The first athlete of this Winter Olympics to be sent home has been disqualified not for a drug scandal but for a scandal of governance that will have ramifications far beyond this Games.
Ukrainian skeleton star Vladyslav Heraskevych, who has family currently fighting on the front line and worked for a charity delivering relief when Russia first invaded, has been banned from competition after refusing to back down over his choice of helmet. The 27-year-old, a serious medal contender who set the quickest time in a training session on Wednesday, has been wearing a hand-painted helmet depicting Ukrainian athletes who have been killed in the Russian war.
A devastated Heraskevych said he was feeling “emptiness” after his disqualification, while his father and coach, Mykhailo, was also distraught and was comforted after the news. “Yesterday was amazing at training,” Heraskevych said. “I could be among the medallists in this event but because of some interpretation of the rules which I don’t agree with I am not able to compete. Remembrance is not a violation of the rules.”
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said the decision contradicted the “spirit of the games.”
“Sport shouldn’t mean amnesia, the Olympic movement should help stop wars, not play into the hands of aggressors,” he wrote on X on Thursday, adding that the helmet was “a reminder of Russian aggression. No rule has been broken.”
Those rules are labyrinthine; the IOC pointed to rule 40, which says athletes must agree to be bound by the Olympic Charter, and “shall enjoy freedom of expression in keeping with the Olympic values”. At other points it cited rule 50.2, which states: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas”.
The rules, designed by the IOC Athletes’ Commission, cover a “non-exhaustive list” of actions that could constitute protests, including political messages on signs or armbands, and “gestures of a political nature, like a hand gesture or kneeling”.
But to equate Heraskevych’s helmet commemorating war dead to “political propaganda” is obscene.
Heraskevych said on Wednesday: “I will not betray these athletes. These athletes sacrificed their lives, and because of this sacrifice, I am able to be here, so I will not betray them.” The helmet is a personal gesture of remembrance, hardly a political campaign or controversial slogan. It is a plea for Ukraine to not be forgotten in the face of the IOC pendulum swinging back towards Russia.
“Sport shouldn’t mean amnesia, and the Olympic movement should help stop wars, not play into the hands of aggressors,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy said after the ban. “This is certainly not about the principles of Olympism, which are founded on fairness and the support of peace… We are proud of Vladyslav and of what he did. Having courage is worth more than any medal.”
The bottom line is: an athlete has been thrown out of the Games because the IOC cannot handle anything that disturbs their fantasy of an apolitical world. Russians are allowed to compete, after a vetting process which has already seen serious questions raised, while a Ukrainian is sent home over an act of remembrance. How can that not be taking a political stance?
The whole debacle is just another chapter in the IOC’s long and utterly deluded insistence that sport and politics can be separated.
Already at this Games alone there have been countless examples of how intertwined they are: US vice president JD Vance’s feting, and booing, at the Opening Ceremony, as the IOC desperately tries to build ties with this capricious US administration and ordinary viewers make clear their disapproval of the government’s policies.
There was the list of countries read out at the ceremony itself, including ‘Chinese Taipei’ in deference to China.
Even before the Games started the IOC began making overtures to Russia, testing the waters before fully welcoming the country back, in the face of widespread opposition.
And now this debate over Heraskevych’s helmet, with the IOC continuing to tie itself in knots in a bid to untangle the complex web of sport and politics.
The fact of the matter is this: sport is becoming more and more entwined with politics, from Fifa president Gianni Infantino’s closeness to the Trump regime, to Saudi Arabia polishing its image through pumping money into sport, to Vladimir Putin claiming Russian-born Elena Rybakina’s Wimbledon title in 2022 as a propaganda victory. It is a total farce to suggest they can ever be fully separated.
The IOC is unquestionably in a difficult position. Spokesperson Mark Adams said: “There are 130 conflicts going on in the world. We cannot have 130 different conflicts featured, however terrible they are, during the field of play, during the actual competition.” Permitting the helmet, they seem to think, would open Pandora’s box. But the issue has only surfaced at all because of the IOC’s spinelessness in the face of Russia, and its commitment to sitting, unsatisfactorily, on the fence.
It is understandable that the IOC wants to focus on the heartwarming stories of success at these Games, rather than thorny geopolitical questions, but it is incredibly naive. Sport is power. To say otherwise is to be in denial.
The conclusion to be drawn from this is that the Olympic Charter as it is now is not fit for purpose. It exists in a weird world where complicated geopolitical issues can be neatly squared away. The IOC needs to take a step back and totally rethink how it approaches situations like this, how it positions itself in an undeniably political world, and what stance it takes. Neutrality is impossible.
It was also notable that the IOC moved its customary daily press conference half an hour earlier on Thursday, at very short notice, well aware that the Heraskevych situation would dominate proceedings. It hardly gives the impression of strong and confident leadership that the IOC has shied away from even discussing it, preferring to hope that journalists won’t even make the briefing in time.
The IOC appears to have no confidence in its own decision. It prevaricated almost immediately over the issue of Heraskevych’s accreditation; the initial official decision said it had “decided with regret to withdraw his accreditation”, meaning he would have no access to the Olympic village and would be unceremoniously booted from the entire Olympics.
But it backtracked almost immediately. Coventry herself personally intervened to ask for the accreditation to not be removed, and a couple of hours after the judgement, the IOC confirmed it had reinstated it, turning a complete PR disaster into only a serious one.
This farce is the latest in a long line of issues where athletes have skirted the rules; what makes this decision all the more hypocritical is how many have previously escaped sanction. Contrast two cases: Afghan breakdancer Manizha Talash, representing the refugee Olympic team, was disqualified from Paris for wearing a cape reading ‘Free Afghan Women’ at an earlier tournament. But two Chinese cycling medallists wore badges of Mao Zedong on the podium in Tokyo and escaped with only a warning.
It appears the IOC would rather curry favour with authoritarian regimes than allow grieving athletes, whose worlds are in disarray, the chance to express their devastation and hopelessness.
The message the IOC is sending is that it does not want to listen. But it can only barricade itself away from reality for so long.
