Russia Scoffs at Olympic Ban: ‘Let Them Listen to Classical Music’

[Animous]

 

MOSCOW — Russia’s Olympic team is competing abroad in unmarked uniforms without the country’s flag — not unlike the Russian Army on its unacknowledged military incursions, as one joke making the rounds in Moscow notes.

When a Russian wins a gold medal and takes the top spot on the podium, the country’s national anthem doesn’t play. Instead, a portion of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 celebrates the winner.

“Let them listen to classical music,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Maria Zakharova, said in a video the ministry released to cheer on the not-exactly-Russian team.

With humor and pride, Russians are gloating over their athletes’ many medals this summer despite a prohibition on national symbols at the Tokyo Summer Olympics — a punishment for egregious past doping infractions.

“Will this stop our guys?” Tina Kandelaki, a social media influencer, wrote on Instagram. “No. The Olympics become one of those situations when you want to prove and show to everybody that you are Russian.”

Image

A bar in Moscow screening footage from the Olympics on Saturday. Russian competitors had to pass a rigorous drug clearance program to be allowed to take part in the Games.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

Indeed, sports fans and sports commentators are having no trouble seeing through the thin fiction of the odd, bureaucratic moniker of their team — R.O.C., an acronym for the Russian Olympic Committee.

“Nobody is bothered at all by this situation,” Dmitri Kozika, a bartender at Probka, a sports bar, said of Russian sports fans.

Through the warm twilight of a recent summer evening in Moscow, fans sat at leather-upholstered bar stools, sipped beers and kept an eye on replays from Tokyo. When Russians rack up gold, which happens often enough at any Olympics, the patrons cheer, Mr. Kozika said.

If anything, he said, the extra scrutiny of their team, which had to pass a rigorous drug clearance program, has given Russian sports fans a restored sense of pride in the victories that followed. “They checked our guys really thoroughly,” Mr. Kozika said. “They are clean.”

Roman Pritula, an ambulance medic taking a well-deserved break at the bar from Covid-19 duty, similarly shrugged off the Russian team’s strange name.

“It doesn’t prevent us from being proud,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if they compete under the Olympic flag. They are still Russians. And when they win, it causes positive emotions.”

Image

A mural in Moscow showing a martial arts practitioner with a bear emblem flipping a rival wearing the initials of WADA, the World Anti-Doping Agency.Credit...Nanna Heitmann for The New York Times

And even officials who once complained bitterly about the doping restrictions have taken to lightly poking fun at what was meant to be a humbling state of affairs.

The Foreign Ministry video, for example, ended with the thumping drums of the rock song by Queen “We Will Rock You” — which is rendered in writing, of course, as “We Will R.O.C. You.”

The commanding victory over the United States in women’s team gymnastics, the head of Russia’s Olympic Committee, Stanislav Pozdnyakov, said proudly, will inspire a new generation of young Russian girls to become gymnasts.

The Russians Lilia Akhaimova, Viktoria Listunova, Angelina Melnikova and Vladislava Urazova won gold medals after the American star Simone Biles pulled out of the competition, saying she had become dangerously disoriented during a vault and wasn’t mentally prepared to continue.

[Silent Watcher]

Avoid unnecessary posts such as 'Thank you', 'Welcome', etc. Such posts will be deleted and user will be warned if it happens again. If caught spamming, the following actions are applicable -

• First time - Warning
• Second time - 5000 Points will be deducted
• Third time - Ban for 7 days
• Fourth time - Permanent Ban

If the post helped you, reward the user by reacting to the post like this -