Russian media criticizes Paris Olympics not being broadcast on TV

JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press

17 minutes ago

Individual neutral athlete Tatsiana Klimovich prepares to compete in the women’s rowing single sculls series at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Saturday, July 27, 2024, in Vaires-sur-Marne, France. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

TALLINN, Estonia (AP) — For most people in Russia, watching the Olympic Games in Paris will be difficult. Russian media say it’s not worth the effort.

Only 15 Russian citizens will participate in the Games and in principle they will not represent Russia. Since Russia and neighboring Belarus were excluded from national teams due to the war in Ukraine, Russian and Belarusian athletes who are approved to participate will do so as neutral athletes.

Russians have been avid fans of the Olympics since the days when the Soviet Union’s athletic prowess earned the nickname “The Big Red Machine.” But because so few of their countrymen participate, Russian state television channels don’t show any of the events. Russians can find feeds online, but may need a virtual private network to get around the country’s blocking of some channels.

The last time the Olympics were not televised in Russia (the country that has won the second most medals, including the Soviet era) was in 1984, when the Soviet Union boycotted the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

The state news channel Rossiya 24 broadcast a report from Paris on Friday night about the opening ceremony, with dancing plumes of colored smoke rising over the Seine. The news agencies Tass and RIA-Novosti gave it brief coverage, with terse stories saying the opening ceremony had begun but few details beyond noting that rain was driving away many spectators.

Newspapers do not completely ignore the Olympic Games, but they mainly emphasize the negative. They write extensively about the crime in Paris, the nuisance caused by the barricades that have been erected all over the city and reports about food shortages for athletes.

“The Olympic Games in Paris are a great event, not to say a phenomenon: the competitions in individual disciplines have only just begun, the opening ceremony has not even taken place yet, and so many scandals have already piled up that they will be enough for several Games,” Alexander Shulgin, a reporter for the Sovietsky Sport newspaper, wrote on Thursday.

“I think these Olympic Games will go down in history with a completely negative outcome,” Sport-Ekspress newspaper quoted Irina Rodnina, a three-time gold medalist in figure skating and now a member of the Russian parliament, as saying.

A hint of schadenfreude runs through many of the stories. Andrei Tupikov of Sovietsky Sport wrote of the fences and barriers erected in Paris: “In the past, everyone pointed their finger at the structure of sports competitions in Russia. Many did not like the fact that before mass events there were too many different fences and barriers around the arenas and stadiums. … In our reality, the practice is slowly disappearing, but in Europe it is actively being adopted.”

Shulgin, apparently still irritated by criticism of the facilities for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, suggested that Paris might face a similar embarrassing situation at the opening ceremony as in Sochi, when an Olympic rings display malfunctioned.

“If the ring did not open in Sochi, it is scary to imagine what could happen in Paris,” he wrote, but he did not provide further comment after the ceremony.

No disaster has occurred, but Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Saturday compared Paris negatively to Sochi.

“The Western media did not like (stray) dogs at the Sochi Games. In Paris, they were laughed at by the rats that flooded the city streets,” she said in a statement. She also called the opening ceremony “ridiculous.”

Commentary on the Paris Games also focused on ethical and philosophical questions, such as whether to cheer for the few Russians who participated despite being excluded from the national team. In order to receive approval from the International Olympic Committee, the athletes must not have shown support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine, among other things.

Sport-Ekspress commentator Oleg Shamonaev analyzed the connotations of each word in the designation Individual Neutral Athlete and concluded: “The 15 ‘neutrals’ with a Russian passport who did not change their flag, despite 2 1/2 years of sanctions … deserve not condemnation, but respect.”

“It is stupid to pretend that we don’t care what happens to them during the 2024 Games,” he said.

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For more coverage of the Paris Olympics, visit https://apnews.com/hub/2024-paris-olympic-games.