Maybe I am an idiot, but I don't understand how a country under attack like they are can even spend time and money on training an athlete.

That is what happens when you have two leaders that hate each other. Trying to spread hate to everyone.

They can refuse to compete in protest.

The US along with 65 other countries did this for the 1980 Olympics.

I'm not saying that you can't enforce it. I'm saying that the process of enforcing it is arbitrary and subjective and therefore likely to be unfair. Rules are supposed to be clear and concise but this can't be if the actual definition of the "rules" is down to interpretation.

You can find human rights abuses in every governments past. Every single one. I'm not suggesting for a second that some don't have more than others but it's still down to opinion. For me, the question should really be - do you allow state owned football clubs or not? I don't think so but last January the FA didn't seem to have a problem with it....so what's different?

/whoosh

I think it’s more likely that the odds change after each point. But maybe?

If Russia is good at propaganda, why do you think the U.S. and other countries that own the largest media holdings are not good at propaganda? You approve of discrimination for some reason - which means you are already susceptible to propaganda.

Ukraine is shelling Russian territory and territories it considers its own. People live there, too, and there are athletes there, too. We could talk about morality if Ukraine were calling for peace, but as you can see Ukraine is demanding more weapons and calling for chauvinistic acts.

Now it's silly to say that sports are outside of politics. The U.S. doesn't give a damn about that. But Ukraine encourages chauvinism at the state level and so-called "civilized" countries ignore it. The question is, when did these countries stop being civilized?

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The Olympics are 110% political, there is no way to make them not mix.

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Yeah like you'd gladly have a friendly competition with the taliban.

Of course they’re publicly fine with it. That doesn’t mean there aren’t Uknrainian athletes that won’t qualify for the Olympics purely because of this rule

No, for what I’ve seen in their posts, they’re fine with it. It’s not like this decision was made by force and without consultations.

Because most of Russian athletes have military ranks, they support war and even when performing under the neutral flag they show their Z marks. It’s not fun for Ukrainians. It’s not fun for other countries who suffered from russian imperialism.

Yeah that’s the exact sort of thing high level athletes like to overcome and show everyone just how good they are. Russia should absolutely face consequences on a sporting level but this is giving the consequences to the Ukrainian athletes who will now lose because of the politics

I wrote below. It affects them a lot. Besides, they cannot train abroad forever, this whole situation is very unstable, with short term contracts, no future prospects, when you retire you do the burden for the team in order how to train new generation. All this while facing the smile of russian athletes that don’t have to worry about anything.

And Russia definitely knows how to propaganda

Then they sue Russia in the ICC.

I don't see what it has to do with sports.

The Ukrainian high level athletes are out of country dude

That’s what being ignorant is. It’s not about everyone else competing, it’s about country doing war crimes facing consequences

I’m 100% sure that’s how the athletes feel. This move is coming from beurocrats

Right? I’d relish ever opportunity to defeat a Russian were I a Ukrainian athlete.

The world doesn't spin around Ukraine.

They can't compete, it's their business. The world doesn't stop hosting game because they can't play.