There have been many excellent articles written on this subject leading up to the IOC decision not to impose a blanket ban on all Russian athletes participating in the Rio Olympics. I see no purpose in repeating the same facts over again. I recommend: Andrey Fomin, Alexander Mercouris, The Saker and Rick Stirling. I do however have a few extra points to make.

In case you have not heard what the western MSM is telling you, I will just outline the most important points which are being omitted or distorted by the western media and by western sports bodies and politicians.

1. All Russian athletes have for the last seven months been tested not only by their own anti doping organisation but by the British one too, and at some considerable expense to the Russian tax payer. Any Russian athletes that make it to Rio will be the squeakiest clean of the squeaky clean.

2. The so called WADA report which claims that Russian doping is “state funded” and which is being reported universally by the western media, politicians, sports bodies and even some athletes as a serious, proven indictment is, in fact based on nothing more than the hearsay evidence of one individual who is a wanted criminal in Russia on charges of anabolic steroid trafficking, and who has shown signs of mental instability including an attempt at suicide. He is now “in hiding” in the USA. The WADA report contains not one jot of serious proof or evidence at any kind whatever. No Russian athletes or sports officials have been questioned or cross examined or given an opportunity to defend themselves or to present any evidence that might contradict the charges made against them, as would be essential to a fair process.

3. The so called (by the western media) “brave whistle blower” Yulia Stepanova and her husband are convicted dopers whose careers had collapsed until they joined this US led campaign to get the Russian team banned from the Olympics. All three of the individuals upon whose evidence the WADA report is entirely based are persons convicted of doping offences. They are also all three resident in the USA. See the above articles for details.

In my opinion this plot, for such it was, was hatched way back in 2014 when the US and EU were seething with anger that the main goal of their illegal putsch in Ukraine – the occupation of Crimea and the capture of Russia’s naval base at Sevastopol and its takeover by NATO – had been thwarted. The objective was, as with all the other western plots concerning Russia, regime change in the Kremlin. The intention was to oust President Putin and replace him with a western puppet who would hand over Russia’s natural resources to western corporations thereby consolidating western hegemony in the modern world. The expectation was that if Russia was shut out of the Olympics then famous athletes, politicians and the Russian public would turn and blame their President and government. A palace coup or colour revolution of the sort previously staged in Kiev would follow.

In truth everything the US and their EU vassals have tried to do with respect to Russia has revolved around this has one overriding objective. By way of example, the Magnitsky affair was exploited to ban dozens of Russian officials from traveling to the US because of their supposed involvement in Magnitsky’s death in prison. The idea assumption seems to have been that these people were so corrupt and treacherous that if they were prevented from accessing their Manhattan apartments or Florida villas they would turn on Putin and stab him in the back. When that failed even more Russian officials were sanctioned purportedly in connection with the events in Crimea and Ukraine, and were banned from travelling this time not just to the US but to the EU and Japan as well.

Every one of these schemes has failed. Far from stabbing Putin in the back or even blaming him for what happened all the individuals caught up in the Magnitsky list and in the Crimean and Ukrainian sanctions rallied being their President and country. There was some criticism, both public and private, but not for resisting the west but for being too accommodating to it and for not having prepared better to resist the west’s onslaught.

The economic sanctions which were imposed on Russia in July 2014 have failed in a similar way. This time they were intended to make life difficult for Russia’s people in the expectation that they too would turn on their President and government. However once again the effect was the opposite. The effect of the sanctions was to consolidate the people of Russia behind their President and their government. The result is that President Putin today is more popular than he has ever been before.

Given these facts I doubt the instigators of the doping plot any longer expected by the time that the collective ban on Russia’s Olympic team came to be discussed that it would cause regime change in Russia. Why then did they persist with it? Sheer spite? Well yes I do believe that was one of the reasons. Another almost certainly was the desire to maintain the west’s grip on the governing bodies of international sports.

However I suspect a key reason was to prevent Russia enhancing its public image through sporting success. Had the Olympic Games been held in the west – where the vast majority of people take their views from the western media – I suspect that Team Russia would have faced a hostile reception. Indeed following the announcement that there would not be a blanket ban I actually heard some BBC reporters saying as much. However, despite the fact that much of the media in Latin America is under western control, I doubt this will be true in Brazil. In a continent all too familiar with US interference I would not be at all surprised if – to the alarm of western elites – Team Russia were to receive a very positive welcome from the Brazilian and Latin American public.

Like millions of children all over the world I remember being taught at school the symbolism of the interlocking Olympic rings and about brotherhood and the free and fair competition between nations from all corners of the earth. The attempt to ban clean athletes from the Olympic Games because of their nationality is utterly unprecedented in the history of the modern Olympic movement. It is far more corrosive than previous boycotts and shows the depth of moral, spiritual and intellectual collapse of the west. It is deeply shocking that even some western athletes have put their names to articles which have been published in western newspapers which full of racial prejudice, conjecture, rumour mongering and stereotyping.

There will be an Olympics of some sort in Brazil. However they are already tarnished and whilst the main victims are obviously the Russian athletes and para athletes, Brazil has had its Olympic Games sullied by the Great Power to its north. The big question now is whether the Olympic movement can survive the attack which has been made on it and which has brought the curse of discrimination and geopolitics to its very heart?

This piece was submitted by the author and edited by The Duran before publication.

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