Russia is mostly absent from the Paris Olympics, fielding only a small team

Transcript

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

At the Olympics, one traditional sporting powerhouse is absent from the scene, mostly. Russia is fielding just 15 athletes, a result of ongoing penalties for past doping violations as well as Russia's ongoing war in Ukraine. NPR's Charles Maynes reports.

CHARLES MAYNES, BYLINE: Just to qualify for these Olympics, Russian athletes needed their politics as clean as their lab samples. Only those who showed no signs of doping or outward support for the war in Ukraine were issued invitations to Paris. Back in Russia, the response to those who managed to pass muster and will now compete as neutral athletes has been tepid among some.

DMITRY PUCHKOV: (Speaking Russian).

MAYNES: "These people don't represent Russia. It's not our team, and we're not rooting for them," says Dmitry Puchkov, a popular commentator on Russian state radio. Neither, apparently, is the head of Russia's Olympic Committee, who's compared the Russians in Paris to foreign agents lacking patriotism. Perhaps then it's little surprise that nearly a dozen more Russians who qualified for the games, like members of the wrestling squad, chose to skip the Olympics en masse amid what may or may not be a state pressure campaign.

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DMITRY PESKOV: (Speaking Russian).

MAYNES: "The athletes make their own decisions about whether to participate," says Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov. "As to those who had the possibility of going to Paris and declined," he adds, "you have to respect the collective decisions of their sporting federations." Yet Russian state television is refusing to show the games, and the Kremlin is paying cash bonuses to athletes sitting out Paris while dusting off a familiar alternative.

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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Non-English language spoken).

MAYNES: Enter the Friendship Games.

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MAYNES: Launched amid a Soviet boycott of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the Friendship Games served as a parallel sporting event for Communist-leaning countries of the day. Social commentator Dmitry Puchkov says amid the current East-West fallout over Ukraine, Friendship's time has come again.

PUCHKOV: (Speaking Russian).

MAYNES: "You have your games, and we'll have ours," Puchkov tells me. Only that may be easier than it sounds. After too few athletes signed on for a September launch, Russia pushed back the revamped Friendship competition to sometime in 2025. Charles Maynes, NPR News, Moscow.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.