I have mixed feelings on this. I’m very much living and dying every day with multiple Ukraine updates and so on. I’m very interested in sticking my thumb in Putin’s eye, and he CARES about this kind of junk. I don’t understand why, but dictators always REALLY care about this kind of stuff.
Buuuut, that having been said, I think the athletes should be allowed to compete. The
problem is that if you do this, then the precedent is set. Is ANY invasion subject to an olympic ban? Or just the unpopular ones? Basing it on popularity is kind of a shitty standard, but the US would have been kicked out of the Olypmics for every war it’s participated in since WW2.
The UK could have been kicked out for the Falklands. Oh, you might say that was their islands, but that’s not how Argentina saw it. So who get banned? Does UK get the benefit because it’s more powerful? More influential?
Who are the impartial adjudicators here? Certainly not the very-corrupt-though-slightly-less-corrupt-than-FIFA IOC, and yes, that is a real adjective. It’s in Websters.