With the Russian Swimming Championships beginning today in Kazan, the All-Russian Swimming Federation confirmed that Evgeny Rylov would be allowed to compete despite the 9-month ban FINA levied on him days ago. A FINA spokesperson has informed SwimSwam that FINA is aware Rylov is competing in the meet, and the body is reviewing to determine whether Rylov is in violation of the ban. Here is the full statement from FINA on the matter:
FINA is aware that Mr. Rylov competed in the Russian Championships this weekend and has launched an internal review to ascertain whether FINA sanctions or rules have been broken. The outcome of this review will be announced in due course.
Frankly, this statement doesn’t tell us much of anything, but that’s also not entirely FINA’s fault. Per their initial statement on Rylov’s ban, the 25-year-old is barred from any “FINA sanctioned competitions or events” for nine months. There’s already a question as to what qualifies as a FINA sanctioned event, but that lack of clarity is magnified in this particular case. Russian Nationals would typically be a FINA sanctioned meet, however, since FINA has banned all Russian athletes from the FINA events through the end of the year, it’s unclear whether this meet is still being considered officially “FINA sanctioned”.
Although there’s certainly a level of complexity to this issue, we can’t let FINA off the hook for the lack of clarity. It’s ultimately up to the international governing body to set the parameters of the ban they’ve placed on Rylov, and to clearly lay out the specifics of those parameters, which is something they haven’t done yet.
If you missed it, Rylov was banned by FINA following his appearance at a large pro-war rally in Moscow in mid-March. The Olympic Gold medalist was honored on stage along with other Russian medalists before Russian president Vladimir Puting took the stage to speak on the “special operation” in Ukraine.
Rylov competed in prelims and semifinals of the 100 back today, advancing to tomorrow’s final.
Fina in 2019 after conflicts with the ISL: “Fina recognizes the right of athletes to participate in any swimming event…Fina’s business is not to punish athletes…but the results of the competition will not be recognized by FINA
FINA 2022: “Russia Can’t Host any FINA Certified Meet”
Russia: “We don’t care we will hold a non FINA meet”
Rylov: “Hey Russia, Can I swim in your non FINA meet because I can only swim in non-Fina Meets for 9 months”
FINA: ” WAIT, We need to review this Non-Fina meet to make sure nobody is breaking any Fina rules, we may need to punish someone, What we meant to say is you can’t swim anywhere for any reason without our permission”
Fina is a joke
They don’t even remember the rules they made themselves smh. FINA is governed by a bunch of clowns lol
I was hoping the days if “worlds best time” were a relic of the 80s. Apparently not.
How is everything FINA does always turned up to Maximum Stupid?
So I guess it’s SwimSwam’s stance not to report the results of the Russian Nationals? Can’t say I blame SS. Maybe the results are not being shared outside of Russia? In any event, it would still be interesting to see what, if any effect, all the negative pressure on Russia (deservedly so) has on their athletes. Otherwise, it’s like a return to the Iron Curtain.
That is not our policy. We have been reporting on them.
https://swimswam.com/anton-chupkov-clocks-59-43-100-breast-in-semis-on-day-1-of-russian-champs/
This shouldn’t be a complicated thing; FINA, as usual, is making it harder than it has to be.
Did the Russian federation get a FINA sanction for the meet or not? If they did, and FINA is yet again playing both sides, then Rylov is in violation of the ban.
If the meet is not FINA sanctioned, then FINA can’t do anything.
This story with Rylov is getting too much attention. Like he is the worst what Mother Russia could ever produce. There are millions of rylovs there. The behaviour of this “Olympian” and his moral principles got already a proper evaluation by international community and forget about him. It’s enough.
It looks like after long hesitation being under pressure FINA banned Russia. In response Russia undertook some financial counter steps. Then FINA decided to play this Rylov card in response. I don’t see any other explanations of the behaviour of this international bureaucratic institution whose primary concern is money and all other accompanying this business ethical considerations are well secondary.
I don’t know bro. I think Stalin is a lot worse
Stalin was from Georgia.
Cheers for the info
Aka FINA figuring out how much money the Russian federation needs to pay to make it all go away…
Russian Nationals would typically be a FINA event =>
FINA has banned all Russian athletes => so who isn’t in violation of the ban?