The world watched as Kamila Valiyeva broke under immense pressure. At first, no one offered her comfort. That also “disturbed” Thomas Bach – but the IOC boss could have acted earlier.
The freestyle in figure skating offered pure drama. In focus: the Russian athlete Kamila Valiewa. Under the pressure of the past few days, she gave up the lead and ended up missing out on a medal. After her competition, she was completely devastated. The trainer seemed ice cold. At first she didn’t hug her protégé. At first there was no consolation for the 15-year-old – despite all the hustle and bustle. IOC President Thomas Bach also found this “terrifying” (read more here). He was “disturbed” and is now open to a minimum age at the Olympic Games. Bach said, “We started thinking about it in the executive branch.” But honestly, this statement comes much too late. And she’s just hypocritical.
He could have acted long ago
Because if anyone could have acted sooner, it would be him. Bach has been President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) since 2013. The 15-year-old Russian figure skater Julia Lipnitskaya won the team competition at the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. At the age of 18 she ended her career because of anorexia. Something similar happened in Pyeongchang in 2018: Alina Zagitova won the singles at the age of 15. Nothing is heard from her either. Although there was no suspicion of doping at the time, as in the Valiyeva case, Lipnitskaya’s fate alone was a clear warning. But that was ignored.
Kamila Valiewa: The Russian figure skater burst into tears after her freestyle. (Source: Kyodo News/imago images)
Only now, with the whole world watching Valiyeva collapse under the pressure, did Bach comment on possible reforms and an age limit to protect young athletes. It took the public scandal surrounding Kamila Valiyeva, who was “thrown to the world to eat,” as Katarina Witt put it, to bring about a rethink. Bach could have avoided this if he had acted earlier.
Too much time passed
But the German Olympic boss is not known for this, as the example of the Russian doping scandal after the games in Sochi 2014 shows. Far too much time passed before the Russian National Olympic Committee was suspended and Russian athletes competed in the Olympic Games under a neutral flag. At the Rio 2016 Summer Games, Bach defended his course of not excluding the Russian Olympic team.
Since Pyeongchang there has been a neutral flag under which Russian athletes can participate. The formal ban for Russia is valid until the end of this year. Criticism has been voiced that this would not change the system behind it. That more needs to be done, since many supervisors and trainers from the state doping system are still active. However, IOC President Bach is keeping a low profile. He prefers to avoid conflict. Instead, he was seen early in the Games at the banquet in Beijing with China’s leader Xi Jingping, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and scores of other autocrats. Bach apparently doesn’t bother the society of anti-democrats much.
The Valiyeva scandal and the question of an age limit for Olympic athletes are by no means the only cases in which Bach’s intervention is not only important, but long overdue. It is clear that the IOC boss must now finally put his words into action.