Olympics

The IOC announced its decision today on Russian athletes for the upcoming 2018 Pyeongchang Olympic Games. They have suspended the Russian Olympic Committee from any influence on the games, but will allow clean Russian athletes to compete under the Olympic flag itself.

It’s unclear exactly what that means for the Russian hockey players, as they would need to play on a neutral team instead of for their country. The KHL has warned that they will potentially pull out entirely if a decision like this was made. The decision to pull all KHL players out would affect every country attending, and likely mean that both Hockey Canada and USA Hockey would need to turn to younger players to fill out the roster.

The IOC based its decision on the Schmid Commission which looked into “the systemic manipulation of the anti-doping rules and system in Russia” and found there was widespread corruption when it came to doping for Russian athletes in Sochi 2014.

In 1992, the men’s hockey event was won by a “Unified Team” of the countries which made up the former Soviet Union. They played under the Olympic flag, and took home the gold medal over Canada. That team included familiar names like Sergei Zubov, Alex Zhamnov, Dmitry Yushkevich, Alex Kovalev and others. It seems unlikely that a similar Russian team would play under the Olympic flag this time around. If they did, they would be known as “OAR” or “Olympic Athletes from Russia.”

Bob McKenzie of TSN spoke with IIHF President Rene Fasel, who will wait “24 to 48 hours to see where things are at.” The IIHF will likely wait for the KHL to make a decision before commenting on how this ruling will affect the Olympic hockey tournament, both for men and women.

The KHL may consider blocking its players from participating in the upcoming Olympics if the Russian Federation is banned from participating as a result of the doping scandal from the 2014 Games, Sport-Express’ Igor Eronko reports (Twitter link).  The league has scheduled a lengthy break during the season (from January 24th through February 25th) to coincide with the event so even if they do stop their players from going, all of them will still be off for a month.

While that would clearly take Russia out of the equation, it would also wreak havoc on several other countries that are likely to draw from KHL teams as well.  For the Karjala Cup (which teams are using as a pre-Olympics camp) that gets underway next week, Canada has 16 KHL players on their roster while Finland has 13, Sweden has 11, and the Czech Republic has nine.  The United States, Switzerland, and Slovenia all have players in that league as well.

Although the possibility exists for athletes from countries that are barred from participating to play under a neutral flag, Russian players would not do so, Gennady Timchenko, chairman of the KHL Board of Directors and vice-president of Russia’s Olympic Committee, told R-Sport (link in Russian).  In an interview with Eronko (link in Russian), IIHF President Rene Fasel stated that if Russia was not allowed to participate, they would not be replaced by another country for the tournament.

A final decision has not been made by the International Olympic Committee regarding Russia’s eligibility just yet nor has the KHL officially decided that they would block all of its players from participating in response to a ban though league president Dmitry Chernyshenko told Eronko (Twitter link) that he is prepared to do so if it comes to it.  However, it appears that there is at least a chance that an already weaker Olympics in terms of availability of players could find itself drawing from even less of a talent pool.