The IOC believes it has found a way to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete at the Paris Games: as “neutral” athletes. Putin will be fine.
At the 2014 Sochi Winter Games, the mascot was a polar bear, which was remembered for shedding a big tear at the closing ceremony. To the audience abroad, this may have seemed like an understandable reaction from a furry animal prone to sentimentality, but in fact the tear was a reminiscence of the 1980 Moscow Summer Games, where the brown bear Mishka cried a big tear at the closing ceremony. And because the masters of ceremonies at the Sochi Games wanted to glorify the power and splendor of the old Soviet Union, they are not insulting anyone when they say: In Russian sports, even mascots are given a propaganda boost.