Longfrog
Active Member
I assume you're talking about the gymnast? It seems a little weird to punish every Russian athlete who competes internationally because of one jackass. Plus--and I rarely get to say this--tennis is a much higher profile sport. If someone capable of winning multiple matches at Wimbledon was likely to do something similar, it would probably be known by now. They all keep social media profiles and have been talking to the media every week since it happened. Rublev has already come out against the war. If a player actually does something that warrants punishment, you can always punish them after the fact.Last month wasn't there a Russian player who got on the podium right next to a Ukrainian player and proceeded to wear the letter Z in full support of the war. That was not good. So Russian athletes have given a bad example, so I do not blame them for not wanting to have something like that happen in tennis. Plus I also agree with the corporate sponsors. If a Russian won with their company logo in the spotlight as if supporting them, their global sales will drop.
Sucks for the sport, but it has already been shown that the politics cannot be separated out. Plus, without sponsors, there is not much of a major sport.
I agree the sponsors could make it difficult, which is why I speculated that it was the root of the issue. But this seems really short sighted. In pretty much every sport, organizers face some tension between pleasing fans, athletes, and sponsors. But this seems extremely unfair to the athletes, not good at all for the fans, and for what? To spare the sponsors from a 1 in a 1000 chance of getting embarrassed?