Relay of smoke

Three weeks before the opening of the Sochi Games, the goalkeeper of American hockey players Jesse Vetter was forced to change the coloring of his helmet: the IOC found that there was a political propaganda placed on it from the US Constitution. And the sport, they say, outside the politics - Article 53 of the Olympic Charter states: "Any political, religious or racial propaganda is prohibited at the Olympic facilities and other places of competition."

You can argue whether the phrase "We, the people ..." is political propaganda. For example, a team of Slovakia wore the full text of the national anthem on their sweaters, disguised as strips. Perhaps the guardians of the rules simply did not make out the small beams.

But Jesse and the author of the artistic painting of the helmet Ron Slater did not argue - they were satisfied with the fact that the IOC allowed them to leave the image of the statue of freedom and the American herbal eagle.

In fact, the sport was outside politics perhaps at the very dawn of the Olympic movement. Already at the 1908 London games, the organizers faced the problem of political protest. The team of the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was part of the Russian Empire, refused to reach the opening ceremony under the Russian flag, and Russia did not allow it to go under the flag of Finland. As a result, the Finns carried an empty shaft in front of the columns. The Russian team did not participate in the opening ceremony at all. According to the Rules, the standard -bearers had to bow a flag passing by King Edward VII, but the American Rolph Rose did not, and the team captain Martin Sheridan seemed to declare: "This flag is not inclined to any earthly monarch." This phrase, however, is considered an apocryphus - it first appeared in print only in 1952.

There were no political protests at the 1936 Berlin Games, but there was a personal boycott from some athletes. In particular, three Austrian swimmers-Jews refused to participate in games-Judit Haspel-Duch, Lucy Goldner and Ruth Langer. They were disqualified for life and deprived of all ranks and awards. Their names were deleted from the book of records. All three managed to emigrate. Deutsch even before Anschlus and her family left for Palestine and lived there all her life. The other two had more difficult - they left Austria after she became the territory of the Reich. Goldner was arrested, but managed to flee . She painted in a blonde and through Berlin reached London. Langer also dyed her hair and, with the help of fake documents, went to Italy, and from there to England.

Jewish athletes and coaches of other countries were boycotted by summer games in Nazi Germany: four of the USA, two of Canada, one of Denmark. The outstanding Bobsleist of that time Philip de Rothschild refused to participate in winter games. The fighter Werner Zeolenbert was going to protest - he was a communist and underground and hated Nazism. But he took only fourth place. The radio interview on the air, on which he was counting, was not taken from him.

The difficult domestic political situation developed in 1968 in Mexico City - the capital of the XIX year Olympiad. Student and trade union organizations decided to use games to show the world the true face of the authoritarian regime of President Gustavo Diaz Ordas. The president, on the contrary, relied on games with which he calculate to improve his image. He ordered the troops to occupy the metropolitan university and conducted preventive arrests of leaders. Nevertheless, ten days before the opening of the Olympics, 15 thousand demonstrators came out to the area of ​​three crops. Their slogan was the words "We do not want the Olympiad, we want a revolution!" The troops received an order to open a fire on the defeat on a peaceful process. According to various sources, from 200 to several thousand people died. But the games began as if nothing had happened. IOC said that everything that happened was Mexico's internal business. The interior minister Luis Echeverria, who led the reprisal, became president two years later in a non -alternative election. In February 2005, the Mexico Supreme Court freed him from liability for this crime expired.

At those games there were two more political incidents. Firstly, the two American athletes, who won the gold and bronze medals in 200 meters, African-Americans Tommy Smith and John Carlos raised during the execution of the American anthem and lifting the American flag a cloth in a black glove in the protest against racial segregation in the United States.

The then US President, American, Avery Brandig, who at one time tore off the boycott of the Berlin Olympiad and did not object to the Nazi salute on the pedestal (he then headed the US NOC), ordered the leadership of the American delegation to exclude violators from the national team and expel them from the Olympic village. The Americans refused to do this. Then the President of the IOC threatened to disqualify the entire American team. Smith and Carlos left the games.

1968 was difficult not only for Mexico. The bold political gesture allowed the Czechoslovak gymnast Vera Krahoslavsk. Standing on the pedestal, she, in protest against the Soviet occupation of her country during the execution of the USSR anthem, defiantly turned away from the flag. On this, her brilliant sports career broke off: she was closed from the country, she could not find a job in her specialty.

