Russia’s Olympic team received a hero’s sendoff at a Kremlin ceremony full of fighting words. While the ceremony is a tradition, this year it was marked by especially fervent calls to defend the country’s honour, given that more than 100 Russian athletes have been banned because of state-sponsored doping.
The main event was Vladimir Putin’s defiant speech, in which he called the doping scandal a “targeted campaign” with “no concrete, evidence-based accusations”, and argued the ban was “open discrimination” that would reduce the quality of competition at the Games.
Top competitors also addressed the audience in the glittering Alexander Hall, which included 114 athletes, the Russian Olympic Committee head, Alexander Zhukov, and the sports minister, Vitaly Mutko. Also in attendance were 49 members of Russia’s track and field team, who have been barred from Rio.
After Putin’s speech, the two-times Olympic gold medallist pole vaulter Yelena Isinbayeva hugged him, thanked him for his support and then paused on the verge of tears, drawing applause from the hall. She said: “Today track and field has ended up in the most difficult situation, they banned us without evidence, rudely, insolently, and didn’t give us any chance to justify ourselves or fight for our right to participate in the Olympic Games.
“We are one team, we are one big world power. This situation should unify us. You should show what you’re capable of, for yourself and for us. You can do it, we believe in you, don’t let yourselves be destabilised, don’t let yourselves be pressured. Walk with your head held high and proud … so that all these pseudo-clean foreign athletes understand they didn’t attack the right people.” She went on to implore her compatriots to “compete so the whole world shudders and the hymn of the Russian Federation sounded in the sports arenas of Rio without stopping.”
Sergey Tetyukhin, the volleyball captain who won gold at the London Olympics and who is expected to be Russia’s flag-bearer in Rio, similarly called for athletes to redouble their efforts in response to the doping scandal. “In the face of all that’s happening, of all the difficulties, we should unify, we should become much stronger,” he said. “I promise that in the venues, in the sports arenas, we will battle for our country, flag, honour and for our good name.”
The hurdler Sergey Shubenkov told the state television channel Rossiya 24: “If you meet unfair competition, you should do everything so that this unequal fight will go in your favour … you should be so strong that no one can catch you.”
The team’s upbeat dress uniforms – dark red bow ties, blue blazers and white slacks for the men; striped shirts and blazers for the women – belied the martial spirit of the occasion. The boxing coach Alexander Lebzyak even said they were “heading off to war”.
As the athletes were escorted through the Kremlin, international federations were deciding the team’s fate. The ruling bodies of fencing, triathlon and volleyball signed off on all of Russia’s athletes for Rio, and the taekwondo, trampoline, gymnastics, rhythmic gymnastics and boxing teams were also expected to be approved. Many other teams have had some of their members disqualified, including swimming, canoeing, modern pentathlon, rowing and sailing.
The International Weightlifting Federation said retesting had shown four Russian weightlifters at London 2012 had given positive doping samples. They were not part of the Rio weightlifting team, who face a blanket ban.
Zhukov said 250 athletes have been cleared for Rio. He complained there had been minor mistakes in the McLaren report into Russian doping, adding that three positive doping samples the report said were not provided to the world anti-doping agency in fact had been.
