GENEVA (AP) — The question of if and how Russia competes at the Olympics hangs over the 2024 Paris Summer Games.
Just as it has now for five straight Olympics during Thomas Bach’s leadership of the IOC, whose support this week for some Russians to compete in Paris was publicly challenged Friday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Russia and its athletes have been at risk of being banned — though ultimately competed — at each Olympics since the steroid-tainted 2014 Sochi Winter Games that was Bach’s first as president of the International Olympic Committee.
This time it is Russia waging war on Ukraine. Previously it was Russian state-backed doping and then Russian authorities trying to cover up evidence of that scandal.
Zelenskyy wants Russia excluded from taking part in Paris while its military is occupying and attacking his country. He stressed that this week in talks with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Ukraine’s sports minister first warned on Thursday of boycotting the Olympics. That was after the IOC detailed its preferred pathway to let Russians who have not openly supported the war to qualify for Paris and compete as neutral athletes against Ukrainians.
“It is obvious that any neutral flag of Russian athletes is stained with blood. I invite Mr. Bach to Bakhmut,” Zelenskyy said in a video address, referring to the city in eastern Ukraine wrecked by the war. “So that he could see with his own eyes that neutrality does not exist.”
The IOC was more strident on Russia when the military invasion started within days of the Beijing Winter Games closing ceremony. It was an egregious breach of the United Nations-backed Olympic Truce that is prized by Bach.
Last February, the IOC recommended “with a heavy heart” sports bodies exclude Russia and Belarus from hosting and competing “in order to protect the integrity of global sports competitions and for the safety of all the participants.”
It could not be fair for Russians to continue competing while “many athletes from Ukraine are prevented from doing so because of the attack on their country,” the IOC said last Feb. 28.
Now, 18 months before the Paris opening ceremony and as qualifying ramps up in the 32 sports, the IOC’s revised public stance has provoked anger from Ukraine.
“If we are not heard, I do not rule out the possibility that we will boycott and refuse participation in the Olympics,” Ukrainian sports minister Vadym Guttsait wrote Thursday on his Facebook account.
One of Ukraine’s top medal prospects does not want to share the stage with Russians — even if such a symbol of peaceful tolerance is exactly how the IOC sees its “unifying mission” to bring all 206 national Olympic teams together.
“They died for me, really they don’t exist in my life,” said Yaroslava Mahuchikh, the high jumper whose rivalry from 2019-21 with Russian champion Mariya Lasitskene made theirs a standout event.
Mahuchikh told German broadcaster DW Sports this week that Ukrainian athletes “will do everything that is possible” to keep out athletes from Russia, which she called a “terrorist state.”
In Bach’s home country Germany, the Athleten Deutschland group said Friday many of its members find it “difficult to imagine contesting competitions against Russian athletes under the current conditions.”
“No athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport,” the IOC stressed Wednesday, though this was often not true in Olympic history.
Germany and Japan, the aggressors of World War II, were not invited to the 1948 London Olympics. South Africa was excluded from 1964 through 1988 because of its racist Apartheid laws.
The IOC points instead to the more recent example of Yugoslavians competing at the 1992 Barcelona Games as “independent athletes” while the nation was under UN sanctions during a civil war.
Bach wants to separate athletes from the actions of their government, and has called the situation a dilemma for a stated aim to “always embrace human diversity and never to exclude others.”
That philosophy rankles with Zelenskyy, who can be a compelling advocate for a blanket ban on Russia that was resisted when demanded in the past decade by athletes, the World Anti-Doping Agency or activist groups.
If Russians are allowed to compete, their path to Olympic qualification likely will go through Asia due to Russia’s tense relations with its European neighbors.
Paris is the last of six Olympics for Bach’s presidency before hitting his 12-year term limit in 2025. A presidency that began in September 2013 with an instant congratulatory phone call from President Vladimir Putin has always had a major Russian theme.
After the Sochi laboratory doping scheme was detailed in 2016, Russia sent a limited team — though still nearly 300 athletes — to the Rio Janeiro Games and has been denied its flag and anthem at each Olympics since.
Yet while Russians always were at the Olympics, they were banned entirely from track and field’s world championships last July in Eugene, Oregon.
“The world is horrified by what Russia has done, aided and abetted by Belarus,” World Athletics President Sebastian Coe said within days of the war starting. “Sport has to step up and join these efforts to end this war and restore peace. We cannot and should not sit this one out.”
Track’s ongoing Russia ban excludes Lasitskene, the three-time defending champion in high jump. Last year she wrote an open letter to Bach, who could not defend his team fencing title at the 1980 Moscow Olympics because of the West German boycott after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.
“I have no doubts,” she wrote, “that you don’t have the courage and dignity to lift the sanctions against Russian athletes.”
This week, Bach set governing bodies of some Olympic sports on the path to do just that.
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NEW YORK – Toronto Blue Jays reliever Chad Green and Canadian slugger Tyler O’Neill of the Boston Red Sox were named finalists for the Major League Baseball Players’ Association’s American League comeback player award on Monday.
Chicago White Sox left-hander Garrett Crochet was the other nominee.
New York Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge, Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani and Kansas City Royals shortstop Bobby Witt Jr. were named player of the year finalists.
