London Olympics: when politics matters more than rules

Although the most disputable sports are only about to begin this week, the first half of the Games has already proved scandalous. Shortly after the disqualification of boxers and the performance of Japanese athletes in team`s all-around competitions, another reason has appeared to suspect the judges of bias.

The final of women’s gymnastics event: shortly before the end of the competitions Russian, Romanian, American and German athletes are in the lead. McKayla Maroney of the US takes silver after a fall, leaving Maria Paseka of Russia behind. The two-time Olympics champion Lidia Ivanova is outraged at the decision which she says is politically motivated. This has nothing to do with sports, prominent Russian coach Vitaly Akimov agrees…

"Of course, the decision was biased. After failing to perform one of the two jumps an athlete can in no way become a silver prize winner. When they realized that their judging could cost them their careers, they gave an overrated mark to a Romanian athlete proclaiming her a champion. Of course, a silver medal should have been awarded to a Russian gymnast. A similar incident took place during figure skating competitions at the 2010 Vancouver Games: the judges then also gave overrated marks to some athletes and downgraded those earned by Russians."

Race walking is where Russians are traditionally strong. Nevertheless, Vladimir Kanaikin, one of the favorites of the 20-km race, was disqualified after receiving three red cards.Ding Chen of China received only one warning, although experts saw him violating the rules more than once during the race. But the Chinese race walker was so confident of winning that started waving his hands long before the finish line. Valery Borchin of Russia tried to catch up with Chen but collapsed due to a heat stroke. Due to some reasons, it took medics some time to give Borchin first aid which also sparked tensions among members of the Russian delegation. Editor-in-chief for the All Sports agency, Andrei Mitkov believes that national federations could have affected the judges during both the race walking and the gymnastics competitions.

"Just look what is going on: Russia`s Olympic champion suffers a heat stroke, another athlete, Kanaikin, is disqualified after three warnings, despite the fact that two Chinese athletes who won gold and silver were almost running. This is what always happens when international federation and national Olympic committees interfere."

Expert says the most telling is a scandal with women’s heptathlon, when the results were showing Russia’s Tatiana Chernova winning a silver medal. After the German delegates argued the disqualification of their athlete things went worse. In view of this, the only thing the Russian delegation can do about it is to become as persistent as their rivals.