Stsiapan Papou: Belarusian Athletes Have No Place At The Olympics

A famous Sambo athlete spoke about the "Lukashenkas" in Belarusian sports.

At the Olympics in Paris, 17 Belarusian athletes perform in a neutral status.

There is 1 gold in the Belarusian asset, which was won by the trampoline Ivan Litvinovich, and 2 silver – thanks to the trampoline Vialetta Bardzilouskaia and the rower Yavhen Zalatoi.

However, for many Belarusians today, the position of the athletes is much more important than their results. Therefore, fans are quite cold to the victories of Belarusian athletes at the Olympics.

World, European and European Games champion, holder of the world FairPlay diploma, Stsiapan Papou supported the 2020 protests, and in 2022 openly opposed the war in Ukraine. The Charter97.org website spoke with a free athlete about the performance of Belarusians at the Olympics:

— I believe that Belarusians cannot be there at all while the war is going on. During the Olympics, Ukrainians are dying, rockets are flying. Moreover, neutral athletes (both Russians and Belarusians) became one and the same.

I personally have nothing against athletes competing under a neutral flag who did not sign for Lukashenka. But I believe that we have no right to cheer for them, to support them openly, as long as there is a war. Now is not the time for sports.

It would be good if the athletes of the belligerent countries refused to participate in the Olympics as long as there are hostilities. As Muhammad Ali did in his time. But there are no such heroes. And there are no institutions that would support the position of such athletes.

We took a big step in 2020. The Belarusians supported us, the International Olympic Committee started to support us somehow, but then it was over. Those who spoke out against the dictatorship and the war were still equated with Russians. Today, there is no such institution that would allow athletes to show their position. All the principles of Olympism do not work in this regard.

— There was a revealing moment when a German journalist caught the trampoline player Ivan Litvinovich and asked him what he thought about Lukashenka. He reacted, saying, "This is a provocation", and "Sport is out of politics". What do you think about this?

— They're all intimidated. I know many trampolinists and know how things are going there. And our masseur worked there. He is so impressed by their head coach Volha Vlasava. She's just a dictator.

It happened that one of the athletes failed, so she locked the entire team in rooms for five days without phones. She didn't let anyone leave the territory. You can negotiate with Vlasava only if you "lie down" under her.

Moreover, the trampoline is a sport where Litvinovich won a license, and any other athlete can go. They know this, they have 2-3 strong athletes, and all of them are forced to obey Vlasava.

Litvinovich is not a person, but simply a tool in the hands of this dictatorship. I will say that this is good for the result. Such a post-Soviet system yields results. But people in it are oppressed, their identity is destroyed.

Here Vlasava destroys them morally, they cannot disobey her in anything (food, freedom, their phones). Eat, sleep, train — and no objections in response. There are results — gold, silver. She raises such "incubator" children.

Lukashenka's dictatorship covers people like Vlasava. The medal showed — and her hands are untied, she can do whatever she wants with them.

We had it in judo as well when I was training. Everywhere they put people who will deal with such pressure.

— Is it possible to indicate your position in such a situation?

— Today, you may not even be against Lukashenka, but if you do not agree which coach was appointed to you, you are still now equated to "political". Even if they gave you a bad bed, and you say something against it, they will ask: "Are you against our power? Why are you complaining about the bed?”

People like Litvinovich will jump into any scenario. Tomorrow there will be a White-Red-White flag, there will be no power, he will also jump, say certain things. These are people who do not decide anything. Unfortunately, we have athletes, Russian and Belarusian, who remained, they no longer influence anything under the dictatorship.

Sport has become an instrument of politics. Putin has been using it for a long time All the United Russia members are representatives of martial arts. Emelianenko, Karelin, there are still a lot of judokas and boxers there. They believe in this rhetoric of propaganda and everyone thinks that everything is fine in their country.

In Belarus, it was different. Even at the meeting, people said, “My father is a Lukashist.” And I answered them: "Look, Herasimenia, Papou, they are against it, you see what they say." And they respond: "Yes, it's one thing when politicians talk, but here are athletes." And it worked well for us, people understood a lot. Especially when we saw that we suffered for our position: Sasha Herasimenia lost her property, our parents were imprisoned.

In Russia, a maximum of three athletes spoke out against it, that's all. This is how sports have an impact, but there is no way to turn on this tool so that athletes can influence the situation, and we turned it on in 2020. If more people supported us then, if they were not afraid of this violence, if these regime people did not sit so hard in the system, then we could turn the tide well with just sport.

If there was another leader who supported us politically, the Belarusians would understand what to do and where to go, and not just clap their hands and wait until they came to destroy us.

— Many people today ask themselves the following question: What should we do to bring free Belarus closer? Do you have a recipe?

— We have figured out what is happening in Belarus, with Lukashenka, with his system, with violence, with Russia. We figured out how our history affects this and where we need to go. Russia is definitely out of our way, it is an enemy for us, we understand whom to support.

Now we need to figure out what is being created instead of Lukashism because we were all against it in 2020, and now Belarusians need to figure out what we are for, what we expect, where we are going, what alternative we will make.

People consider it infantilely, as with Lukashism, opening their eyes, waiting for a beautiful fairy tale that some "president" will decide everything.

No, until we figure it out ourselves and influence it, we won't decide anything. And to do this, we need to talk to people so that they can enlighten themselves, see what democracy looks like, try to influence what is being created here. So that when we have the opportunity to influence the processes in Belarus, as it was in 2020, there were many of us. Today we need to draw conclusions from past events.

Even if we have democracy tomorrow, we will face another test. We must be prepared not to choose the "second Lukashenka".

To do this, we need to prepare so that people understand how this system was created, so that in the first elections we do not vote for populists, liars and the Lukashists who say that they are "democrats". We must be a strong civil society today.

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