{"id":1357366,"date":"2026-02-13T12:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/olympic-games-everyone\/"},"modified":"2026-02-13T12:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-13T10:45:12","slug":"olympic-games-everyone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/olympic-games-everyone\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic Games, everyone?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Source: Author&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/aleksej.golobuckij\/posts\/pfbid0uxNpYvmM8z3reKLajeKbmHaY4AG6bMRteyEHgjPjQU9Z96dN9oo3jtwcdeEnbz4Ul\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Facebook<\/a> page<\/em><\/p>\n<p> <strong>IOC officials were pretty messed up: no matter how much Russia encouraged them to suppress Ukrainian athletes and even more so Ukrainian initiatives (the new IOC president Kirsty Coventry is known worldwide for her scandals involving receiving money and loyalty to vile regimes), the money was spent in vain.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> Because they achieved the classic &#8220;Streisand effect&#8221;: when an attempt to sweep something under the rug only attracted the maximum possible attention, which would never have happened without such an attempt.<\/p>\n<p> Characteristically, the IOC and Coventry personally continue to bury themselves deeper and deeper in the substrate that most closely matches their worldview: they banned Geraskevych from wearing a &#8220;memory helmet&#8221; &#8211; recommended a black ribbon &#8211; allowed the &#8220;memory helmet&#8221; outside of the competition &#8211; disqualified Geraskevych &#8211; and now they mockingly &#8220;allowed Geraskevych to attend the Olympics despite his disqualification from the competition&#8221; after a personal appeal to Coventry.<\/p>\n<p> In response, IOC representative Mark Adams blurted out, supposedly as an excuse: &#8220;&#8230;There are 130 conflicts in the world &#8211; take the Middle East, Africa, South America. If everyone is allowed to express themselves in this way outside the black armband, it will create a field of competition with a field of expression.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p> It seems that the Kremlin sent them a special flight with some particularly productive shovel (and a master class from Zakharova and Lavrov) so that they could dig deeper and dig up the reputation of the IOC in particular and the Olympic Games in general for a long time.<\/p>\n\t\t<aside class=\"shortcode-also\" data-title=\"Read also\" >\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/vladislav-geraskevich-and-the-rule-50-whats-wrong-with-the-ioc-decision\/\">Vladislav Geraskevich and the &#8220;Rule 50&#8221;: What&#8217;s Wrong with the IOC Decision<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\n<p> On the other hand, the Latvian team expressed solidarity with Geraskevych and Ukraine (although they are always with us, for which they have great respect). &#8220;Currently, the Latvian team has filed a protest, is collecting signatures from all teams in our support and categorically demands that this disqualification be canceled. We have never doubted the Latvian team, Ukrainian skeleton was born there. &#8230; The Republic of Korea, Denmark expressed support; the organizers of the Games, the Italian team, approached and wished us success. We received a lot of support from coaches from Germany, the USA, Brazil &#8211; many countries,&#8221; &#8211; Geraskevych.<\/p>\n<p> The flash mob in support was initiated by our athletes currently serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine (and was also joined by some Ukrainian athletes at the Olympics).<\/p>\n<p> Zelensky made the statement yesterday. And today, after the disgrace of disqualification, he issued an order to award Vladyslav Geraskevych the Order of Freedom &#8211; &#8220;for selfless service to the Ukrainian people, civic courage and patriotism in defending the ideals of freedom and democratic values.&#8221; Many believe that this order, along with the scandal that has engulfed the whole world, is more important for Geraskevych&#8217;s future than the gold medal he confidently went for at this shameful &#8220;Coventry Olympics&#8221; (she was appointed last March &#8211; this is her first Olympics, which she successfully ruined).<\/p>\n<p> The statement was made by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (&#8220;The IOC did not ban a Ukrainian athlete, but its own reputation. &#8230; It is the Russians who need to be suspended, not the commemoration of their victims. None of them is &#8220;neutral&#8221;. &#8230; The IOC betrayed 650 Ukrainian athletes and coaches killed by Russia&#8221;) and the Minister of Sports (promised to &#8220;correct this mistake in the legal field&#8221;).<\/p>\n\t\t<aside class=\"shortcode-also\" data-title=\"Read also\" data-right>\n\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/the-olympic-movement-should-not-play-along-with-the-aggressor-zelensky-criticized-geraskevych-s-disqualification\/\">\u201cThe Olympic movement should not play along with the aggressor\u201d: Zelensky criticized Geraskevych\u2019s disqualification<\/a>\n\t<\/aside>\n\n<p> Even the Verkhovna Rada yesterday managed to vote on a very tough Resolution on the Appeal to the IOC (reg. No. 15027): &#8220;The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine fully supports the actions of Vladyslav Geraskevych as a manifestation of respect for the memory of not only Ukrainian athletes, but also all citizens of Ukraine who became victims of the bloody illegal, unprovoked and unjustified armed aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine, and considers the IOC&#8217;s decision unfair and one that is actually evidence of support for the aggressor. The Verkhovna Rada called on the IOC to grant all Ukrainian athletes the right to use symbols to honor the memory of the victims of the Russian Federation&#8217;s armed aggression against Ukraine. And also to cancel the decision on the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in international competitions.<\/p>\n<p> That is, at least a little behind, but Ukraine responded quite qualitatively, it is worth admitting.<\/p>\n<p> But this does not change the main thing: participation in the Olympics loses its meaning. Global pharma, total corruption, fantastic flexibility in response to pressure from the Kremlin regime, disregard for its own rules (experts have already analyzed in detail all the violations in the IOC&#8217;s decisions), disregard not only for the letter, but most importantly &#8211; for the spirit of the world competitions&#8230;<\/p>\n<p> The Olympics are everything \u2013 at least for a while. Not as a movement, but as an organization, the Olympic Games have discredited themselves completely. Not only Ukraine has called for the resignation of the scandalously famous Coventry (but how could she be appointed with such a well-known background?!). But her successor will have to make very difficult efforts to rehabilitate the Olympics after such a disgrace.<\/p>\n<p> Also follow <strong>\u201cPryamim\u201d<\/strong> on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Facebook<\/a> , <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/prm_ua\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">X<\/a> , <a href=\"https:\/\/t.me\/+rtV4dxYu2_cyNjVi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Telegram<\/a> , and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/pryamiy\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Instagram.<\/a><\/p>\n<p> <span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em>\u2022 Materials published in the \u201cOPINIONS\u201d section reflect the opinion of the author of the publication, who bears full responsibility for the accuracy of the information.<\/em><\/span><br \/> <span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em>\u2022 The editorial staff of prm.ua may not share the opinions expressed in the author&#8217;s material.<\/em><\/span><br \/> <span style=\"font-size: 10pt;\"><em>\u2022 The owner of the webpage in the \u201cOPINIONS\u201d section is the author of the publication.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: Author&#8217;s Facebook page IOC officials were pretty messed up: no matter how much Russia encouraged them to suppress Ukrainian athletes and even more so Ukrainian initiatives (the new IOC president Kirsty Coventry is known worldwide for her scandals involving receiving money and loyalty to vile regimes), the money was spent in vain. Because they [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":1357311,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[76871,76872,76893],"class_list":["post-1357366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-2","category-news-feed","category-thoughts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1357366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1357366\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1357311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1357366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prm.ua\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1357366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}