15 Russian ‘neutrals’ at Olympics are politically isolated, rarely in spotlight
In Russia, the Olympics aren’t being shown on TV and some politicians and media figures have even described those willing to compete in Paris as traitors. It’s a complex environment for the athletes, some of them teenagers, to navigate and they’re wary of talking about politics or the war.
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00:0015 Russian athletes competing at this year's Olympics have an uneasy status as individual
00:05neutral athletes.
00:07Some in the Olympic village oppose them taking part and Russian opinion is divided, with
00:12some Russian politicians describing those competing as traitors.
00:18Activists gathered information from Russian athletes' social media leading up to the
00:21Games, flagging posts they considered showed support for the war.
00:25One of these was allegedly Diana Schneider, who became one of the first Russians to win
00:29a medal at the Paris Olympics after taking silver in women's doubles.
00:34You published in February 2022 two posts on, you liked two posts on Instagram.
00:39I'm not going to answer anything about politics here.
00:43OK, my question was only do you regret it and your position has changed or not?
00:49No, no comments about it.
00:51I'm here to talk about tennis and my game today.
00:55Ukraine wanted Russian athletes excluded and opposed Olympic efforts to include them
00:59as neutral athletes.
01:03Ukraine briefly boycotted Olympic qualifying competitions that allowed Russians to attend
01:08but changed their policy, facing the risk of not being represented at the Olympics at
01:12all.
01:13We all know very well where these athletes are from and they didn't say a word against
01:20the war.
01:22So I think it's very sad because the Olympics are about peace and all wars were stopped
01:31for a period.
01:32But Russia didn't stop and during these Games there were mass attacks on the cities of
01:38Ukraine.
01:39So how can a terrorist be allowed to participate in peace competitions?