Toccata and fugue in D minor — the Olympic version

How Thomas Bach rewrites the music of his famous namesake

Despite a number of highly contradictory statements regarding the admission (or non-admission) of Belarusian and Russian athletes to the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, some light was finally thrown upon the situation last week. Special rules accepted by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the participation of Individual Neutral Athletes (AIN) with Belarusian and Russian passports at the Games allow us to state that the disposition has been determined. However, some questions still persist.

What does the IOC offer?

The IOC Executive Board has confirmed that 12 AIN with Russian passports and seven AIN with Belarusian passports have qualified for the Games so far. According to the IOC experts, 55 Russian and 28 Belarusian athletes will most likely be able to qualify for Paris. For sure, this is a significantly smaller number than that for the Tokyo Olympics, where the Russian team consisted of 330 athletes, and the Belarusian team — of 104. 
Nevertheless, to qualify for the Games based on a sporting principle (or rather, non-sporting — this principle can safely be called like that) is absolutely not enough to secure a place in the protocols of Olympic competitions. The IOC Executive Board has established an Individual Neutral Athlete Eligibility Review Panel (AINERP) to assess the eligibility of every athlete with a Russian or Belarusian passport who has qualified or could qualify to participate in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. Of course, you are right assuming that an offer that contains the word ‘eligibility’ presupposes certain conditions. The panel includes Spanish former basketball player and two-time NBA champion Pau Gasol, Olympic table tennis champion from South Korea Seung Min Ryu, as well as former synchronised swimmer and IOC Vice President Nicole Hoevertsz who will chair the panel. The AINERP will monitor the process of obtaining Olympic licences by Russian and Belarusian athletes, and then admit (or not admit) for participation in the Games. The panel will evaluate statements made on social networks (as reported by sports.ru, an external company has even been contracted for this purpose), belonging to a Dinamo club or CSKA [the club associated with the army] (based on the wrestlers’ experience, the fact of performance in itself does not necessarily mean a red light), information from anonymous sources, and more. Actually, it was about the same with Russian athletes before the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics. Back then, it still remained unknown what principles the IOC was guided by when it eventually invited some athletes and did not invite others.

What about the SMO?

It has just become known that Tokyo 2020 Olympic champion in Greco-Roman wrestling Musa Evloev was not allowed to participate in the Olympic qualifying tournament because of a photo with a ‘No to Nazism’ poster. Interestingly, to the question if it is required for Belarusian and Russian athletes to sign any additional documents condemning Russia’s special military operation (SMO) in Ukraine, the IOC gave this answer, “We will not be asking Individual Neutral Athletes to sign anything in addition to what everyone else is signing. So as you will recall the IOC changed the condition of participation form for Paris 2024 for everyone to ask them to sign up to the IOC’s Olympic movement peace mission and that is applicable to every athlete that will be going to the Games and indeed every accredited person.” We will find it out later whether the committee was sincere making this statement.

On a turquoise background

President of the International Olympic CommitteeSince it is assumed that individual neutral athletes will represent themselves personally and not the national team, they will not be allowed to take part in the parade of delegations during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics. IOC Director James Macleod has promised, though, that ‘they will be given the opportunity to experience the event’. Apparently, this hint refers to providing athletes from Russia and Belarus with seats in the stands among the spectators. The same principle was used in the 1992 Barcelona Games for participants from the former Yugoslavia and Macedonia.
A separate, white flag with the IOC-provided AIN emblem has been created for neutral athletes, and even a neutral anthem has been composed. The flag is basically represented with a white circle caption against a turquoise background — somewhat resembles those flags that have already been used by the IOC to designate neutral athletes before. IOC Director James Macleod spoke separately about the music,
“If you recall, for the Russian Olympic Committee there was a discussion relating to the Tokyo Games, which involved a piece composed by Pyotr Tchaikovsky, which received a lot of pushback. So, in this case, we have decided to produce the music independently. It has no lyrics, but I hope that when you listen to it you will understand that this anthem at least will give the AIN athletes, who have won a medal, the dignity and the opportunity to listen to something uplifting. I am no music critic, but it seems to work.” 

Straightforward question

Along with the announcement of the position on the admission of the AIN athletes to the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, the IOC has just issued an extremely harsh statement regarding the World Friendship Games to be held in Russia in September. Having called the projected competitions ‘purely politically motivated’, the IOC went further and called on ‘all stakeholders of the Olympic movement’ and all governments to ‘reject any participation in, and support of any attempt to politicise international sport’. In other words, the IOC has called for athletes to boycott the upcoming Friendship Games due to take place in Moscow and Yekaterinburg on September 15th-29th. 
And now is the question. Doesn’t it seem strange to you that despite blasting the Friendship Games and traditionally critisising Russia for an opaque anti-doping programme, the IOC remains silent about the BRICS Sports Games, which are to be held in Kazan on June 11th-24th? Don’t you think that the International Olympic Committee does not have the guts to raise its voice against the right of Russia, China, Brazil, India, South Africa and other member states of the organisation, where half of the world’s population lives, to arrange sports competitions at its own discretion?

On musical terms

Toccata (from Italian ‘toccare’ — ‘to touch’) is originally any piece of music typically for a keyboard or plucked string instrument. 
Fugue (from Latin ‘fuga’ — ‘run’) is a composition technique and a form of polyphony, where the general melodic line of a polyphonic piece ‘runs’ from one voice to another. 
The Toccata and Fugue in D Minor is a world famous piece of organ music by Johann Sebastian Bach. 


By Kirill Knyazev