path for Russian and Belarusian participation in international competition, following a recommendation by the IOC.
However, Salnikov put the IOC on blast in an interview Monday, telling TASS that the restrictions being imposed go against the principles outlined in the Olympic Charter.
“We are witnessing a crisis of the Olympic Movement, we can’t go any further,” Salnikov said. “Everything is written in the Olympic Charter, it speaks about uniting everyone in the name of peace, about the unacceptability of any discrimination. What we see now is a perversion of all the fundamental principles: everyone is equal, but we are ‘more equal.’
“Political decisions are at the forefront, now there is blackmail by the leaders of countries and governments. It makes sense to gather the international sports community and ask whether sport remains a factor of unification, or it will just disappear and everyone will do something in their own corners.”
While the IOC has pushed international federations to pursue an avenue allowing Russians and Belarusians to compete under a neutral flag, it has delayed a decision on Russia’s participation at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
On the status of Russia’s swimmers’ eligibility to race internationally, Salnikov said: “The decision rests with the World Aquatics Bureau, in July. It will be based either on the decision of the International Olympic Committee – which postponed the very fact of the possibility of participation in the Olympics for a longer period – or on the report of the [World Aquatics] commission.”
With the World Aquatics Bureau’s decision not to come until July, Russia will surely miss the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, which are scheduled for July 14-30 in Fukuoka, Japan.
“So until the end of the year, I think, through World Aquatics, we won’t participate anywhere,” Salnikov said.
The doping invaders get no sympathy from me.
Don’t understand point of punishing athletes for the actions of their government. It not going to deter or stop Putin in any way. If they have nothing to do with the war can’t stop them from earning a living.
Hopefully WA aquatics athletes will make their voices heard and protest any upcoming Russian participation!
Oh no.
Anyways..
Hey Vladimir (Salnikov)…remember when your boss Putey bombed a children’s hospital last year during a supposed humanitarian corridor cease fire? Yeah, so does most of the rest of the world. Go pound sand.
And when the US killed thousands of children in the Middle East wars, why the IOC didn’t punish our country? Sorry, but this is BS.
Let the Russians rot in the wilderness
I feel for the athletes but at the same time he needs to speak with Putin not the IOC. Nothing political about disagreeing with a country invading another
Let me present a dissenting opinion: As I understand the origins of the Greek Olympics, the 4-year cycle of sport included a cessation of all hostilities in order that ALL athletes from the Hellenic world could compete. If this is the original spirit of the Olympics which we try to embody today, why should the various wars, insurrections, cross-border conflicts, etc. disrupt the ONE place where guns, past ethnic grudges, and the need to air grievances ARE ALL DROPPED. We do SPORT at the Olympics, period. If you are a good enough athlete, you get to come. Caveat: NO DOPERS – ONLY CLEAN ATHLETES.
The only problem with your argument is that those Greek cities were expected to observe the Olympic Truce in return.
Russia didn’t. For the second time.
Don’t observe the truce? Don’t get to compete.
No dopers?……no Russia.
You underestimate the moral depravity the modern nation state is capable of. It’s a neat idea, but one that’s already kind of a pipe dream, let alone organizing in only about a years time.
Modern? Historical
So when “all” athletes can’t compete because some are busy burying dead relatives, defending their country from war criminals and picking through the rubble of their training facilities, then what?
Thankfully you don’t make the rules.
Well, first of all… the truce was mostly so that spectators and diplomatic envoys could travel to the Games safely. Because the Games were used for political talks between states and to promote Colonialism (states would lend out their champions to colonies in North Africa and other places along the Med coast to promote people going/moving there).
The ancient Olmpic Games were anything but the apolitical, noble pursuit of athletics. They were entirely politicized (just like today), sports was equally entertainment and political propaganda (just like today) and athletes were nothing but pawns in the games the politically powerful played (just like today).