Numbers Can't Be Fooled

When will the sport oppressors be sent to ski jump?

The Belarusian freestylers came back with gold at three Olympics in a row. Before Beijing.

In 2010, Aliaksei Hryshyn took first place at the Games, in 2014 - Alla Tsuper and Anton Kushnir, in 2018 - Hanna Huskova, writes Salidarnasts.

The names of athletes were changing, but the head coach remained the same. Mikalai Kazeka has become a legend of the Belarusian freestyle. But when he spoke out against violence after the elections in 2020, he became persona non grata and fell under repression.

Kazeka was dismissed from the national team. He didn't go to Beijing. And now we can sum up the results.

There is no gold. There is only silver of Hanna Huskova. And even that thanks to a great deal of luck. Our athlete managed to get into the decisive stage with great difficulty, beating her rival by less than a point. Had the judges and the fate decreed otherwise, the medals would have been awarded without the Belarusians.

While four years ago, Huskova was much more confident from the start. In the qualification she was 2nd amongst all the competitors, and in the first final she was 1st! This time - feel the difference - she was 6th and 6th.

The national team also took a step back at another level. In 2018, Belarus had 3 freestyle skaters in the first final, now there were only 2. That's how the dismissal of the famous coach backfired.

Things could have been much worse: after all, Huskova, like Kazeka, signed the letter of free athletes demanding to stop the violence and hold another presidential elections. But it was decided not to exclude the Olympic champion from Beijing. Probably, the officials understood that in this case our freestylers will fail completely at Games-2022.

Anyway, the results are a good illustration of how the competitions end, when it is not coaching professionalism, but political loyalty that counts. It would have been great to send the oppressors who removed from the team Aliaksandra Ramanouskaya, who had recently been named the best Belarusian athlete of the year, to ski jump themselves...