There will be no alternative Games of our own with North Korea, Turkmenistan and Belarus. We love it too much when our flag is higher than the American, Canadian, German, etc.

On the day this column is published, a meeting of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Executive Committee will be held in Lausanne. Following this meeting, our country's athletes will most likely lose the right to compete under the Russian flag at the 2020 and 2022 Olympic Games, the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, and it is possible that St. Petersburg will not be able to host Euro 2020 matches, the 2021 Champions League final, and the 2023 Ice Hockey World Championship. In addition, we may lose the right to host the World Volleyball, Aquatics, and Beach Soccer Championships, as well as the 2023 Summer Universiade in Yekaterinburg.

WADA is ready to take such a tough decision due to established cases of manipulation with the electronic database LIMS of the Moscow Anti-Doping Laboratory. A year ago, someone tried to erase evidence of doping use by some of our athletes from the database. This someone most likely acted with the sanction of Russian security forces, since the manipulations with the database occurred when it was in the Investigative Committee.

The scale of the story and its consequences will impress even those who are not particularly interested in sports, but who like to listen to the anthem in the background every two years during the awards ceremony for our Olympians. Of course, there was a conspiracy involved. More precisely, this case itself is a wonderful business case where a real and an imaginary conspiracy collided. One side – WADA – suspects the existence of a systematic conspiracy to dope some athletes and wants to draw a line under it. The other side – some Russian sports officials – see a Western conspiracy against Russia. A real conspiracy can be fought, sometimes effectively, which is what WADA will do. Conspiracy theories in the spirit of “they are against us”, as recent research by scientists shows, are simply the so-called evolutionary inconsistency. The world is changing quickly, and officials are changing slowly: they do not have time to notice external changes. When this inconsistency becomes the basis for making decisions in new conditions, nothing good comes of it. For the decision maker.

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But it is better to look at this case – from the origin of the problem to its future solution – as a wonderful mini business case of a different kind. One that can easily be used to study what reforms need to be carried out in our country – in a broader sense, not only in sports. How to reduce the brain drain and suppress the growth of suitcase sentiments among young people, how to annul the fake dissertations of known plagiarists, how to limit the influence of special services in areas of life that have nothing to do with their activities, how to stop engaging in collective narcissism, and in the international arena not to act according to the principle of “deny, blame, look down with disdain”.

What will follow this WADA decision is, in principle, clear. Some athletes will go abroad, and some officials will appeal to national humiliation, patriotic feelings. Someone will talk about “their” conspiracy against “us”. But in the end, we will be satisfied with the WADA decision, we will do the work, we will learn to communicate constructively with “them”, we will push the security forces away from sports, and we will start playing by international rules. There will be no “our” alternative Games with North Korea, Turkmenistan and Belarus. Sports have become too integrated on a global scale. And we love it too much when our flag is higher than the American (Canadian, German, etc.), “Rodnina’s tears”, the heap of “red machine” after Kovalchuk’s goal against the Canadians – all this. Even if someone has complaints about the music and words of the anthem and even if he listens to it only once every two years out of the corner of his ear.

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The author is the Vice-Rector for Strategic Development of the Russian School of Economics

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