Although it may not seem like it to those who haven't been closely following this saga, the issue isn't apolitical at all but is actually politically driven given the double standards at play that were explained in the author's prior analysis on this topic. Even the prospective consequences themselves are political since they involve the collective punishment of all of Russia's athletes and the nation that they represent. It's no secret that the US and its allies are engaged in a heated rivalry with Russia at the moment, one that extends beyond the geopolitical realm and into every other one such as sports. Russia has a celebrated history of doing extremely well at international sporting events, so there's certainly a self-interested motive from its competitors to see its representatives banned from competitions in order to improve their own prospects for success. Furthermore, because of how important these events are, Russia's politicized removal might harm the national psyche.
Hybrid Wars aren't just about geopolitical and economic gains, but also socio-cultural ones too, hence why sports are also an arena of rivalry in this sense. Rules are bent, broken, and selectively applied in pursuit of desired outcomes, which in this case relates to the enormous amount of time, money, and effort invested in removing Russia from international sporting events. It would be unfortunate if there was some degree of credibility to the claims that select samples might have been tampered with over the years, but even in that case, it's morally wrong to punish every athlete and the people that they represent because of it. Blanket bans, no matter the reason or the sphere that they relate to, are by default designed to send a political message. This can either be to deter other rule-breakers and/or humiliate those who are accused of violating those selfsame rules. In this instance, the motivation to potentially impose that extreme punishment is certainly the latter.
Other countries have been suspected of breaking WADA's rules, but the international body has either looked the other way or declined to invest anything close to the amount of time, money, and effort in investigating those claims. Russia is being singled out not just because of the severity of what's being alleged, but due to the fact that so many other countries (chiefly Russia's Western geopolitical and sports rivals) have a stake in the outcome of removing their top competitor from the Olympic Games and other international sporting events. From their perspective, the "return on investment" for investigating similar allegations of suspected rule-breaking by less-impressive teams doesn't "pay off as handsomely" because their removal wouldn't alter the dynamics of these competitions all that much. Russia's removal, however, would literally be a game-changer in every single way, hence why that outcome is being so vigorously pursued.
If WADA was sincere in deterring other potential rule-breakers, it would only seek to punish the people directly involved in the alleged conspiracy, and only then if it was proven beyond any doubt that they were guilty, which has yet to be the case. Removing an entire team amounts to humiliating an entire nation and its many athletes who were never suspected of participating in the suspected cover-up. Doping is definitely a problem in the sports world, but WADA shouldn't practice double standards. It needs to scrutinize all teams equally, not mostly focus on the Russian one for the self-interested reasons that were explained. There are still two weeks to go before the Executive Committee makes its final decision on the matter, but it looks like their mind has already been made up. It'll be nothing short of a miracle if Russia isn't banned from next year's Tokyo Olympics, but given that the West isn't known for playing fairly, it'll probably go forward with WADA's "recommendation".
WADA's Being Weaponized To Destroy Russians' Dignity
Most of the world remembers the controversy in recent years about Russian athletes allegedly failing to comply with the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) policies, but that scandal still continues to this day after the international organization recently threatened that country's sportspeople with being banned from next year's Tokyo Olympics on the same basis. The narrative is that there are supposedly "inconsistencies" with the lab data that Russia submitted to prove its adherence to WADA's regulations, though that storyline is extremely suspect and also reeks of selective enforcement for political reasons.
To explain, it's illogical that Russian athletes would continue to use banned substances after the agency globally humiliated them and the country that they represented several years ago on that basis, nor would their coaches and those responsible for them allow "inconsistent" lab results to be given to that international sports body if that was still the case (though it was always questionable to begin with the first time around whether there were actually any violations or not). Every stakeholder therefore has a self-interested reason in ensuring that the testing process proceeds smoothly and without incident, not to cheat the rules while under scrutiny.
Another valid point to make is that other countries' athletes use questionable medication to treat certain health symptoms that might have actually given them an unfair advantage during competitions. For instance, RT reported last year on how Swedish media alleged that "70 percent of Norwegian medals in Olympic skiing events were won by athletes diagnosed with asthma", yet those athletes aren't under WADA's microscope like Russia's are. Quite clearly, the agency is only selectively enforcing its standards for what can only be presumed to be political reasons related to the New Cold War.
Russia is one of the US' chief geopolitical adversaries across the world, and Washington is weaponizing all means at its disposal to wage a Hybrid War against Moscow, one that transcends the traditional definition of war to include intangible and unquantifiable aspects such as the degrading of national dignity. Understanding this, it makes sense why WADA is threatening Russian athletes, since that's intended to damage their country's dignity on the world stage as punishment for their government refusing to submit to the US' foreign policy diktats. As a result, all Russians might be made to suffer.
This strategy isn't just being carried out for the sake of schadenfreude, but as part of a far-fetched plan to decrease the population's support of their government. The theory goes that average Russians might eventually be misguided by a forthcoming US-backed infowar campaign to somehow blame their government for this humiliation, which could contribute to increasing anti-government sentiment and then indirectly influence their political preferences in 2024 after President Putin's final term ends. That idea might sound attractive in Washington think tanks and the halls of Langley, but it's completely unrealistic in practice.
A supposedly apolitical international organization punishing a population for the disagreements that their government has with another violates all morality and exposes that said body for what it truly would be in that scenario, which is an American proxy organization being weaponized for Hybrid War ends. It doesn't matter that the consequences of such a decision wouldn't have any effect on political stability in Russia, but just that it would be very cruel to do to ordinary people who more often than not could care less about international politics and are more interested in patriotically rooting for their country's team as they compete in Tokyo.
The Olympics are supposed to bring the world together for a few weeks by allowing everyone's athletes to bask in glory that they deserve for being the best of the best selected to compete in this prestigious event, provided that they earned their place fairly. Singling out Russians for alleged "inconsistencies" while ignoring the much more credible case of Norwegians gaming the system -- to say nothing of transsexuals now being allowed to participate, even without undergoing gender reassignment surgery -- is a travesty of everything that the Olympics are supposed to stand for and actually degrades the international community's dignity most of all.
WADA BUNCHA SH*T.
RC