The Olympiad of the second type

The troubles of our national team at the Olympics in Pyeongchang-not because of the intrigues of enemies, but because of the Russian tactics of "hybrid special operations", transferred to big sport

The Olympic Games are always different.

The Olympiad is a bear flying to the sky, tears of Rodnina, basketball player Pitshko, who leads the ball into the game three seconds before the final whistle. These are the noble principles of de Cuberten, equal opportunities for all countries and sports, an honest competition performed by some Hellenic nobility. This is something rising above the political vanity and generally the concerns of this world. In the end, it is beautiful.

The Olympiad is the boycotts of games in Moscow and Los Angeles. This is a terrorist attack in Munich. These are constant muddy games of the IOC around the elections of the city, which is entrusted to accept the next Olympics. This is commerce, advertising, crazy money for television rights. This is a constant panic of the organizers - however to manage everything and not to screw up - and huge meaningless structures remaining at the end of the games. These are inflated patriotic feelings, which sometimes - as in 2014 - become a bridge to the present rather than sports battle. These are scandals, protests, deprivation of medals. In the end, this is doping.

Surely at the Olympics in Pyeongchang, which opens on February 9, there will be examples of real human heroism, nobility and overcoming. But for now - at least, if you look from Russia, it seems that this Olympics is only about doping. Not in the direct, of course, sense: what will do with athletes with prohibited drugs, we do not know yet. About doping as a metaphor for injustice. Advantages obtained by dishonest way. "Taken not according to the rank."

Surely at the Olympics in Pyeongchang, which opens on February 9, there will be examples of real human heroism, nobility and overcoming. But for now - at least, if you look from Russia, it seems that this Olympics is only about doping

Why are the Olympic officials so cruelly react to doping stories - it is clear: this is the most direct, literal and physiological violation of those very Kubertenic principles - instead of honest competition, we get a competition of drug superpowers obtained by secret and fraud. Any hint of this - based on the very spirit of the competition - should be punishable on the principle of “zero tolerance”, otherwise it is not an Olympiad, but battles without rules in mud. What is happening now, however, is not just the punishment of guilty athletes: everyone understands that the story is much more serious.

The long -term doping scandal with the Russian team differs not only by unprecedented scale (disqualification of all athletes in Rio; the team in the maximum truncated composition, without flag and anthem in Pyeongchang) and colorful details (urine substitution, Duchenkov’s figure, Combined Grigory Rodchenkov, recorded in the documentary film. “Icarus,” is a legend). Here, almost for the first time in history, administrative was added to the medical resource: the IOC does not fight with individual athletes and federations that violated the rules, but with the whole system that was created, was supported and defended by government officials to the last. The authorities responsible for the fight against doping saw not separate crooked trees, but a whole wrong forest. And where they begin to chop it, there are chips fly.

The decisions of all kinds of IOC commissions regarding Russian athletes look inexplicably gestured - in the sense that they cannot be explained either from the standpoint of common sense or based on the equality of all athletes before the Olympic laws; Yes, no one is trying to explain. The inexplicable generates the inexplicable: the arbitration court cancels the decision of the IOC and returns the Sochi medals already taken from them - also without explaining nothing. Why did Russian athletes ever (not during the latest revelations, but in general once) fell on doping, are not allowed to the Olympics-and people from other countries in the same status are perfect for the Olympics? Why are the leaders of the Russian team-biathlonist Ustyugov, champion in short track Victor AN and many others, against whom there are no open and confirmed evidence? Why are other suspicious victories - for example, the triumph of the Chinese team in Beijing - did not cause any scandals, intrigues and investigations, but is it like that with us now? This is a wonderful trump card for TV presenters who like to talk about double standards, and Facebook commentators who believe that "we are offended again." There is no doubt that the reasoning of this kind during the Olympics will fill the information field - and it will be impossible to say that they do not have their own truth. But the most inadequate reaction cannot cancel or justify the actions that it became - "they will put you - and you do not steal."

In the West, they themselves do not understand what to do with this “new Russian hybrid”, tactics of substitution and special operations, which is used for and without reason, is shocked and confused by the Western elites and is presented inside as a reason for national pride

Doping’s state support system is a medical -proven fact, and no injustice in the IOC commissions can retroactively justify or make it less egregious. These state officials painted the figures of future victories, these government officials appointed the enchanting Rodchenkov chief of doping, this government officials built all this crazy catavasia with the substitution of test tubes and steroid cocktails with Martini. It was state officials who later received advancement and premium for fulfilling the plan on medals, did nothing to protect the athletes, reported to the authorities that they were urinated, because enemies are around. And of course, the IOC commissions are beaten by all Russian athletes indiscriminately not because “we are in the ring of enemies” - apparently they themselves do not understand what to do with this “new Russian hybridity”, tactics in the tactics and special operations, which is used for and without reason, brings the Western elites and confuse inside as a reason for national pride. “Are they afraid of us”? Apparently, yes, but not strength, but unpredictability, mixing everything with sports, information with war, hackers with prankers, are afraid. Rus' rushes somewhere, as if on steroids, and other peoples, squinting, are fixed and give her way-but only now under a neutral flag and without a anthem.

But this is all - the Olympics of the second type. And in the first-still living people, tears, beauty, overcoming, victory. Here they are strength and good luck, no matter what happens around.

* The author is a journalist, a former editor-in-chief of the magazine "Poster" (2003–2008) and the chief editor "Rambler-Afisha" (2011–2014), permanent columnist NT

The author’s opinion may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial office