State-owned Russian News Agency TASS has released polling data on the question of whether Russia should host its own international sporting competitions in response to bans from many major international sports governing bodies. According to the TASS survey, 24% of Russians support the idea of holding their own competitions as an alternative to international competitions where Russian and Belarusian athletes have been barred.
The poll results show that 91% of Russians are informed on the suspension of Russian athletes from international competitions in response to Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine. The “special military operation” is, of course, referring to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that began last month. An interesting result from this survey is that, according to TASS, 62% of respondents believe that Russian athletes would have been banned from international competitions regardless of the situation in Ukraine, while just 32% believe the invasion was the primary reason for the bans.
The final piece of data from this survey reports that 48% of Russians think that Russia should both fight for the rights of its athletes to be reinstated at international competitions, and Russia should host its own international competitions in sports where they have been banned.
The VCIOM Sputnik All-Russian telephone survey was conducted on March 21, 2022. The sample size was 1,600 respondents aged 18 years and older; the maximum margin of error with a 95% probability of error did not exceed 2.5%.
You can read the full TASS report here.
This survey comes in the wake of Russian and Belarusian athletes being banned from most major international competitions. Most recently, FINA barred Russian and Belarusian athletes from competing at the 2022 World Championships. Additionally, FINA had previously removed the 2022 World Junior Championships from Russia. The body has also pulled all water polo, diving, and artistic swimming competitions from Russia until further notice.
The easy part was banning Russia & wannabe Russia from international competition.
The hard part will be determining when to unban them. What will be the criteria?
“62% of respondents believe that Russian athletes would have been banned from international competitions regardless of the situation in Ukraine”
CLOWNS
Keep in mind that a lot of them are either lying about their views or have been lied to about whats going on in Ukraine. Or both!
There are very similar polling results in the United States on various topics, when one demographic is sampled
Kind of like a team time trial I guess
Interesting article written by a polling expert about polls in Russia: https://gelliottmorris.substack.com/p/do-68-of-russians-really-support?s=r
TL;DR: In authoritarian regimes, polls are extremely unreliable. People are less likely than in societies with free speech to express their opposition to the government, especially to strangers on the phone. People will either not take the survey, refuse to answer certain questions, or just lie to the survey taker.
Related: 24% of Russians don’t understand the meaning of the word “international”.
‘62% of respondents believe that Russian athletes would have been banned from international competitions regardless of the situation in Ukraine’
For what? Drug bans? Or just had too much Smirnoff when they took the poll
If Belarus participated it would, technically, be an international competition.
North Korea, Eritrea and Syria will happily join the club (maybe)
This list can be much longer. Take for example Moscow Olympics. The main point is what would be the level of competition there. And that is where the leading athletes have to declare clearly their positions not visiting such meetings.
Also these poles not being trustful showed nevertheless how important sport is for general Russian population. They react more on sport bans than on economical sanctions. Because the sport competitions is their entertainment and the source of being proud of themselves. But if some oligarch suffers financial lost then many ordinary people will be only glad to hear that.
Of course it will return to them back and they will pay for that to same oligarchs. But it… Read more »