DAVID ISAACSON | Bach’s symphony of sympathy for Russian athletes is at odds with history

Maybe it was just me, but International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach seemed to speak with great ambiguity when he addressed the Association of National Olympic Committees (ANOC) general assembly in Seoul recently. 

For someone who won an Olympic gold medal in fencing, he was remarkably vague when trying to make his point about the suspension of Russian athletes and officials. Then again, perhaps that’s just the lawyer in him. 

Sure, he was clearly critical of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the more recent annexation of the four regions. But then he fudged his stance to suggest the ban on athletes was not fair. 

“Athletes should never be the victims of policies of their own governments,” he said. 

Excuse me? 

Has he forgotten about the exclusion of South Africa from the Olympics from 1964 until 1992? Did he not recall the anti-apartheid campaigning by his friend Sam Ramsamy. 

During his rambling of more than an hour, Bach also espoused the view that sport and politics should not mix. 

I found his views particularly jarring because they were the antithesis of what was argued during the 1970s and 1980s. 

To say that SA athletes sat on the sidelines for seven Olympic Games — that’s 28 years, as long as the ANC government has now been in power — because of their government’s racist policies would be to simplify history. 

Not all athletes supported apartheid in the slightest. For starters, there were black sports stars who were denied the opportunity of getting to the Olympics. 

In 1964 several black contenders were named in a provisional team to get a last-gasp entry to the Tokyo Games. Yes, it was little more than window-dressing at the time, but they were victims of apartheid and victims of international isolation. 

Benoni Malaka and Humphrey Khosi were the country’s top two 800m runners, the first local men to have dipped under the 1min 50sec barrier.

The four black boxers selected included Anthony “Qash” Sithole, who went on to become an excellent professional. Bantamweight weightlifter Precious Mackenzie was without peer in SA. 

But final selection might have been tricky because mixed-race sports contests were outlawed. There was even talk of them staging a trials in a neighbouring country, but SA was booted out before then. 

Sport and politics are inextricably linked. Everything, if you think about it, is political.

There were scores of white victims too, but one stand-out was Danie Malan, who broke the world 1,000m record in Munich in the 1970s after being paced by countryman Joseph Leserwane. They were a story of ebony and ivory in harmony nearly 20 years before it became acceptable. 

Shortly before returning home after they had travelled Europe together, Malan, a student at the University of Stellenbosch, complained that he and Leserwane would struggle to maintain their friendship at home because of apartheid laws. 

Swimmer Annette Cowley, having taken up British citizenship, was frog-marched out of the 1986 Commonwealth Games athletes village after a court ruled she wasn’t allowed to compete. Athlete Zola Budd was subjected to career-limiting pressure while competing for Britain. 

If there were ostracised sports people who deserved sympathy, it was some of the South Africans. 

PM BJ Vorster mixed sport and politics when he kick-started the outrage over the selection of Basil D’Oliveira for the 1968 English cricket tour. 

South Africa-born D’Oliveira, classified here as coloured, hadn’t been named for the squad initially, but was called up after another player withdrew injured. Vorster was furious and threatened to call off the tour if he wasn’t withdrawn from the team. 

He expected the English to buckle, but they stood their ground and refused to tour. 

The apartheid government softened their stance a couple of years later when they introduced what they called a multinational sports policy, which basically allowed touring teams to select players of colour, but the horse had bolted by then. 

When the Springbok rugby team was subjected to demonstrations in New Zealand in 1981 many pro-Nat fans complained that politics and sport shouldn’t mix. Yet their beloved government had started it. 

The IOC used the sports ban on South Africa to try force an end to apartheid. Nelson Mandela, the country’s first democratically elected president, spoke about the power of sport to unite the world. 

Sport and politics are inextricably linked. Everything, if you think about it, is political. The act of matric pupils studying for their final exams at night, hoping to have electricity, is political. Even going to the toilet is political, especially when you have no running water. 

I cannot understand how Bach sees this separation, nor how he offers sympathy to Russian athletes who, by the way, were not allowed to compete under their flag at the Tokyo Games because of rampant doping problems. 

Yet here we are. 

Even the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) is talking to their Russian counterparts. President Barry Hendricks was photographed with his opposite number at the same ANOC meeting. 

Hendricks denied that any agreement had been signed, but really, fraternising with the NOC of a country widely accused of war crimes and human rights abuses is not a great look. Hiding behind Brics is not a moral justification either. 

Even if Vladimir Putin hadn’t invaded Ukraine, getting assistance from dopers is surely not where we want to be. 

But I guess one shouldn’t forget that elected sports leaders are basically politicians too, and right there, I guess, is your proof that sport and politics do indeed mix.