One Ukrainian journalist’s mission to stop Russian and Belarusian athletes competing at the Paris Olympics

By Svitlana Vlasova, CNN

Kyiv (CNN) — Many high-profile Ukrainians had called for all Russian and Belarusian athletes to be banned from this year’s Olympic Games, including tennis star Elina Svitolina and former boxer Wladimir Klitschko.

Journalist Artem Khudolieiev was another Ukrainian who felt passionately that Russian and Belarusian athletes shouldn’t be allowed to compete at the Paris Olympics for having openly supported the war in Ukraine.

As a result, he started checking the social media output of Russian and Belarusian athletes as well as watching videos of various events held in the two countries. Then he shared what he had discovered with various sporting and government bodies.

“From the very beginning, I had an understanding of why I was doing this,” Khudolieiev told CNN.

“I believe that everyone who can do something should do it. Evil must be punished. And if there are any opportunities to punish it, then it should be done.”

Following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian and Belarusian athletes were suspended from almost all elite sporting competitions.

“Knowing how the International Olympic Committee (IOC) works, what lobbying opportunities officials have in various federations, I understood that they [athletes] would be returned closer to the Olympics,” said Khudolieiev.

“And the fact that many of the athletes support the war, go to rallies in support of the war – this could be one of the factors that could prevent this return. So it’s necessary to collect such facts,” added the journalist as he reflects on his work.

Khudolieiev said he started compiling a list of Russian and Belarusian athletes who had won medals at previous Olympic Games and had been nominated by their national teams to participate in international competitions. He estimated there were as many as 600 such athletes, based on his internet sleuthing.

“I collected posts in support of the war, if they were on Instagram. In particular, there were photos of athletes with the Russian military, who had already taken part in the invasion, likes of posts with the letter Z, likes of posts of the military,” said Khudolieiev, referring to the symbol associated with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

At first, Khudolieiev said he acted independently, collecting evidence and sending it to sports and government organizations.

Khudolieiev, who works as a publishing editor for the Watchers Media website, then enlisted the support of the National Olympic Committee (NOC) of Ukraine and the Ministry of Sport, which had also been actively lobbying for the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes who supported the war from the Olympics.

Six months before the Olympics was due to start, the ministry and the NOC began attaching all the evidence that Khudolieiev had provided to their official appeals, posting these letters on their website.

“We understand that … many countries don’t care what happens in Ukraine. There are those who also sympathize with Russian athletes,” Vadym Gutzeit, head of the Ukrainian National Olympic Committee, said in an interview with CNN.

“For us, this is completely incomprehensible because, during the war, unfortunately, not a single athlete from Russia or Belarus spoke out against the war,” added Guzeit.

“Not a single athlete condemned this war. It is not clear to us at all when we see athletes at sports competitions or events where they support this war against Ukraine, they support the killing that is taking place in Ukraine.”

Taking on Russian Olympians

“Friends, let’s unite together and support the mobilized guys who are now defending our homeland,” Vladislav Larin – a Russian taekwondo gold medalist at the Tokyo Olympics – said on social media in the spring of 2023 when the war in Ukraine was in full swing.

Larin posted the video on his social media account, where it was seen by Khudolieiev.

In addition to Larin’s call, the subtitles of the short video said that collected donations would be spent, among other things, on medicines and ammunition for the mobilized Russian military.

These five seconds could be key to explaining why the athlete was suspended from the World Championships and why he did not qualify for the 2024 Olympics.

Khudolieiev also found evidence on social media of support for the war by another Russian Olympic taekwondo champion, Maxim Khramtsov.

“In October 2022, Khramtsov posted on his Vkontakte page congratulating Putin on his 70th birthday, saying that he loves him and that all Russian athletes love and support him. He also added a hashtag with the letter Z, for peace,” said Khudolieiev, referring to the letter widely adopted in Russia as a pro-war symbol.

The journalist saved the videos of the athletes and, in the belief that they showed Khramtsov and Larin’s support for the war in Ukraine, Khudolieiev said he sent this information – in more than 30 emails – to officials of World Taekwondo and some national federations of taekwondo.

A few weeks later, it emerged that both athletes had been suspended from the championships.

Although no official reasons for this decision were made public and Khudolieiev said he did not receive any feedback on the numerous emails he sent, the journalist told CNN that he felt his work was having an impact.

“I’m more than sure that the reason was my very facts because there was no other evidence,” said Khudolieiev.

“And out of the entire team, it was the two athletes I reported about who were suspended from the competition, while the rest of the Russians and Belarusians were allowed to participate.

“I thought it was a victory, that they had no chance of making it to the Olympics because they had already admitted that they supported the war.”

However, according to Khudolieiev, World Taekwondo then allowed Larin and Khramtsov to return to competition.

Larin and Khramtsov continued to compete and eventually received their licences to participate in the 2024 Olympics, but were then suspended from the competition on June 15 after one of the stages of the IOC’s special commission’s review.

