The idea I think is exactly that. That while white South Africans could just vote the apartheid government out if they wanted, Russians cannot and their only option is armed insurgency (which is near-impossible while the regime is strong), meaning they are less to blame.

Of course not. If people read the article, journalists wouldn't write misleading headlines all the time for clicks.

I think the word you’re looking for is ‘allowed’

The Russian (and Belarussian) government would certainly prefer that their players were banned so that they could point fingers and say that the West are discriminating athletes purely because they were born in Russia.

All top players (Medvedev, Rublev, Sabalenka, Azarenka, Kasatkina, Kudermetova, Khachanov, Karatsev etc) have spoken negatively about the war. Do you think the Russian government supported newspapers are happy to report on that?

Here is a long interview with Rublev and Kasatkina, the two highest ranked Russian tennis players who both are amongst the best in the world. They live in Barcelona and travel the world playing on the ATP and WTA tour respectively. Kasatkina came out as gay when this interviewed aired, something that is heavily frowned upon in her native Russia. Rublev has been vocally against the war since day 1. He proposed that Russian and Ukrainan players could play together in doubles at Wimbledon as a statement towards Putin, but was declined by the tournament.

There is, in my opinion, an important difference between playing on the ATP/WTA tour where you only represent yourself, compared to playing the Davis Cup/Billie Jean Cup/Olympics where you represent your country. When you are an individual player you employ your own coaches, physios, psychologists, etc and travel around the world with them as your entourage. You're more like a small independent business. When you represent your country in international competitions you have to get support from the federation as they select you. That's why Russia and Belarus are banned from ITF, ATP and WTA competitions, but simply being Russian or Belarussian is not enough to suspend individuals.

There’s no selection if they are banned no?

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ahh... "whataboutism", when the word "hypocrisy" is too grating for everyone's fine sensibilities

On the one hand, absolutely, there's really no point in doing this if it's just this.

On the other, athletes don't deserve punishment or exclusion from an event like the Olympics, many of which this will be their only shot at ever competing in, just because their leader is a dick.

It would be nice to make some sort of demand that tv broadcasting affiliates never show the combined medal tally for the unaffiliated athletes though. Even though it means absolutely nothing in reality, these sorts of things do matter for propaganda purposes and "unaffiliated Russian athletes" or "Russia" not showing up at all on these leaderboards will sting a bit for Russian politicians, even if they pretend it doesn't.

If you bothered to read it's cheerleading of an invasion & needless death. They're detracting from the quality of life that many migrants and victims of war experience. Australia is a melting pot of these very people, to support war crimes says more about the calibre of the person than most traits.

Absolutely fuck those people off, I couldn't think of any place in the world that would invite these people into their communities.

Being an edgelord on this topic & arguing for it shows the level of stupidity you clearly don't see in yourself. One day you might wake up, maybe not but it's entirely up to you.

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Whataboutism here. Also, there are many domestic and international conflicts occurring as we speak. You don't need to go back to the Iraq war to apply a poorly constructed argument.

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From a First Nations perspective, it probably is. Genocide didn't end in 1901. There were at least 240 documented frontier massacres over a 140 year period, starting in 1794, as part of a state-sanctioned and organised attempt to eradicate Aboriginal people. Government forces were actively engaged in frontier massacres until at least the late 1920s. And then we have of course forced removals of Aboriginal children, which is considered a part of cultural genocide, which continued up until the 1970's. Linguist Arthur Capell wrote in 1964: "Government policy looks forward to the loss of Aboriginal languages so that the Aborigines may be 'assimilated'. So yeah, sadly from a First Nations perspective, the Australian flag would represent a state that was engaged in organised genocide.

I’m sorry but after repeated doping scandals they should be banned.

Apparently no one here read the article. The reason they were questioned by police is because they were threatening the security guards.

....there were rallys, marches, and protests all over the country against the Iraq war. And in large numbers. How old were you in 2003?

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Why would white South Africans want to upset the system that gave them so much money and power?

Supporting war crimes is one hell of an opinion.

Did you really type that? The flag adopted in 1901 is a pro genocide symbol of the aboriginal genocide that started in 1788.

What....an Australian flag?

That's why banning athletes from Russia and Belarus actually makes sense. It's never about them personally, everybody is aware that it's not their fault and they (probably) don't support the war. However, sport was always used for propaganda and for pushing nationalism.