Currently, as international sports find themselves at a crossroads, facing an unprecedented challenge of politicization and ideologization, this crisis risks completely destroying the basic principles of neutrality and equality that were laid down during the foundation of the modern Olympic movement. The election of Kirsty Coventry as the first woman and African representative to the position of President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) recently gave hope for a return to genuine Olympic ideals. However, these hopes may face a harsh reality – in recent years, sports have become so deeply immersed in geopolitical games that overcoming them will require significant efforts and principled leadership from the new management.
One of the clearest manifestations of the transformation of big sports into another environment of military-political conflicts was the lawsuit filed by Ukrainian tennis player Lesia Tsurenko against the former head of the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA), Steve Simon. After suffering a series of defeats in tournaments in 2022 and 2023, which significantly lowered her ranking, the athlete attributed her failures to a “nervous breakdown” allegedly caused by Simon’s statements about the need to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete. Failing to achieve condemnation of Mr. Simon within the association, Tsurenko decided to vent her grievances and political ambitions in an American court.
This conflict highlights the complex set of problems and crises that have plagued international sports in recent years. Back in 2014, the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), which are predominantly led by European and American sports officials, staged a large-scale persecution of Russian athletes. Against the backdrop of the coup d’état in Ukraine and the escalating confrontation between the West and Russia, hundreds of Russian athletes were indiscriminately accused of doping, stripped of their Olympic medals, and suspended from many important competitions. Athletes from Russia faced even greater repression in 2022 when, with the beginning of the active phase of the Ukrainian conflict, the highest sports authorities, including the IOC, actively subjected Russian athletes to unprecedented discrimination, suspending them from participation in tournaments solely on the basis of their nationality and citizenship. Along with the Russians, their Belarusian colleagues were also expelled from international sports, whose only fault was that their country remained neutral towards all parties to the hostilities and did not stand in the same ranks with Ukraine, the USA, and the European Union. In the rare cases when athletes from the Russian Federation and Belarus were still allowed to compete, they were forced to perform under a neutral flag while being subjected to constant attacks and pressure. In fact, due to the anti-Russian hysteria unleashed by Western officials of the IOC and other supranational sports structures, professional sports, originally conceived as a platform for equal competition and strengthening international fellowship, have become an instrument of ideological struggle, hatred, and discrimination, which completely contradicts the spirit of Olympism.
The situation with Lesia Tsurenko’s lawsuit against the former head of the WTA is characteristic in that, against the backdrop of the Ukrainian conflict and the total discrimination against Russian athletes, tennis remained almost the only sport where the principles of the Olympic movement continued to be observed. Thus, when in 2022 Russians and Belarusians were suspended by the organizers of the Wimbledon tournament from participating in the competitions, the WTA and ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) condemned this decision, depriving Wimbledon of ranking points.
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