In 1972, in Munich, the same Brandige reluctantly agreed to interrupt one day of competition and arrange a memorial service at the Olympic stadium in memory of Israeli athletes executed by Palestinian terrorists. (The Soviet team was absent at the mourning ceremony.) But the very next day, the audience who tried to remind the tragedy, the guards deduced from the stands.

At the 2012 London Summer Games, the IOC President Jacques Rogge refused to declare a minute of silence at the opening ceremony in memory of the victims of the Munich terrorist attack (it was his 40th anniversary), and some athletes were expelled from the teams for careless tweets. And when the Lebanese judokas refused to train in the same hall with the Israeli, the hall was divided by a partition - apparently, in full accordance with the Olympic Charter.

Games in Sochi continued this sad tradition. The lights of the Olympic fireworks were covered with smoke from the Kyiv Maidan. The Ukrainian skier of Bogdan Matsetskaya considered it impossible to compete in such circumstances. The rest of the Olympic team of Ukraine decided to stay and continue the struggle in its field. However, when Ukrainian skiers Marina Lisogor and Katerina Serdyuk wanted to go to the start of the command sprint in black sleeve dresses in mourning for the dead, the IOC forbade them to them. The official representative of the IOC Mark Adams tried to deny the fact of the ban - he claimed that this was a mutual decision. However, the report of the Ukrainian delegation said precisely about the ban.

Nevertheless, the Ukrainian delegation found the opportunity to express its attitude to events in his homeland. On the Victory Day of the Maidan, the four Ukrainian skiers won a brilliant victory in the relay. Golden medalists began their press conference with a minute of silence . And President of the Ukrainian NOC Sergey Bubka made an emotional statement :

We devote this victory to all the Ukrainian people. I believe that in this difficult time for the country, this medal will be able to unite us and peace, calmness and prosperity will reign in Ukraine ... Today is a great day for each of us. I could not hold back tears.

The joy of victory was poisoned by the behavior of Russian fans. As one of the four champions of Olen Pidgrashny said , they "rejoiced at the misses of Vali Semerenko ... shouted" miss, fall "... I ran and did not believe that Russian fans could scream."

But the most disgusting event of the Sochi Olympiad was the beating of pussy riot groups of the Cossacks with impunity by the Cossacks. When the perpetrators sensed that the wind was blowing the wrong place where they would like, they instantly hid in the minks - not only themselves, but all the Cossack patrols in Sochi disappeared .

How did I react to the IOC incident? He actually approved the execution. The same Mark Adams called the PR action “completely unacceptable”, but the actions of hefty men with whips beating women did not condemn a single word. This is a shame.

I recall how in February 2002 Sergey Glazyev, who then held the post of chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, compared the winter games in Salt Lake City with the Berlin ones: "Today, the United States, like earlier Germany, claims world domination, trying to prove at all costs that it is American athletes that are the most powerful and only pretexts for leadership." And the venerable publicist Maxim Sokolov answered him: "Nevertheless, the simplest justice makes him stand up for the Fuhrer of the German nation." And he stood up : "From the point of view of the simplest decency, the Nazi Olympiads were immeasurably cleaner than the current triumph of will."

It is interesting that then no one accused the commentators of praising Nazism or, say, of distorting history and slander at our ally in the anti -Hitler coalition. This time, Russia won the medal test, and the national pride of patriots is satisfied, there are no reasons for hysteria. But we will not forget the wise words of the classic :

*Simple truth, but it must be filed: blessed not victories in wars, but defeats in them! Victories are needed by governments, defeats are needed - people. After victories I want more victories, after defeat I want freedom - and usually they achieve it. The people need defeats, as suffering and troubles, individual people need: they force them to deepen inner life, to rise spiritually.

The Poltava victory was a misfortune for Russia: she pulled two centuries of great tension, ruin, lack of freedom - both new and new wars. The Poltava defeat was saving for the Swedes: having lost the hunt to fight, the Swedes became the most prosperous and free people in Europe.

We are so used to being proud of our victory over Napoleon that we miss: it was thanks to her that the liberation of the peasants did not happen half a century earlier; It was thanks to her that the strengthened throne broke the Decembrists. (The French occupation was not a reality for Russia.) But the Crimean war, and the Japanese, and German - all brought us freedoms and revolutions.*