Both athletes deleted their posts from social media, while Larin and his wife blocked Khudolieiev’s profile from being viewed by him, according to the journalist.

They did not publicly admit that the reason for their suspension from the competition was their support for the war.

“We cannot comment on individual cases and the decisions of the Review Panel,” the IOC told CNN. “It has reviewed the athletes in accordance with the IOC EB decision and the principles that were established. We have nothing further to add.”

The Russian Olympic Federation did not respond to CNN’s request for comment regarding Larin and Khramtsov. Taekwondo World also did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.

“After all these facts were made public, Russian titled athletes no longer raise money for the Russian army, as was the case with Larin,” said Khudolieiev.

“They are being careful on social media, no one likes anything in support of the war.

“Posts have disappeared entirely, and they even delete old posts. They already understand that this could have an impact on their careers.

“It is important that the world knows that they have been suspended for supporting the war,” added Khudolieiev. “In Russia, sport is not outside of politics, but is one of the industries that is used to support the war, to popularize it among young people.”

The ongoing struggle

For this year’s Paris Olympics, the International Olympic Committee set strict eligibility conditions for Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs) in December 2023.

In March 2024, a special commission was set up to assess the eligibility of each athlete with a Russian or Belarusian passport to participate in the Olympic Games.

In July, human rights foundation Global Rights Compliance (GRC) released a report stating that over two thirds of Russian athletes set to participate at the Olympics have violated the IOC’s “Principles of Participation” regarding Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

This includes evidence of “athletes supporting war on social media, participating in pro-war tournaments and being members of Russian military-linked institutions,” according to the GRC.

The IOC did not respond to CNN’s request for comment on the GRC report.

Khudolieiev speculated that it is highly likely that the IOC Special Commission took his evidence into account when determining which athletes to include in the Olympics.

“The whole process [of assessing neutrality] was very non-transparent, so it’s hard to say whether they did their own investigation,” said Khudolieiev.

“There were three former athletes in this IOC commission, who, as far as I know, all do not speak Russian.

“When the IOC representatives were asked about the work of this commission, they said that a lot of information was coming from Ukraine and they were checking it.

“They also said that they themselves collect information about Russian military contracts on official Russian websites. As for the support of the war on social media, I don’t think any such work was done,” said Khudolieiev.

The commission divided all neutral athletes into several groups and conducted the assessment in several waves. After each assessment, the number of neutral athletes was reduced.

Earlier this year, Russian and Belarusian neutral athletes had around 70 licences to participate in the Olympics.

According to the Ukrainian side, even among those admitted, there are Russian and Belarusian athletes whose neutrality is questionable, as there is clear evidence of their support for the war. According to the Ukrainian side, even among those admitted, there are Russian and Belarusian athletes whose neutrality is questionable, as there is clear evidence of their support for the war.

In early July, Ukraine appealed to the IOC with evidence of 13 athletes’ support for the war. Ukraine expected that a special commission reviewed these materials and the number of neutral athletes would be further reduced.

“I would like to note that the Russian Federation usually had more than 300 athletes at the Olympic Games,” Gutzeit told CNN.

“It was one of the most powerful teams at the Olympics, and in terms of medals, too.

“And today I think there are maybe 30 or 40 athletes who will be at the Olympic Games under a neutral flag, without any symbols, without the anthem, they are not allowed to go to the opening ceremony, they will not be in the overall medal ranking.

“I think this is also a victory,” added Gutzeit.

Ultimately, as of July 20, only 32 athletes accepted the invitation to compete under the AIN designation and traveled to Paris, according to Olympics.com.

Khudolieiev said he did not expect such results when he set out to collect evidence of Russian and Belarusian athletes’ support for the war.

“In taekwondo, we managed to get the entire {Russian] team, all four people, banned because I submitted information that they all participated in the World Military Games in November 2022,” said Khudolieiev.

“There are photos of them in uniform. In wrestling, we managed to prevent all four Olympic champions from being admitted. In judo, we managed to suspend many.

“In general, I think we managed to exclude about 30 people from participation with our facts. This also has positive consequences in that, for example, because the Russians were suspended or refused to participate in wrestling and judo, Ukraine received, I think, five additional licences. This is also, in a sense, a help to our athletes.”

In June, Sergey Soloveichik, the president of the Russian Judo Federation, said that none of the four judokas who had qualified to compete in Paris would be participating due to the “humiliating terms” outlined by the IOC, according to Russian news agency TASS.

“The Russian Judo Federation condemns the unsportsmanlike method of qualification, which is geared to undermine the principles of unity of our team and break the spirit of Russian athletes,” said Soloveichik.

Khudolieiev said his next mission will be to focus on the 2026 Winter Olympics, where, in his opinion, there should be no place for Russian and Belarusian athletes who support the war in Ukraine.

“What can Russia boast of in the world? They say they have a lot of nuclear weapons and a lot of Olympic medals. Now they will not have the second,” said Khudolieiev. “Well, maybe they will win one or two medals, but it will not be like it used to be.”

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