If only there were a gold medal for hypocrisy. From Declan Hayes at strategic-culture.org:
Lofty ideals that were an integral part of the ancient Olympics and that underwrite the founding of the modern Olympic games are not for NATO.
In assessing NATO’s ongoing efforts to terrorise Russian and Belarusian athletes, we must include Minsk sparrows, Muscovite goalkeepers, Nazi paratroopers, African Americans and many more in our calculus to make sense of this latest bout of naked NATO fascism.
Let’s start with the late POTUS Nixon, who had the singular honour of welcoming the Soviet Olympic gymnasts, Olga Korbut, the Minx Sparrow included, to the White House. Those young Russian and Belarusian women revolutionised gymnastics and, though the pint-sized Korbut was far from their best performer, she stole the hearts of the world, mine and POTUS Nixon’s included because of her demeanour in both victory and defeat. Not only that but Nixon made the critical point that whatever political and other differences existed between the Soviet and NATO political elites, those differences had nothing to do with young athletes like Korbut (or Valieva), whose waking hours are necessarily dedicated to finessing their chosen craft.
Korbut’s gravity-defying stunts on the uneven bars entranced the world, as did her tears when she lost the gold medal through basic mistakes that form part of the grit of such high octane contests. The importance of Korbut’s tears is they were replicated by figure skater Kamila Valieva, when an unprecedented bout of bullying by the BBC and other thuggish NATO outlets caused the young Russian teenager to slip up at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. In one of a number of such stupid propaganda whoppers, NATO wants us to believe that Korbut’s trainers consoled their young athlete, whereas Valieva’s attacked their own young prodigy.