The award winners, selected via player voting, will be named Saturday before Game 2 of the World Series.
Green, who missed most of the 2022 and ’23 seasons after undergoing Tommy John surgery, was a high-leverage option for the Blue Jays this past season and filled in at closer over the second half of the campaign.
The right-hander converted his first 16 save opportunities and finished the year with a 4-6 record, 17 saves and a 3.21 earned-run average over 53 appearances.
O’Neill, a native of Burnaby, B.C., also endured back-to-back injury-plagued seasons in ’22 and ’23.
After being traded to the Red Sox in the off-season, O’Neill set an MLB record by hitting a homer in his fifth straight Opening Day. He finished with 31 homers on the year and had an OPS of .847.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
NEW YORK – Florida Panthers centre Sam Reinhart was named NHL first star of the week on Monday after leading all players with nine points over four games last week.
Reinhart had four goals, five assists and a plus-seven rating to help the Stanley Cup champions post a 3-0-1 record on the week and move into first place in the Atlantic Division.
New York Rangers left-winger Artemi Panarin took the second star and Minnesota Wild goaltenderFilip Gustavsson was the third star.
Panarin had eight points (4-4) over three games.
Gustavsson became the 15th goalie in NHL history to score a goal and had a 1.00 goals-against average and .962 save percentage over a pair of victories.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2024.
CLEVELAND (AP) — Deshaun Watson won’t finish the season as Cleveland’s starting quarterback for the second straight year.
He’s injured again, and the Browns have new problems.
Watson ruptured his right Achilles tendon in the first half of Sunday’s loss to Cincinnati, collapsing as he began to run and leading some Browns fans to cheer while the divisive QB laid on the ground writhing in pain.
The team feared Watson’s year was over and tests done Monday confirmed the rupture. The Browns said Watson will have surgery and miss the rest of the season but “a full recovery is expected.”
It’s the second significant injury in two seasons for Watson, who broke the glenoid (socket) bone in his throwing shoulder last year after just six starts.
The 29-year-old went down Sunday without being touched on a draw play late in the first half. His right leg buckled and Watson crumpled to the turf. TV replays showed his calf rippling, consistent with an Achilles injury.
He immediately put his hands on his helmet, clearly aware of the severity of an injury similar to the one Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers sustained last year.
As he was being assisted by the team’s medical staff and backup Dorian Thompson-Robinson grabbed a ball to begin warming up, there was some derisive cheers and boos from the stands in Huntington Bank Field.
Cleveland fans have been split over Watson, who has been accused of being sexually inappropriate with women.
The reaction didn’t sit well with several Watson’s teammates, including star end Myles Garrett, the NFL’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, who was appalled by the fans’ behavior.
“We should be ashamed of ourselves as Browns and as fans to boo anyone and their downfall. To be season-altering, career-altering injury,” Garrett said. “Man’s not perfect. He doesn’t need to be. None of us are expected to be perfect. Can’t judge him for what he does off the field or on the field because I can’t throw stones for my glass house.
“Ultimately everyone’s human and they’re disappointed just like we are, but we have to be better than that as people. There’s levels to this. At the end of the day, it’s just a game and you don’t boo anybody being injured and you don’t celebrate anyone’s downfall.”
Backup quarterback Jameis Winston also admonished the uncomfortable celebration.
“I am very upset with the reaction to a man that has had the world against him for the past four years, and he put his body and life on the line for this city every single day,” he said. “The way I was raised, I will never pull on a man when he’s down, but I will be the person to lift him up.
“I know you love this game. When I first got here, I knew these were some amazing fans, but Deshaun was treated badly and now he has to overcome another obstacle. So I’m going to support him, I’m going to lift him up and I’m going to be there for him.”
The injury is yet another twist in Watson’s tumultuous time with the Browns.
Cleveland traded three first-round draft picks and five overall to Houston in 2022 to get him, with owners Dee and Jimmy Haslam approving the team giving Watson a fully guaranteed, five-year $230 million contract.
With a solid roster, the Browns were desperate to find a QB who could help them compete against the top AFC teams.
The Browns had moved on from Baker Mayfield despite drafting him No. 1 overall in 2018 and making the playoffs two seasons later.
But Watson has not played up to expectations — fans have been pushing for him to be benched this season — and Cleveland’s move to get him has been labeled an abject failure with the team still on the hook to pay him $46 million in each of the next two seasons.
Watson’s arrival in Cleveland also came amid accusations by more than two dozen women of sexual assault and harassment during massage therapy sessions while he played for the Texans. Two grand juries declined to indict him and he has settled civil lawsuits in all but one of the cases.
Watson was suspended by the NFL for his first 11 games and fined $5 million for violating the league’s personal conduct policy before he took his first snap with the Browns. The long layoff — he sat out the 2021 season in a contract dispute — led to struggles once he got on the field, and Watson made just six starts last season before hurting his shoulder.
Cleveland signed veteran Joe Flacco, who went 4-1 as a starter and led the Browns to the playoffs.
Before Watson got hurt this year, he didn’t play much better. He was one of the league’s lowest-rated passers for a Cleveland team that hasn’t scored 20 points in a game and is back in search of a franchise QB.
