Olympics are for everyone, even Russians, as unpopular as that is

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It’s a weird, little world we’re living in when it’s left to the guy who runs the International Olympic Committee to remind us how diplomacy works.

The Olympics is currently under steady, growing pressure to ban Russian and Belarusian athletic federations from Paris 2024.

This week, 35 countries, including Canada, asked the IOC to explain what it meant by allowing Russians to compete as “neutral” athletes. That’s an easy one – it can’t.

Russia’s been “neutral” for four Olympics now, and everyone’s still managed to figure out that it’s Russia. Maybe it’s because they are all Russian citizens who live in Russia, wearing Russian colours and speaking Russian.

Unless somebody’s found a stateless bobsledder who lives in an airport, there is no such thing as “neutral” in an international athletic context.

Having handed the IOC back the Gordian knot it tied for itself, the signatories to that letter have also included a demand. If the Olympics can’t define neutral to their satisfaction, then Russia ought not be allowed to come. The threat is left implicit – if Russia goes, others may decide not to.

It’s a nice idea born of salutary liberal ideals. That doesn’t make it correct.

Had the IOC done the simple thing a decade ago and banned Russia for systemic cheating at the Olympics, that would be one thing. You can’t come to the party, steal everyone’s coats and expect to be welcomed back. That was and is an entirely sporting issue, contained within the Olympics competition.

The Olympics writ large is something different. It wasn’t created so that we could finally answer humanity’s urgent questions about who jumps highest while holding a pole and what, precisely, is ice dancing. That ideal Olympics is a diplomatic tool.

It’s not there to celebrate universal amity. It’s there to lower the temperature for a couple of weeks every two years. It’s meant to show the rest of us that people from everywhere can get together and participate in Games without killing each other.

(When there is the imminent risk of those participants being killed on the way to the Olympics, as in the Second World War, they cancel those Games. That’s not politics. It’s common sense.)

There is no expectation that the competitors will like each other, though that would be nice. If they feel strongly enough about the company, then they don’t have to come. But they do have to respect the fact that the Games are open to all qualified athletes, regardless of what their governments have done.

That principle is sacrosanct. Without it, the Olympics Games are nothing but a lucrative track and field competition. Take it away, and they won’t be lucrative for much longer. If you aren’t there to sort the best of the best, but only the best from the countries that you get along with, then why would anyone watch?

It’s been left to IOC president Thomas Bach to explain a pretty graspable idea – that it’s not the Olympics’ job to sort the bad guys from the good. Even when it is blindingly obvious. Especially when it is blindingly obvious.

Recently, Bach was accused of that new chestnut – “being on the wrong side of history.”

“No, history will show who is doing more for peace,” Bach said. “We’re trying to find a solution that is giving justice to the mission of sport, which is to unify, not to contribute to more confrontation, more escalation.”

Were a national political leader to say it, it’s a rationalization. But the Olympics represents no nation, no national interest, no politics of any sort. So that’s the right answer. If there is an Olympics, athletes from every country ought to be invited, every time, without hesitation.

Kicking Russians and Belarusians out of the Paralympics when the war in Ukraine began was an expedience born of necessity. It worked, but it also wasn’t correct. The IOC broke its own rules knowing that if it didn’t, the competition would collapse. It isn’t going to get caught like that twice.

Which is not to say everyone else has to go along with the IOC’s mission statement. The Olympics must welcome Russians. No one else need do so.

This is where the political rubber meets the practical road. If Canada and its allies feel strongly about the inclusion of Russia, then let’s see if loud noise gets as far as decisive action. I doubt it.

Everyone already knows how this ends. A bunch of countries stamp their feet about Russia’s inclusion in Paris. The IOC includes it anyway.

Some of those same countries threaten to stay home. The IOC dares them to do it.

In the end, the dissenters put out strongly worded statements about how it wouldn’t be fair to their athletes, which allows them to overcome their moral repugnance and do the thing they were going to do all along. The broadcasters put together a few sad, televised montages of war destruction, and still make a bunch of money.

Maximum moral outrage, minimum financial spillage – it’s the progressive way.

I would say this to athletic and political leaders who want to do something about the Russians – do that. Stop talking about thinking about it. Do it.

Start now. If Russia is going to a track meet, then your people don’t go. If the pool contains Russian swimmers, then it will be empty of your own. Say that out loud.

Put an end on it – no Olympics for us unless Russia is out or the war is over – and then obey your own rule.

If you’re going to take a moral stand, then you’re going to have to get up out of your chair first. Stop waiting for Thomas Bach to do what you aren’t willing to.

Everybody’s working their political angles here, but the only one doing so coherently is Bach. He’s got a Charter and he’s sticking to it.

What does everyone else have? A sense of righteous grievance, certainly (some more righteous than others). But do they have a plan? Have they decided on a consequence? Are they willing to sacrifice anything themselves? Or is this just more tough talk about doing what’s right, to be followed next year by quiet submission to the way things are.