BBCI was rowing down the river with an Olympic champion.
No, this is not the Seine. And this is not Paris. That is clear as we pass the Kremlin.
Below decks, Tokyo 2020 gold medalist Mariya Lasitskene is taking part in the launch of an unusual project: an event combining fashion, sports and music.
Mariya is not in Paris to defend her Olympic high jump title. The Russian team is banned from the Games because of the war in Ukraine. A ruling by World Athletics means that Russian track and field stars are not even allowed to compete as neutral athletes.
And, for Mariya, it was painful.
“I can’t even bring myself to watch the athletics at this Olympics,” she told me. “It’s too painful. We should be there. The Olympics is a festival, the greatest event in the world.”
The Russian press doesn’t seem to think so. From the start, newspapers here have poured cold water on Paris 2024.
After the opening ceremony featured drag performers and what some saw as a parody of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper, the tabloid Moskovsky Komsomolets dubbed the Paris Olympics “Satan’s Olympics”.
Another news site, Argumenty i Fakty, called it the “Olympics from hell”.
People are starting to feel that Russia might win the gold medal… just out of jealousy.
“I thought the Olympics were about sports. But not anymore,” Russian MP Mariya Butina told me.
“It involves politics, religion, everything. It’s sad because the original idea of the Olympics was to create peace.”
“But Russia invaded Ukraine,” I pointed out. “That’s not ‘peace,’ is it?”
“Russia defended its people,” Butina replied, repeating the official line here that Russia’s war in Ukraine was purely defensive.
In reality, the Kremlin’s “special military operation” is essentially an invasion of a sovereign, independent state.
AFPIn Russia, the Olympic Games always receive great attention.
But these Olympics aren’t even being broadcast on TV here. That hasn’t happened since the Soviet Union boycotted the Los Angeles Games 40 years ago.
Russia has sent hundreds of athletes to the Summer Olympics. This time, just 15 Russian athletes are competing in Paris as “neutral athletes” in sports such as rowing and tennis.
They were not allowed to present themselves as a national team, so there was no Russian flag, no national anthem. And individual athletes had to go through a vetting procedure to determine that they had no links to the Russian military or security services and were not actively supporting the war in Ukraine.
Bans in sports are not new in Russia.
In 2019, the country was banned from major international sporting events for state-sponsored doping violations. That ban was later reduced to two years. At the Tokyo Olympics, Russian athletes competed under the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee.
There was no screening process at the sports festival I was witnessing in the Moscow park.
A Russian nationalist group organized an afternoon of what they considered traditional Russian entertainment.
This world is a far cry from Paris 2024.
I could see two men lying on the ground engaged in a game of “stick wrestling”, trying to pull their opponent down.
What looked like a gang brawl was taking place on the football pitch, with teams wearing red and blue jerseys engaging in “wall-to-wall fighting”.
Some things here have nothing to do with sports. In one corner, Russians, young and old, are invited to dress up in military uniforms and gear. Posing with guns, they are being photographed.
I see few people here interested in what is going on in Paris.
“I haven’t watched the Olympics for years,” boxer Vadim told me. “Since Russia was kicked out. Russia is being canceled everywhere.”
High jumper Mariya Lasitskene has a sports-music fashion show to keep her busy at the moment. But Mariya admits that the Olympics are “every professional athlete’s dream.”
“Every athlete wants to compete with the best. You can only do that at international competitions,” Mariya told me.
“Sports is a battle of the fittest. I miss it so much.”
