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Aliaksandr Apeikin: Game Is Over For Lukashenka

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Aliaksandr Apeikin: Game Is Over For Lukashenka

Even China does not want to contact the dictator not to get dirty.

The Winter Olympics have started in Beijing. Belarus will be represented by 29 athletes in 6 sports. According to journalists and bookmakers, the Belarusian national team can win only four bronze medals.

Executive Director of the Sports Solidarity Fund Aliaksandr Apeikin analyzed the problems existing in Belarusian sports and shared his forecasts with the Charter97.org website:

- I have a similar forecast. It seems to me, it won't be more than three medals. I think there will be a medal in freestyle and one or two in biathlon. In principle, the bookmakers estimate correctly, but it seems to me that the odds will still be lower.

- We had two gold medals in 2018. Is our sport degraded so much?

- It is degrading at a catastrophic rate. There are many reasons for this, of course. Starting from the fact that the whole system is not developing, it is not transforming. Sport is inseparable on its own. It is very interconnected with social and economic policy and so on.

The sense in the fact that the problems in sport are not something separate, they are a part of the society. Moreover, even bookmakers give, for example, four medals, but they do not take into account the morale of the athletes who go to the Olympics. They make the considerations only based on a pure sports approach. However, an athlete is not just a machine. This is a person who has a mindset, who has some personal circumstances, and so on.

Therefore, such an unsuccessful performance of athletes, at the Olympics in Tokyo for example, is the first indicator that athletes are in a difficult moral environment, like all Belarusians. Athletes who are going to the Olympics now are not coming from Australia, but from Belarus, knowing full well the current realities in our country.

Belarus faces international isolation, society is suppressed, and the number of political prisoners is huge. Such an attitude will touch every Belarusian, and there is no way to keep it inside. And every athlete is well aware that something is wrong in his country. That is why the National Olympic Committee (NOC) delegation won't come to the Olympics, it is not recognized, it is under sanctions.

And all these factors leave a very strong imprint. That's why sports are going down, not only winter sports but in general. Let's look at team sports such as football, handball, for example. There was a great recent example at the European Handball Championship. It is absolutely clear that the system built in Belarus is not competitive in the sports arena.

- And what can you say about Belarusian hockey, which has been “whizzing” past the games for 12 years?

- It’s all the same. The incorrect system of management of the state was originally built above. And this wrong system of state administration spreads further: it slides down into the wrong system of the federation, the wrong personnel. To keep it simple and to express the whole problem of Belarusian sports in one sentence, we can say that sports are simply run by incapable people. That's it.

It's like putting an incapable specialist at a computer or industrial machine, and so on. He will just make defects and it happens in sports as well. Sports are managed by incapable specialists, incapable managers who do not know how to operate the processes, just non involved people. Therefore, there are no results.

Modern sport is a huge industry with huge money, where real professionals work. In the large sport, the people obtain large amounts of money, because they answer for the result. Accordingly, they are appointed to the positions of a coach, a manager according to their professional qualities. This, in general, is a major principle and approach in the market economy or the market sport.

In Belorussian sport, the personnel are assigned according to the principle of loyalty. Lukashenka likes this approach, so he will be the chairman. If he likes someone, then a new coach will appear. This will give no result generally. Handball and hockey later are the cases in point, this gives no result. There will be no result until there will be no professionals until there will be no private investors who are interested in results and marketing, who understand the coordination between result and sale. Accordingly, it's just a waste of money. They allocate a budget and that's it. And the satrap's task is to implement this budget. Not to earn, but simply to implement, spend, and no matter what the result will be. In all areas of sports, absolutely the same thing happens, so there can be no result. This is natural.

- Five Russians represent Belarus at the Olympics, and they are not even favorites in their sports. What for?

- They are plugging holes. You must understand that a corruption scheme can also operate below when they agree on something when an athlete can really have some kind of corrupt relationship with a coach who includes him in the national team and so on. So, there is no logic at all. If there are Belarusians of a similar level and they are not included in the national team, then you need to understand that there is a corruption component. At the same time, it is propping up everywhere that Belarus has a developed system, and so on. There is nothing! It's a bluff.

