Matthew Syed: Kamila Valieva farce shows Olympic movement is hopelessly contaminated sham

Valieva’s routine took place against a political backdrop too. A backdrop in which Vladimir Putin, who signed off the state-sanctioned cheating, has posted more than 100,000 troops to the border of Ukraine, showcasing (in case the International Olympic Committee hasn’t yet got the picture) that he cares not a jot about rules, sporting or otherwise. Meanwhile, as Valieva skated, you could see a different dimension too: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) using this Winter Olympics to sportswash cultural genocide in Xinjiang, perhaps in preparation for an attack on Taiwan.

I just think we should be honest. The Games have shown us that this sham of a spectacle is only tangentially a sporting event. This is a festival where doped athletes can compete, where medal ceremonies can be cancelled and where judicial bodies can make perverse decisions, as if infected by the same madness that has overtaken the broader Olympic community.

How could it be said that Valieva might suffer “irreparable harm” if she did not compete? What about the harm of a child potentially being given illegal drugs by coaches, nutritionists or whoever else? What about the harm of a teenager competing in the glare of the world and then having her medals seized retrospectively? What about the harm to clean athletes competing against someone with an unfair advantage? What about the harm done to the Games themselves, or to sport?

And what of the message sent to coaches around the world that young people are given special dispensations when accused of doping? Won’t that offer a green light to the psychopaths who use coaching as a means to abuse young people, often with autocratic states egging them on? Have we such short memories of what happened during communism in East Germany, where Putin spent so much time as a KGB agent, young girls force-fed blue pills that they were told were vitamins but turned out to be androgenic steroids that ruined their lives?

This is why this saga reads like the last rites for the IOC, a story that showcases in chilling detail why this corrupt organisation needs to be ripped up, eradicated from memory, so that we can start afresh. A story of an inexorable drift to disaster, scandal by sordid scandal, appeasement followed by yet more appeasement.

Why on earth is Russia competing at all, given what we know about sport in that country? Have we forgotten the Sochi Games, where clean urine samples were swapped with dirty ones through the ruse of a concealed hole in the doping laboratory, masterminded by the Federal Security Service (FSB)?

The athletes’ pressure group Global Athlete put the point well: “Russia has never been incentivised to reform because sport leaders favoured politics over principle and rebranding over banning. The doping of minor athletes must be stopped. Any country that systematically dopes its athletes cannot be allowed to participate in international sport.”

The IOC is a willing stooge to all this, of course, the ultimate in useful idiocy. Despite the glossy PR and slick communications strategy, though, most right-minded people know what is really going on, and why. Think back to late 2013, when the wily Putin took note of his cratering approval ratings, due to falling oil prices and massive corruption. At the time, only 61 per cent of Russians liked what they saw from the Russian leader, a stunningly low tally given that he in effect controls the media.

It was only after Sochi, when doped Russian athletes topped the medal table with 11 golds, that things started to turn around. I suspect that future historians will see his rising numbers (the rating soared to above 80 per cent within months) as a key factor in Putin’s invasion of Crimea not long after, an annexation that led to yet more patriotic tumult. And, on this very point, who knows what calculations are taking place right now in the mind of President Xi, with China having surpassed its record medal count at a Winter Games.

This is why it is time for anyone who loves the Games to stand up and say: “Enough is enough.” We have to finally acknowledge the damage done to Olympics by the likes of Thomas Bach, the IOC president, and his willingness to provide cover for the CCP in their treatment of Peng Shuai; not to mention Lord Coe, the World Athletics president, who has bent over backwards not to offend autocratic states, aware of the money they provide to the IOC, which he yearns to lead. Above all, we have to realise how far the rot has travelled, with the entire Olympic movement now hopelessly contaminated.

We should acknowledge something else too. Hundreds of brilliant, clean, honest athletes have given it their all at these Games, the culmination of a lifetime of hard work and sacrifice. Isn’t it heart-rending that their moment in the spotlight has been overshadowed by the Machiavellian evasions of the suited charlatans who administer this once impressive event?

But perhaps we should finish with Valieva, only 15, who, despite an early stumble, completed an impressive opening routine before dissolving into tears. If she finishes in the top three, the medal ceremony will be abandoned. If she fails to finish in the top three, the world will wonder at how she was allowed to compete. Either way, it is a catch-22 that showcases the incompetence and corruption underpinning this profoundly tarnished institution.

– The Times