The Russian is fighting for a podium spot in the Tour de France. In a nutshell, he expresses his understanding for sanctions against teams from his home country. His statements illustrate the helplessness of athletes in times of war.
Russian Alexander Vlasov did not want to talk about the war. And then did it anyway.
On June 16, Alexander Vlasow triumphed in the Tour de Suisse on the hard-fought stage to Novazzano and took over the yellow leader’s jersey. He seemed to be on the right track to winning the Tour of Switzerland. Before the coup, the 26-year-old spent the night with his team Bora on the Sursee campus. There, in the rural idyll between Mauensee and Oberkirch, he took the time to talk.
It was a pleasant summer evening. From a balcony, the jokes and laughter of another team’s professional cyclists echoed to the corner of the sofa where Vlasov sat in shorts after a massage and dinner.
Before the meeting, the spokesman for his team stressed that the Russian would not comment on the war in Ukraine. Before Vlasov got up after 20 minutes and said goodbye in a friendly manner, he had lost a few words about the political situation. There were only a few sentences, but they gave a deep insight.
Not only the communication team of Equipe Bora thinks that an athlete like Vlasov does not have to take a position on political issues. Observers who still cling to the thesis that sport is a non-political matter are of the same opinion.
But things are not that simple. Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, who has been committing human rights crimes in Ukraine for months, is using sport for propaganda purposes. Again and again he basks in the glow of medal winners. Top Russian athletes always run the risk of becoming the subject of a glorifying staging.
In order to prevent the propaganda, at least during the war, sports officials imposed various sanctions. The organizers of the Wimbledon tennis tournament went the furthest, banning Russians from participating. The current competition is therefore missing the world number one Daniil Medvedev. The World Cycling Federation chose a middle ground and only excluded teams from Russia and Belarus. Among other things, this affected the Gazprom team, where Vlasov was employed in 2018 and 2019.
The career was launched in Europe
The 26-year-old can’t help his president’s aggression. In addition, he didn’t launch his career in a Moscow cadre school, but in Europe. In 2016 he dared to leave his hometown of Vyborg on the border with Finland to try his luck in Italy. There he was initially accepted by an amateur club. His talent helped him quickly. In Vigevano, a small town near Milan, Vlasov was coached briefly by Olivano Locatelli, who also made his prominent compatriots Fabio Aru and Filippo Ganna stronger.
Today, Vlasov lives in Monaco, as do many other cyclists. And it exemplifies the kind of international personalities that cycling produces. In 2020 and 2021 he was under contract with the Kazakh team Astana, where he said he spoke mainly Italian and learned a lot from the Dane Jakob Fuglsang.
At the beginning of the year, he switched to the German collective Bora, where within a few months Vlasow was able to raise his English to a level that now enables him to follow all conversations without any problems. He likes the atmosphere in the team with its many young drivers and helpers. At dinner, people talk about different topics than at Astana, it’s more relaxed, says Vlasov.
In the next season break he also wants to improve his French skills. Vlasov has moved away from his homeland not only geographically. When asked where he feels at home, the professional cyclist replies that this is currently the case in Monaco. But actually the place of residence is secondary: “I feel comfortable everywhere when I can be with my wife and my dog.”
Then Putin would suddenly be a bike fan
It is Putin’s fault that, despite everything, it would hardly be possible not to address Vlasov’s origins. Imagine the professional cyclist ending up on the podium at the Tour de France, which can happen. Perhaps the Russian president suddenly mutated into a bike fanatic.
Wlasow is one of the best classification drivers in the world. For two weeks at the 2021 Giro d’Italia he appeared to be the closest rival to eventual winner Egan Bernal before fading slightly in the closing days to finish fourth. In the current season he won the Tour of Valencia and the Tour de Romandie. He had to leave the Tour de Suisse early because of a positive Covid test, although he did not complain of any symptoms.
The Tour de France also started well for him. On Wednesday’s fifth section with eleven pavé sectors, he lost just 13 seconds to last year’s winner Tadej Pogacar. Other favorites like Primoz Roglic fared much worse.
But the more he moves into the limelight, the greater the pressure to position himself politically. Vlasov tried this already in early March, remaining so reticent that the issue is not closed. He wrote on Instagram that he wanted peace, as did many other Russians. The war is a shock for him and he hopes that it will end as soon as possible.
At the Sursee campus, when asked if he could understand the exclusion of his former team Gazprom, he replied that he certainly did. He understands the harsh sanction. But at the same time he feels sorry for her. People are losing their jobs and Russian cycling is being thrown back years. Meanwhile, the war went on unchanged.
His few words illustrated the perplexity of athletes in times of war. They know about the symbolic power of their successes and yet they can hardly do anything about it if they are misused for staging. They have to accept sanctions powerlessly. Who knows whether they expressed themselves more clearly if they didn’t have to fear unpleasant consequences for relatives at home.
Vlasov is not a perpetrator. In a way, the professional cyclist himself is a victim of his country’s politics.