World Athletics remains firm in its position on Russia and Belarus: “Sorry, I’m not neutral”

Long before Putin decided to invade Ukraine, a Russian athlete named Mariya Lasitskene had already been the victim of a situation that has no perfect solution.

After becoming world champion in high jump at the Beijing World Cup (2015) and having confirmed her superiority in the Diamond League event held in the following months, she was unable to participate in the Rio Olympic Games due to a sanction for various violations of the anti-doping regulations to which World Athletics (then IAAF) subjected all Russian athletics. Along with the healthy intention of promoting fair play, the arbitrariness, common to any generalization, of measuring everyone equally, was committed.

So much so that, a year later, adjusting the decision and allowing the presence of “clean” athletes, Mariya repeated the world title in London (2017). Always without a flag to represent her or anthem on the podium, the Russian had her Olympic claim triumphing in Tokyo 2021.

Those who understand laws warn us that there is practically no full justice and that there is always someone whom a rule can affect. Even so, when it comes to sports -and people dedicated their entire lives to these disciplines- that mismatch becomes painfully visible.

Based on the recommendation of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) not to discriminate against athletes because of their passports and that they can compete under strict “neutrality”, different Federations have allowed athletes from Russia and Belarus to return to international competition. However, some, such as athletics or swimming, are firm in their position not to lift the sanction imposed after the invasion of Ukraine in February last year.

At a conference with international media, Sebastian Coe, president of World Athletics, was categorical in responding to the possibility of Russian and Belarusian athletes competing again: “Sorry, I’m not neutral.”

The British, Olympic champion in the 1500 meters of Moscow 1980 and Los Angeles 1984, recalled that the measure was taken “almost unanimously” last year and was ratified at the last Council meeting in May: “We made that decision a few days after the illegal invasion of a sovereign state. We did it for integrity reasons, it wasn’t about passports or politics.”

“You had a nation that could no longer compete and its infrastructure was being destroyed,” Coe said, explaining that they could not allow “athletes from countries that were causing that to participate. It just got stuck in my throat, it was as simple as that, and that’s how the rest of the sport felt. Athletics won’t be on the wrong side of history.”

Likewise, beyond this decision not to lift the suspension of Russia and Belarus, the president of World Athletics assured that they do not intend to be the federation that always says no: “We will always review the situation, in fact, I have just created a working group that will analyze, when the time is right, what are the necessary conditions to release sanctions and reverse the exclusion. It’s not our ambition to have this as the status quo.”

“These are difficult problems, but they need to be addressed. Sometimes, decisions become very obvious the closer you get to them, but this decision for me was never in question. I’m afraid I can’t be neutral,” Coe said, recalling: “On the eve of the 2022 Munich Euro Cup, I sat with a Ukrainian girl who had lost her mother four hours earlier in an attack on a building in Kiev. Sorry, I’m not neutral.”

“The vast majority of athletes who don’t cheat don’t have any problems with the tracking system”

From August 19 to 27, in Budapest, Hungary, the World Athletics Championship will be held and one of the biggest absentees will be the Nigerian Tobi Amusan, who holds the world record in the 100 meters hurdles.

Amusan, who surprised all athletics last year at the Eugene World Cup by nailing the clocks on 12.12, faces a possible two-year suspension for missing doping control three times during 12 months.

“The topic is very simple. They are asked to identify for one hour a day where they are going to be and I really don’t think that’s brain surgery,” Coe ironized, adding: “I accept that things can change, but you have the opportunity to connect and explain where you’ll be.”

“The vast majority of athletes who don’t cheat don’t have any problems with the tracking system... Every athlete I know takes this seriously. Sorry, it’s really not that complicated,” reflected the president of World Athletics.

“Our sport has improved its reputation more than any other sport in the past two years by far and our reputation has returned because we have been prepared to address issues related to doping. Making the Athletics Integrity Unit independent, eliminating politics, has created systems that are doing what they were supposed to do,” Coe added.

Finally, the Briton said that “this was the best start I remember of any athletics season” and he felt like what was coming in the 2023 World Cup in Budapest: “I was very lucky. I saw the first of Faith Kipyegon’s world records when she won the 1500 meters in Florence and then in Paris we had three world records. There have been some outstanding performances. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for some of the head-to-head matches, but these have the potential to be the best world championships in terms of performance of all time.”

This leadership decision goes far beyond Mariya and, at the same time, includes her.

And as a way of understanding the crossroads we face when an agent as toxic as a war interferes with sports, it is worth remembering what happened on the way to Moscow in 1980 when more than 50 countries refused to send their delegation to the games.

Some of these countries were also represented by athletes, again, “without a flag”.

The reason was the repudiation of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.

One of those countries was England.

And one of those athletes was the enormous Sebastian Coe, winner of the gold medal in the 1500s and the silver medal in the 800s. The same one that today faces with the firmness clearly expressed in his recent statements, but no longer as an extraordinary athlete but as the top management officer of a sport that, as he has just mentioned with certainty, is having one of the most formidable starts to the season in history.