Qatar, Hamas and Russia issue
Dark shadows of war weigh on the World Swimming Championships
February 1, 2024, 8:18 p.m
The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East overshadow the World Swimming Championships in Qatar. Despite special regulations, Russian athletes are not taking part; Israel has major security concerns. The host has financed the radical Islamic Hamas in the past.
The Ukrainian European champion Mykhailo Romanchuk fled from Russian bombs, the Israeli synchronized swimmers heard the impact of Hamas rockets during training. The wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are also overshadowing the World Cup in Qatar: Romanchuk, who returned to his homeland from Germany, is spared the clash in the pool with Russian athletes, at least for the time being. Among the Israelis, however, there is fear.
“He rarely trains in a swimming pool for a long time,” reported national coach Bernd Berkhahn about his former protégé, who did his laps with him in Magdeburg after the outbreak of war until last summer: “There was a bomb attack on a pool and they had to go back change.”
Romanchuk, who criticized the admission of Russian and Belarusian athletes to the Olympic Games as a “great disgrace for the world of sport”, will not yet face any opponents from the aggressor’s country at the World Cup races in Doha. The world association World Aquatics granted the Russian swimmer Ivan Giryov the status of an “independent neutral athlete”, but the Olympic silver medalist in the 4×200 m freestyle relay decided not to take part.
“Don’t overestimate the abstinence of Russian athletes at the World Cup”
But things could look different at the Summer Games in Paris: the qualification window doesn’t close until June 23rd. The so-called “Integrity Unit” decides who could take part under a neutral flag. The period for approval is “still open,” the world association said upon request. Criteria include: no connection to the military, three independent doping tests.
Kai Morgenroth complains that it is not yet possible to see how strictly the checks are carried out. The vice president of the German Swimming Association (DSV) does not want to overestimate the abstinence of Russian athletes at the World Cup, as we know too little about how this situation came about. With a view to Paris, “it might have even been better to have precedents now that say something about the examination procedure,” he told the SID.
What Romanchuk is experiencing in Ukraine is what Israel’s swimmers fear in Qatar. “We are afraid to fly there,” wrote the synchronous team, which can only qualify for the Olympics in Doha, on Instagram, “we are afraid that Munich 1972 will happen again.” An attack like the one at the Olympic Games in Germany, when eleven athletes and support staff were killed. Some athletes therefore decide not to travel. “They are afraid of competing in a country that is the stronghold of terror,” Israel’s swimming president Miki Halika told “Spiegel.”
Israeli athletes are threatened
In the past, Qatar financed the radical Islamic group Hamas, which triggered the war with its attack on Israel on October 7th. Parts of Hamas, which is classified as a terrorist organization in the USA and the EU, are based in the emirate, which also acts as a mediator due to these connections. World Aquatics considers the World Cup host “one of the safest countries in the world”. There was no discussion about a “own path” to Olympic qualification if Israel did not take part.
Since the Hamas attack, Israeli athletes have not only experienced the war and its consequences at home. The fencers received a bomb threat in Switzerland, the water polo players at the European Championships in the Netherlands had to leave the hall through a back exit because of a pro-Palestinian demonstration – just like their German opponents.