Gymnastics has lost its innocence

Yesterday, Viktoria Listunova became the first Russian gymnast to lose a major title because of Russia’s ban from international sport.    It was the first time in my memory that at a European Championships the teams marched out, competed, and medals were awarded, all without my (still) beloved Russian team. 

 

I know that Russia, the state, is enacting an aggressive war on Ukraine.  Out of respect for Ukraine I cannot argue particularly strongly for a return of Russia to international sport.  There are arguments why this ban should not be in place; it is selective and targets Russia as a war monger whilst leaving other similar states untouched.  But this war knocks on our doors and our borders, touches our friends and changes our ways of life.  Whole Ukrainian cities have been destroyed.  Individual Russians too have lost their lives and their peace.  Ukrainian gymnasts cannot live and train at home, and have lost their dearest, their closest family and friends.  Their purpose, their way of life and unity is irreparably damaged by the bombs that rain down on them from their closest neighbour.  Russian gymnasts cannot train with full motivation, knowing that their efforts won’t be seen in the wider world.  Friendships and teams have been destroyed.  It is a tragedy.

 

There is no other way: in the largest sense, I support the ban.   I also support Ukraine, and I support those Russians who see this war for what it is and who find themselves trapped and unable to speak out, unable silently to protest or even just quietly live their lives as they wish.  I strongly suspect there are many of our Russian friends in gymnastics who wish that this war weren’t taking place, for better reasons than just that they want to be able to compete overseas. 

 

Will Russia ever find themselves welcomed into world sport again?  Certainly not until this war is over, I think, and that may be a long time.  Russia is shelling nuclear power plants close to Zaporozhe (my spelling of a much more complicated place name), home of 1989 World Champion Olga Strazheva.  The gymnasts and the coaches are suffering loss of life, limb, family and friends.  Even if the international sporting community decides to welcome Russia once more, how will Ukraine feel about it?  What will it be like, for example, the first time that Nikita Nagorny encounters Igor Radivilov in a training hall or on the competition floor?   (Frankly, though, I doubt that that will ever happen.)

 

So Russia has lost out in the gymnastics arena and Listunova, an adolescent who has known not much more than gymnastics all of her life, has lost her potential and her European title.  Thank God, the Ukrainian team will be able to compete at the World Championships, and make a case for a place at the Olympics, having qualified at yesterday’s team competition.  Today, the Junior Europeans take place, and that is yet another generation of Russians who are losing out, remaining cloistered, thanks to their state’s insistence on killing people, their state’s lack of respect for love and friendship.

 

Gymnastics will change forever because of their absence.  Not just the form of the sport, not just the quality of the performances, not just the morale of their rivals … but morally.  There is a loss of innocence in gymnastics.  The sweet face of Olga Korbut, in the very same arena as the European Championships is taking place, fifty years ago married the ideas of charm, vulnerability and friendship to the harsher ideas of Cold War and the Iron Curtain that kept distant our relationship with the Soviet Union and Russia.  The Romanian Revolution prompted the Soviet Union coaches to welcome Romanian gymnasts to their training centre to prepare for the 1989 World Championships, in an incredible act of friendship.  Soviet and Russian coaches shared their expertise and enabled the globalisation of the sport in the wake of the downfall of the Soviet regime post 1991.  We have seen the smiling face of Russia even as recently as 2014, when Russia began shelling Donetsk.  Russian gymnasts made a show of friendship with their close neighbours, Ukraine – remember Belyavski and Verniaiev binding their flags together and celebrating their medals?   

Yet since the most recent bloody incursion there has been no show of friendship, no reaching of the hand.  No Russian dare contradict the evil messages of their state. 

 

There has been a loss of innocence in gymnastics; we no longer know how to react to Russia’s isolation, and all we can do for Ukraine is support them, loudly.  State-sponsored doping makes us wonder if there ever really was a well meaning bone in the Russian sporting state’s body, even if that did not affect gymnastics.  Even if we worry about our friends in Moscow, St Petersburg, Ekaterinburg, Voronezh, Rostov, Kazan and elsewhere during this cruel, violent time.  American gymnastics has been shown to be corrupt from top to bottom, and many of our gymnastics systems have been forced to re-examine themselves.  But this is about bombs, blood and gristle.   Gymnastics has lost its innocence.