The world of sport has shunned Putin. So what?

Russia is already paying a price for its aggression — countries around the world are imposing sanctions and the Russian ruble has plunged even further against the dollar, hitting record lows.A plethora of international sports organizations and governing bodies have also responded to the invasion targeting Russia and its athletes with The IOC also announced that it had withdrawn the Olympic Order — the highest award of the Olympic movement — from Putin.”The IOC was viewed as having a close relationship with Russia,” Michael Payne, former head of marketing at the IOC, told CNN. “The fact that the IOC has now issued a set of sanctions to Russia, which, in my view, are probably the strongest sanctions the IOC has ever issued … since probably the early 60s when the IOC banned South Africa for its apartheid regime,” he said.Meanwhile, world football’s governing body, FIFA, and European soccer body, UEFA, have “Nationalism — and the kind of national unification with promoting particular versions of history, of organizing, establishing new national holidays, and of course, sport — has been absolutely key to his legitimation strategy,” she explained, adding such tactics date back to the Soviet period, where sport was used “very intensively as a tool of building loyalty of the people to the regime.””Even the fact that the Kremlin, Russia, has gone to such lengths, in using doping, in order to win more medals, in a way shows how participating in competitions and winning, winning was key to Putin’s Popular Mobilization strategy,” Tolz added. In 2019, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) unanimously agreed to ban Russia from major international sporting competitions — notably the Olympics and the World Cup — for four years over doping non-compliance. The ban was later halved by the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in 2020.WADA’s punishment relates to inconsistencies in data retrieved by WADA in January 2019 from the Moscow lab at the center of the 2016 McLaren report, which uncovered a widespread and sophisticated state-sponsored sports doping network.”Every time you let Russia into an international sporting event, you’re essentially agreeing to swim with man-eating sharks. They will cheat your athletes, they will not feel bad about it, they will lie about it, if they’re caught, they will blame you for calling it out,” Jim Walden, the US lawyer of Grigory Rodchenkov who was instrumental in exposing Russia’s initial cover-up, told CNN.Ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, Putin spoke of his frustration of the “politicization of sport” and that the “the rights and interests of our athletes must be protected from any arbitrariness.”The Russian Anti-Doping Agency (RUSADA) was initially deemed non-compliant after the publication of the McLaren report in 2016.Commissioned by WADA, the report found the Russian state conspired with athletes and sporting officials to undertake a doping program that was unprecedented in its scale and ambition.”Putin very much uses his control over sport to try to game the world and win as much as possible, and also curates the content for the Russian population so that he can get maximum popularity, which translates into maximum power to do what he wants internationally — essentially pitting Russia against the rest of the world, at least the rest of the Western world,” Walden added.Fast forward to 2022 and another doping scandal — surrounding Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva — overshadowed the Winter Olympics in Beijing.The 15-year-old Valieva, a breakout star of the Games who got the highest mark in the figure skating team event, was allowed to compete despite testing positive for the banned heart drug trimetazidine, which is commonly used to treat people with angina. The failed test occurred before the Winter Olympics but only came to light during the Games, and it remains unclear if the drug test controversy will see the medal revoked.”Not only is Russia myopically focused on winning at any cost, but in terms of any costs, it’s no holds barred, right? So murder, bribery, drug trafficking, any kind of criminality that will give them an advantage. They believe that not only will they do it, but that other people are weak for following the rules,” Walden said.”So they marry criminality with obstruction and put that together with sports. And that is how they have consistently won. And that’s how the Russian government has used it to prop up its own popularity, so that it has more leeway to engage in troublemaking abroad,” he added.Trail of moneyOlympic great Edwin Moses, who opposed the 1980 US boycott of the Moscow Olympics, has gone so far as to call for Russia to be banned from the 2024 Olympics.”The boycott in 1980 was political. This is just horrible,” Moses, who is Chairman of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation, said in a press release from Laureus last week.”It hasn’t got a lot to do with politics, it has to do with humanity, the war, the fighting, the children and innocent people getting killed, rockets and missiles, tanks … and it’s live on TV, so everyone is aware of it.”I was in favor of banning the Russians because of what happened in Sochi in 2014 for really corrupting the integrity of the Olympic Games, via doping. I was on the executive committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency, and I thought the penalties were too light.”What they’re doing to the entire world right now in Ukraine, is exactly the same thing they’ve done to sport, in my opinion. Russia ought to be banned in Paris [2024 Olympic Games].”A few years ago, Moses says he met Putin.”I once sat next to him at [a] table. Two seats to my left, and the translator was in between. And I spoke to him that entire evening. I know how he talked about sports, like it was the Holy Grail, and how important sport was, and how it was good where the best of everyone’s country, regardless of your philosophy can compete together, and whoever wins, wins…. I realize now, it was just propaganda.”CNN’s Ben Morse and Ben Church contributed reporting.