S She is a very brave person, a beautiful and intelligent woman.” With these words, the Russian sports minister Michail Degtjarjow reacted to the ceremonial inauguration of the new IOC president Kirsty Coventry. In his statement on the change at the top of the International Olympic Committee, Degtjarjow tried to flatter the new top Olympian with all the means of a Russian macho.
After all, it is also in Coventry’s power to pave the way for the return of Russian female and male athletes to the international world of sport. “All athletes have the right to participate in the Olympic Games,” said Degtjarjow, who is also the president of the Russian Olympic Committee. “And as Mrs Coventry herself once said: ‘The opportunity to participate in the Olympic Games is not a privilege, but the right of an athlete.’ Therefore we wish her much success.”
Whether his words will sit well with Coventry, about whom the Russian sports press otherwise hardly has a good word, because she arrived at the IOC presidency as the preferred candidate of Thomas Bach?
The German has long since gone from Vladimir Putin’s darling to a figure of hate. He is blamed for the fact that since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 no Russian state insignia are allowed at the Olympic Games, and that Russian athletes with excessive ties to the state are not allowed to compete in international competitions of the major sports federations.
Yet Bach did everything to ensure that the Russians could still participate in international sport, even after it became known that they had doped to the top of the medal table at the Sochi Winter Games with total state power and secret service backing. He will not be thanked for it anymore.
Norway Overtakes Russia
In addition, it has been clear for a month that Russia was not the best winter-sports nation at the 2014 Games after all. The men’s biathlon relay team was stripped of the gold medal at the end of May, after all appeals against the doping disqualifications of biathlete Evgeny Ustyugov were rejected. Now Norway sits at the top of the medal table.
Meanwhile, there is little hope in the Russian biathlon team for qualification for the World Cup or even the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo. The Russian biathletes have not been allowed to participate in the World Cup for three winters now and do not really know how well they would perform after the hoped-for re-admission.
Viktoria Sliwko is one of the few in the Russian team who could still accumulate World Cup experience. The 31-year-old today did not perform particularly well. She could not achieve more than two finishes in the points. The younger ones lack any World Cup experience—and probably also the right equipment to compete in modern biathlon.
Weapons and skis have been further developed. And the Russians are still using fluorinated wax for the skis, which is no longer permitted in the World Cup. So much has changed during the period of absence.
Now Norbert Starke has died as well, the Cologne biathlon fan with the twirled moustache and the countless pins on his enormous hat. His death was reported on all Russian sports portals. After all, the biathlon globetrotter, who followed competitions at all World Cup arenas around the world, was a great friend of Russia. When he was interviewed during the 2011 World Championship in Khanty-Mansiysk, he said: “The Siberian flair does good to the German soul.” In the Russian obituaries for Starke, this is quoted with relish.
