Russian sports ban unlikely to stop Putin’s war

One expert even predicts that Russia will try to launch its own Olympic-style competition if the IOC ban remains in effect heading into the 2024 Paris Games.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a Security Council meeting via videoconference at the Novo-Ogaryovo residence outside Moscow

In the midst of Russia’s brazen invasion of Ukraine, sports has again become intertwined with the grim realities of the world.

This is nothing new, of course. Germany was banned from the Olympics after both world wars. South Africa was long a sporting pariah over its apartheid system. The United States boycotted the 1980 Moscow Games as retribution for the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.