The IOC president sought to get close to Putin even after the Sochi Doping Games. He fraternised with Xi Jinping. He politicised the 2018 Games in South Korea, driven by the dream of the Nobel Peace Prize. All a miserable failure that dragged the Games deeper into a political quagmire. A commentary.
History was made on 21 February 2024. While the warmonger Vladimir Putin put on another sporting propaganda show in Kazan, the first drug dealer was convicted under the Rodchenkov Anti-Doping Act in the USA – exactly 10 years after the Sochi Doping Games.
On the day of the tenth anniversary of the Sochi Doping Games, the Court of Arbitration for Sport published the Arbitral Award in the Kamila Valieva doping case. THE INQUISITOR will be honouring the Russia entanglements of the IOC and the world sports federations in detail this month.
For several weeks now, an online petition has been calling for "Suspend Israel from International Sports". The appeal was launched by the left-wing collective movement DiEM25. In the petition paper, fundamental facts are being omitted or deliberately distorted.
In a crushing blow for Vladimir Putin's old-style propaganda system and its systematic doping of young athletes, figure skater Kamila Valieva has been handed a four-year suspension for her positive test in the run-up to the 2022 Winter Olympic in Beijing.
Just in time for the birthday of the Russian would-be oligarch Umar Kremlev, the final sale of the media platform Insidethegames was announced. The new owners, who operate through a strange corporate construct, are old acquaintances and associates of Kremlin-affiliated Kremlev.
One of the biggest crime stories in the Olympic world takes another surprising turn. The Executive Board of the IOC has suspended the highly influential Sheikh Ahmad Al-Sabah as an IOC member for three years. The consequences are hard to foresee. It has the potential to blow up the Olympic family.
Russian-owned betting company 1XBet has been declared bankrupt and owes millions. Yet it still operates, using porn stars to attract punters, and is a partner of FC Barcelona. It expanded into Ukraine, but was recently banned for its support of Putin’s war machine.
While World Athletics president Sebastian Coe sides with democratic nations, the IOC President Thomas Bach rejects their statements on Russia's war of aggression as uninformed and a violation of sport’s autonomy.
The IOC and the Olympic federations are obliged to punish Russia and its warmonger, Vladimir Putin. Jens Weinreich calls for a comprehensive independent criminal investigation of the longstanding deep connection of the Olympic institutions with the Kremlin within the framework of the EU.
FINA has stripped Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia and aggressor in the invasion of Ukraine, of the highest honour of the global regulator, the FINA Order, granted in 2014.
Kamila Valieva' doping case raised questions about a minimum age for Olympic athletes. The Games thrive on high-performing children – some of them so young that they are not even allowed to compete in the Youth Olympic Games. Children are vulnerable to authoritarian states chasing medals and glory.
For decades there has been speculation about information and possibly incriminating material on IOC members and other big names that might be stored in Moscow's secret service archives. If anyone had access to compromat, it was Vladimir Putin. The spying activities span half a century.
Thomas Bach has been re-elected as IOC President for a final term without any opponents or opposition. Using Bach’s doctoral thesis as a departure point, Jens Weinreich describes how constantly planning for the future has provided Bach with an unprecedented hold on power in the Olympic system.
Hacking implies criminality. Leaking implies opportunism. Whistleblowing implies heroism. A reflection on the subtle differences of publicising dirty dealings.
