Vladyslav Heraskevych exits Olympics with dream unfulfilled, but principles intact

Veteran sportswriter Richard Deitsch takes an international view of the Olympics.

I wrote in this space yesterday that Vladyslav Heraskevych’s story was a mirror. It reflected the eternal deception of how sports and politics do not intersect. The reality is the intersection has always existed at every Olympics, and on Thursday, the most memorable day of the Milano-Cortina Olympics so far, the intersection simply became impossible to ignore.

The Ukrainian skeleton athlete, a medal contender at the Milano-Cortina Games, was not allowed to compete after refusing a last-minute plea from the International Olympic Committee to not race with the helmet that honours his country's athletes and coaches killed in the war with Russia. 

It is now a massive global story — and rightly so. Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde wrote a powerful column worth reading. The New York Times called it “Games’ biggest crisis.” Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the President of Ukraine, posted repeatedly about it on his social media accounts. Even Hollywood actors weighed in. 

“Sport shouldn’t mean amnesia, and the Olympic movement should help stop wars, not play into the hands of aggressors,” Zelenskyy wrote. “ Unfortunately, the decision of the International Olympic Committee to disqualify Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych says otherwise.”

The IOC will say it cannot set precedent here but they also make the rules on what constitutes expression. More to the point, the political neutrality is hard to swallow from an organization that coddled up to Vladimir Putin by rewarding Russia the 2014 Sochi Games. Heraskevych has appealed his competition ban with the Court of Arbitration for Sport, and Reuters reported that CAS said it would review the matter