NEW YORK (BLOOMBERG) -- Lying face-down on a flat sled, ready to lunge head-first down an ice track, skeleton athlete Vladyslav Heraskevych wore a helmet during his training sessions for the Winter Olympics featuring images of fellow Ukrainians who had died during Russia’s invasion of his country.
When it came to competing, shortly before his turn, he was told to change helmets or risk disqualification. As a compromise, the International Olympic Committee said Heraskevych could wear a black armband, but he refused, and was disqualified.
The reason given to the 27-year-old Ukrainian by the IOC was that his was a political statement, and the sporting event is not the place for that.
But despite the IOC’s best intentions, sports and politics inevitably clash. And even if we haven’t seen a major, multi-nation boycott like in Moscow in 1980 or Los Angeles in 1984, the competition this year in Italy’s Dolomites in Cortina has been mired by incidents where the outside world has found its way into the event.
Heraskevych didn’t take long to turn to social media to complain about what he saw as a double standard. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also weighed in to say that 660 Ukrainian athletes and coaches have been killed in the war since Russia launched its full-scale invasion four years ago.
“Sport should not mean amnesia, and the Olympic movement should help stop wars, not to play into the hands of the aggressor,” Zelenskiy said. “Unfortunately, the decision of the IOC to disqualify Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych says otherwise.”
Tensions were running high even before the opening ceremony kicked off the competition. US plans to deploy a handful of Immigration and Customs Enforcement staff showed how the agency’s role in an immigration crackdown at home was agitating audiences overseas.
A freestyle skier, Gus Kenworthy — born in the UK, and raised in the US — posted an image on Instagram showing him urinating the words “F*ck ICE” on the snow. Italian snowboarder Roland Fischnaller competed with a Russian flag on his helmet, one of a number of flags of the places where he had competed.
US athletes have also criticized US President Donald Trump and his domestic policies during the games, even if the Olympic charter prohibits “demonstrations” or “propaganda” of a political nature during the games.
Neither have faced disciplinary action, raising the question among some critics about why the Ukrainian athlete was singled out.