Opening of the Paralympics: A few whistles accompany Russia’s return

DThe Verona Arena cannot be blamed; it has once again given its all with its 2,000-year-old stones. As spectacular as ever, it lay there in the center of the city, bathed in colorful light and shrouded in artificial fog for the occasion. The backdrop would have been set for an atmospheric opening of the 14th Paralympic Winter Games. Inclusion and equality, moral authority, the Paralympic movement stands for so many things that commonly trigger emotions in people. Alone: ​​The spark didn’t quite jump over. The situation is not like that.

“Vibes”, moods, this was the term that started with the first clip. “Vibes” actually became the involuntary leitmotif on Friday evening. And it wasn’t that easy to sort out what exactly was the cause of what kind of disturbance, what was due to decisions made by the organizers, what was due to an insensitive International Paralympic Committee (IPC) – and what was generally due to the unpleasant world situation.

The evening did not fail because of the selected artists, the choreographies, and the integrative symbolism. But organizing an opening ceremony almost without the main actors of the sports festival that was to be opened – this idea had to come up first.

Only two participants and two supervisors per participating country were allowed, unfortunately there is a lack of space in the ancient arena. And only because national para committees protested did the organizers devise short, pre-recorded videos from the venues Cortina, Milan and Tesero. The German, well: flag bearers, skier Anna-Lena Forster and ice hockey player Jörg Wedde, found this “takes getting used to”. Wedde felt “like going into a photo booth at the main train station to take a passport photo. The difference is that here you should show emotions.” There is simply no substitute for the feeling of walking into a stadium with hundreds of fellow athletes.

In the end, the German Disabled Sports Association (DBS) didn’t even send the approved mini-delegation to Verona. This was again done out of respect for the Ukraine team, which is complaining about a sports-political monstrosity: for the first time at a global sporting event, Russia and Belarus are taking part again, without restrictions, with an anthem and a flag, despite the continued war of aggression. This was what a majority of countries decided at the IPC General Assembly.

The Germans have a particularly difficult time explaining their position

That was the final straw for the opening. Seven countries – the Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Ukraine – boycotted the celebration for political reasons. Others – Canada, Switzerland, France, Norway – boycotted a little. And the Germans had a particularly difficult time trying to explain that they were not boycotting under any circumstances, but at the same time they were sending “a sign of solidarity”, but without again wanting to take away the athletes’ “flow”.

The “athletes parade” looked like this: Volunteers carried the flags. For half of the 55 participating nations, this was followed by: nobody. Austria (Italian: Austria) was the first country without athletes, soon followed by Belarus, with athletes, without any movement from the audience. Then the Czech Republic – also without a flag-waving video, so a real boycott! Then El Salvador, also without athletes. Like many others, they just didn’t have the time given the long distances involved in these games. Estonia – without video. Germany – with video. Discreet applause for Israel. Cheers for Puerto Rico. And then at 8:35 p.m.: Russia. A few whistles, but you can turn the music loud. Finally: cheers for Ukraine. However, with the footnote that here too, volunteers carried the flag, even though the country had requested that it not be displayed on the same stage as the Russian flag. Application rejected. And in the end, that’s not really a signal of equal treatment either: Host Italy, with a good 30 men and women.

He prefers, said IPC President Andrew Parsons in his speech, “to know countries not by the names of their leaders, but by the names of their athletes.” Sport as guardian of a rules-based world. The sentence would have been a successful comment on the present, far beyond the war in Ukraine. But there were hardly any athletes there.