The applause, as recorded by the microphones, sounded polite, not frenetic, but respectful as they entered the stadium: 20 Ukrainian athletes on Friday evening in Beijing’s “Bird’s Nest” arena. Some raised their fists. The German athletes later took off their hats for a moment as they entered. And Andrew Parsons, President of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC), began his speech at the opening of the 13th Winter Games for People with Disabilities with a message of peace. He did not name either Russia or Ukraine. For this he shouted: “Peace!”
Were they those, the messages with which these Paralympics can begin? Is it about sports now? About inclusion, as is the mission of the Paralympic movement that began after the end of the Second World War? For peace?
Lee Reaney asked himself these and similar questions on the day before the opening ceremony. He is sitting in the press center in Beijing for a video call, wearing a yellow Ukraine T-shirt and a respirator with a handwritten message of peace. Reaney, Canadian, works as a journalist for the English-language Kiev newspaper Kyiv Post. But meanwhile he has long since turned from an observer to the protagonist of these games.
It was Reaney whose performance marked the beginning of sporting history in Beijing before the Paralympics opened. On Wednesday, IPC President Parsons announced at the press conference that Russian and Belarusian athletes would be allowed to take part in the Games under neutral flags, despite the war of aggression against Ukraine. That’s when Reaney got up and went to the microphone: in a Ukraine training jacket and holding a photo of Evghen Malyshev, a biathlete who died in the war. How, Reaney asked, would Parsons explain this decision to Malyshev’s parents: “Allow athletes from the aggressor’s state to compete?”
Questions for the questioner: Journalist Lee Reaney protests at the IPC press conference.
(Photo: Kyodo News/imago)
On Thursday, around twenty hours later, only under the pressure of severe criticism and with reference to boycott threats from various teams, the IPC suddenly reversed its decision: Russia and Belarus were excluded – as decided by the football associations Fifa and Uefa and the international After all, the Olympic Committee (IOC), the partner association of the IPC, had recommended.
Only shortly before the opening ceremony on Friday did the Russian committee declare that it would not take legal action for the time being, but would rather leave – not without harshly criticizing the “politicization” and a “collapse of the world of sport”. It resonated all the more when Lee Reaney confronted the Paralympics’ top sports official with the question of humanity. And as Parsons, 45, pointed out in response to the IPC’s rulebook allegedly not allowing Russia to be expelled on Wednesday.
So now Reaney is saying, “The IPC ultimately made the right decision, which it should have made 15 hours earlier.”
The 41-year-old can not only contribute his expertise as a sports reporter from Ukraine to the classification of these Paralympics, he has been living in the country for ten years. He also speaks as an Olympic traveler in pandemic times. He was in Tokyo in 2021, at the Olympics and Paralympics, he says. The Corona measures were strict there too. In the weeks between the events, however, he was allowed to go out and see the country.
He has also been in Beijing since the beginning of the Olympic Games. This time he had to stay in the hotel and was not allowed to leave the bubble. “I’m not complaining,” he says, and yet his reference to the restrictive approach in China is a reminder of what has faded into the background in the face of the horrors of war: the Paralympics are as scandalous as their Olympic counterpart for the same reasons – human rights violations, no freedom of speech. In addition, China’s Paralympic team is surprisingly supported, 96 athletes ran in on Friday. But are there any spillover effects for people with disabilities, who often live in rural China?
And then this week reported the New York Times also with reference to a “Western intelligence report” that China had asked Russia not to invade Ukraine before the end of the Olympic Games. That’s how it happened. Beijing sharply denied the report. But of course that was also in the back of your mind when President Xi Jinping waved to the audience next to Parsons on Friday. Parsons’ peace speech was apparently censored for Chinese television and not fully translated. Sentences like this were missing: “I am appalled by what is happening in the world right now.”
“Focus on sports” was the title of the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS) in a statement on the morning of the opening ceremony, and of course that’s a very understandable wish. Anna-Lena Forster and Martin Fleig carried the German flag into the Vogelnest, a skier and a biathlete, both in wheelchairs. Athletes with disabilities need attention for their careers even more than at the Olympics. They inspire with their CVs, there is a lot to this claim of the IPC.
But this time it’s not that easy. Lee Reaney says, “As a sportswriter, you don’t have the most important story to tell when your country is at war. It’s not even the fortieth most important story.”
Of course, this also applies to these Paralympics. And yet there is a team from Ukraine, 20 athletes who want to show themselves. Valery Sushkevich, head of the Paralympic Committee of Ukraine, spoke at Beijing’s Main Press Center on Thursday. He said, addressing the world, “Your attention is very important to us.”
Valery Sushkevich, head of Ukraine’s committee.
(Photo: STR/AFP)
Sushkevich, 67, reported in thoughtful words and with the help of a translator about the arduous journey of the team, which took four days and four nights. Some athletes just barely escaped the bombs. The team escaped by bus from Kyiv to Lviv, via Poland, Slovakia and Austria to Milan, where some athletes were still in the training camp. He himself slept on the floor of the bus for days, Sushkevich said.
It’s hard to imagine how shaken he was when he heard the news on Wednesday that his athletes were to compete against athletes from Russia in Beijing. He commented on a request for it at the press conference by thanking all the countries that had demonstrated against the IPC’s decision and forced the reversal. Sushkevich said: “A superpower wants to destroy my country. Our presence here at the Paralympic Games is not just a presence. It is a sign that Ukraine was, is and will remain a country.”
Is it a sign that people in Ukraine register? Not everyone in Ukraine, says Lee Reaney, has the opportunity to charge their cell phone right now, which is a big problem. Some who can also look for positive news. Maybe even after the Paralympics. Because: “Ukraine is one of the best Paralympic nations in the world.” Disabled sports are strongly promoted, he says. There is a dedicated channel called “Equalympic”.
The Ukrainians are particularly strong in Nordic sports. 14 medals in biathlon, eight in cross-country skiing, that was the balance in Pyeongchang 2018. But what are medals anyway? The competitions would be difficult, Sushkevich said, if a family member could die at any minute: “Mother, father, daughter, son.”
However, medals are never the essence of the Paralympics. “Para sports are different than Olympic sports,” says Reaney. He doesn’t mean that the athletes are oddballs. “Many of them have normal lives like you and me, they’re just missing a hand or they can’t see anything.”
What he means: “If you need a wheelchair in Russia, Belarus or Ukraine, then you have an idea that life is not easy.” He adds, “The people who train these athletes are some of the nicest people.” The people in Russia too, he means. So he basically understands if the IPC doesn’t want to exclude athletes. But: “Sometimes things are bigger than that.”
Valery Sushkvich also spoke about the Sochi 2014 games in his press conference. He has been in Paralympic sport for 25 years and was already the head of the committee back then. And he spoke even then about his desire for peace. On Thursday he said: “That is the most cynical aspect.”
For the third time after the Caucasus War in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Russia broke the Olympic truce. “For the second time, the Paralympics are affected.” The Paralympics, of all things, where veterans also compete.
As early as 2014, Ukraine’s athletes dedicated their successes to the soldiers and the struggle for independence. The opening ceremony was already a scene of protests in 2014: Only the biathlete and cross-country skier Mikhail Tkachenko drove into the stadium with the flag on his wheelchair. As early as 2014, Valery Sushkevich said: “Never again should Paralympians be at the Games because they were victims of a war.” His hope has not been fulfilled.