• Russian athletes participate in the events under a neutral banner that fools no one in Tokyo.

  • Several American swimmers took public offense.

  • Criticisms that were not relayed by foreign delegations, including France.

From our special correspondent in Tokyo,

Since Great Britain at the London Games, we had not seen a country emerge so quickly in the medal ranking. The ROC, 50 charms, 12 of which are in gold, firmly in the wheel of Great Britain. The first time, we searched briefly. Ugandan Republic of the Central African Republic? Yeah. South Korean workers' regime? Okay. Rally of Catalan Uzbekistanis? Sounds good, but still not. Damn it, of course: Russian Olympic Committee. A nice scam to invite Russia into the evening, but by bringing her in through the back door.

Reminder of the facts: gaunted by the patrol after the Sochi Olympics, where FSB barbouzes were in charge of exchanging samples of athletes they knew doped, the Russians were deprived of dessert for four years.

Finally the four years turned into two, with the possibility for those who were not convinced of doping to compete under a neutral banner, because hey, it was necessary to take into account " 

the

need to promote a change of culture and 'encourage the next generation of Russian athletes to participate in clean international sport,' according to CAS.

Tracksuit identifiable at first glance

Reality now. No one is fooled. But then no one. Special mention to the colors of the tracksuit, a slightly vintage white blue red that must have been copied from an official outfit from the 1990s, those Boris Yeltsin wore when he was taken out of the Kremlin for a Davis Cup match. A presence assumed and even claimed - we know who we have in front of 50 meters - which makes a little ridiculous the cosmetic measures taken by the IOC.

The latter refused to allow the song Katiusha to replace the Russian anthem, Moscow finally opting for

Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1

, no less linked to the country's culture. There is also this story of swimsuits sent to the dumpster because of the presence of a bear in the coat of arms, which did not fail to trigger an oil from the Russian Federation on the theme "we find bears. everywhere, even in the United States ”. In short, we laugh at this coarse makeup, the athletes a little less.

The first to pull the pin the other day is Ryan Murphy, American swimmer with two Olympic titles in the 100 and 200 backstroke in Rio. A little reverent to have been beaten by the representative of the ROC Evgeny Rylov on the two distances in Japan, the boy let himself go in the mixed zone: "I have about 15 thoughts, 13 of which would cause me a lot of trouble. […] It's a huge mental burden for me to swim all year round in a race that is probably not clean, but that's how it is. Episode 2 with Lilly King, another American swimmer, on Sunday: "There are a lot of people who shouldn't be here. Unlike Ryan, I haven't raced against anyone from a country that should have been excluded and instead got a little bit of a rule on their fingers and just been forced to change their flag. »BIM.

Reviews of American swimmers

It was obviously up to Rylov, who swore hand on heart that all this did not concern him: “From the bottom of my heart, I plead for a clean sport.

I am still tested and fill out all the necessary forms.

I dedicate my whole life to this sport, so I don't know how to react.

Ryan hasn't accused me personally, so I'd rather not react to his comments.

"

While representatives of the Russian Olympic Committee have chosen to play it low profile in swimming, a sport largely dominated by the United States, they do not meet the same mistrust in other disciplines. So in fencing, we came across our colleague from

Sport-Express

Dimitry Kuznetsov, who was desperately looking for a French official to react to a statement by Cécilia Berder who made Moscow talk. The saber would have accused the Russians, fallers of the Blue in the final, of being "riggers". A misunderstanding that we immediately dispel since we were there to collect the said reaction. Berder spoke of the ability of his opponents to break the pace of the assault at the right time. Nothing to do with doping.

Dimitry, in quite decent French, still alpague Pierre Guichot.

“Is the presence of the Russian delegation a problem for you?

"Response from the director of the French teams:" I am happy that all the fencers are there, because nothing proves what they are accused of.

I have known some of them for a long time.

I take the case of Sofia Velikaya, whom I have known since 2005, when she made the final against one of my shooters.

As long as they are there it is good, and if they had not been there, the Games would have been truncated.

Anyone can have their opinion on this, but for me it was good that everyone was there.

"

In fencing, "the Games would have been truncated if they had not been there"

However, the Blues of fencing could have it bad, while the team of the Russian Olympic committee beat them twice out of three in the team final. But Bruno Gares, the president of the French Fencing Federation, prefers to take a souvenir photo with Stanislas Pozdyakov, the president of the Russian Olympic committee, rather than vilify. Pozdyakov, former Olympic saber champion, officially reacted to the various banter about his athletes: “Critics claim that our athletes cannot perform without doping, but those in Tokyo demonstrate the opposite, not only with words but with their results. "

A comment that made Travis Tygart, the head of the American anti-doping agency, laugh yellow: “Russia and its sports leaders have darkened the sky above them, and they have pushed their athletes into the storm.

Today, those same leaders want to continue lying, denying and attacking those who have the courage to stand up to their deception and blatant disregard for the rules and the truth.

In Tokyo, almost everyone pretends to have forgotten.

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