The whole policy of Lukashenka, including sports, is one big bluff. A large "Potemkin Village", one big decoration. It's a façade with nothing behind it. And Lukashenka simply sells this decoration, where there is nothing inside. There is just some kind of a signboard saying “Belarusian sport” or “Belarus is a sports nation”, “The State takes care of sports development in Belarus”. But this is still a signboard, and there is no result in sports: neither in hockey nor in football or in handball, nowhere. It won't.

- What are sports satraps afraid of when they forbid athletes at the Olympics to communicate with foreign media?

- This is a statement that an athlete in Belarus or any member of the national team to the Olympics is going there as a slave. Here we gave you a bowl of soup and something else, which means you have no rights, no opinion, nothing, we have limited you in everything. I'm afraid that they are not even interested in the result, those who are now responsible for our team. They are more concerned to skip scandals, I mean to go there quietly, to compete somehow and go back quietly, only to skip excesses, interviews, anything.

By depriving an athlete of communication with the media, you deprive him of one of the main advantages in modern sports - media coverage. It is extremely important for an athlete. This is one of the keys to the success, promotion, and some kind of monetization of a sports career. You deprive him of this right. You deprive the right to speak with publications that have a huge audience, with international publishers. Athletes are limited only to such publications as BelToy, Pressball, some kind of Sputnik, and so on. Corrupt and pro-regime media. Even Belorussian people do not take it seriously, not to mention international sources and international audiences.

Therefore, this is all a kind of castration. This is the fear of information leakage. Because, journalists will ask questions about what is happening in Belarus, about political prisoners, about Lukashenka, and so on. They [officials] are horrified by this.

- It turns out that a KGB officer will be assigned to each athlete in order to prevent any leakage.

- According to rumours, there are some Chekists with a team, roughly speaking, to watch the athletes and control their actions. It is natural that it is impossible to assign a person to each athlete, but such things increase the athlete's level of fear. Because every athlete understands that, their families, relatives actually remain hostage to the regime, and so on. They think about it and understand everything perfectly, they are smart people.

Athletes are hostages there. They play the role of athletes, but there are not so many medal contenders.

- Previously you mentioned sanctions against the NOC. What sanctions are already imposed and what can be done in the future?

Yes, sanctions have been introduced. There was a demand to dissolve the Executive Committee of the National Olympic Committee. All senior officials do not take part in the activities of the International Olympic Committee. But now there is a policy of maximum distancing from the Belarusian NOC. We even see that no one came to the 30th anniversary of the NOC. This is a very important indicator. In my opinion, even the Russians did not come there.

- How much does it hurt the dictator's pride that he could not find a place at the banquet for guests attending the Olympics Opening Ceremony?

- It hurts a lot. It hits hard. These steps and signals are very important. It is clear that it is the end and the game is over. From the protest's point of view, we have to wait for the end in fact. All signals are given. The international community, even at the level of China, do not want to get dirty with it. Toxicity is on the rise.

This is a good signal and an indicator that Lukashenka, both the elder and the younger, are illegitimate. One is illegitimate as the president, the second is illegitimate as the president of the NOC. They don't have any recognition. Accordingly, these are just self-appointed people. The same attitude on the part of the international community, because politics still requires a certain level of legitimacy. Lukashenka does not have this level of legitimacy. And it makes much sense for everyone.

- Belarusians do not want to support "yabatka-athletes". Who deserves support at this Olympics?

- In general, you may support everyone. In general, there are very, very few real "yabatkas". All the rest are just temporizers. These are people who express apparent loyalty simply in order to maintain some minimum level of their income, existence, and so on. They just adapt to the situation. We shall be aware of this. Therefore, you can support everyone, supporting is a normal thing.

Naturally, you can support freestyle. It turned out to be a very insurgent sport. Freestylers are generally great. You can support biathlon, there is Ganna Sola. Her position is on the people's side.

It seems to me that most of the sports delegation members to the Olympics in Beijing are reasonable people. They perfectly understand everything that is happening, but not everyone is able to take some kind of bold step. But this is all a matter of time, we will also come to this. I am optimistic about people.

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