Dues to the war between Russia and Ukraine, many Russian athletes are facing bans from various sporting events. Now this has moved to our sport of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.
Russia’s attack on Ukraine has changed Finland’s relationship with it eastern neighbor. The Finnish BJJ federation, made the decision to ban Russian BJJ athletes from their competitions.
They announced the decision on their website:
“The Finnish BJJ federation FBJJF has decided to follow up the recommendations of Finnish Olympic Committee and IOC EB related to participation of Russian and Belarus athletes and officials to international sports events, https://olympics.com/…/ioc-eb-recommends-no-participation…Therefore academies from Russia and Belarus and athletes with permanent residence in Russia or Belarus will no longer participate in the BJJ Finnish Open 2022, NoGi Finnish Open 2022 and Senior NoGi Finnish Open 2022 competitions.FBJJF’s Finnish Open 2022 competitions are welcoming all academies registered and athletes having permanent residency in other countries.”
One Finish BJJ practitioner commented on the facebook post, criticising the decision and how the Olympic committee’s criteria cannot be applied to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu:
(Google translate)
“Unless you did NOT follow the recommendations of the Olympic Committees.
The recommendations read “The ban on participation applies to athletes, coaches and officials representing Russia or Belarus in international competition. ”
This is understandable in terms of the species supported by the Russian state, who cannot live without the support that the Russian state uses in its propaganda, which athletes do not have for example. the opportunity to condemn a war without consequences.
But this is not all about BJJ.
1. Let’s start by saying BJJ is not an Olympic sport.
2. BJJ is an individual sport.
3. Competitors coming from Russia do not represent their country. The name lists have no national representation, no flag ceremonies, no “which country is better” stats, etc.
4. Russia’s BJJ:lla does not have the support of the Russian state. The support is less than the non-existent support in Finland (but here you can at least get some benefit from the system).
5. Good grief, BJJ is not even considered an official sport in Russia. The long list of sports even includes aikido, bodybuilding, sports tourism, airsoft, break-dance, agility with dogs, chess, cheerleading, computer games/esports and a bunch of other venues for roughly ten enthusiasts, belt wrestling well… But BJJ is missing as a sport of its own. The closest we get when we look at the newaza section of Japanese jujutsu, which was first added only in 2017, where it is trivial to draw conclusions.
6. The whole BJJ rests COMPLETELY on commercial (not the almost-free ry:den like Finland) halls. Not in support of state, regions or cities.
7. Representing the club is such a phenomenon. Is there really a BJJ competitor out there who cares about the apparent well-being of their own roofing organization? I don’t believe “I don’t care about losing as long as my roofing organization Alliance won the most points” exists. Club representation is the same (when you don’t talk about group competition). Each contestant is a representative of himself. Clubs don’t pay anything (that activity is completely commercial in Russia; in Finland, some clubs can support in some way).
8. If you squint your eyes a lot, you could still somehow understand the removal of the club’s information (so that the athletes would only represent themselves). I can even try to understand if winning athletes aren’t given those monetary awards. But I can’t understand the closing of competitions by personal athletes, that they couldn’t compete against other bjj friends and even get some kind of joy in an otherwise horrible life in Russia. Participation for many Russian competitors in the Finnish Open was the highlight of the year/years and the only trip abroad for some people ever. Finnish BJJ competitions had a much bigger impact than their size. You can see from how many competitors from Russia have come to compete in these games over the years. This is also why Finnish competitions have been so high quality.
9. I can also add a novel justification about how unfair decisions like this are for ordinary Russians. Russians under Putin’s dictatorship are being punished for the serial killer they didn’t even choose in the ridiculous “election” performance, does whatever they want. What is the trick here? That because of Putin’s Ukrainian victims, they are beating Putin’s Russian victims? Didn’t the situation in Navalny poisoned by Putin teach us anything? Is it fair to punish people like him, who have gone above and beyond to end Putin’s dictatorship? Btw he will be getting an extra 13th cake next week.. Are you aware that it is now illegal for Russia to call the special operation in Ukraine a war? Punishment of up to 15 years in prison. People have already been arrested and convicted for “Stop the War” opinions, telling real casualties or war crimes, holding various banners (the word “Peace”, a pile of asterisks, a Bible “Do not kill” quote, a blank paper note without nothing), clothing consisting of Ukrainian flag colors (yellow, blue) or even the fact that “showed support with his own silence”. And the situation will get even worse – all you have to do is watch a few minutes of Putin’s speech yesterday about the fifth column and bugs… Sorry to prove the Goodwin Law, but the situation is now the same as if it were both a Nazi and a Jew living in Nazi-Germany – the blows are coming from all sides… This is a scary situation! Tens of thousands of Russians have already fled this dictatorship over the past few weeks only to see that instead of foreign support they receive only whipping from here… If anything, I would hope that the BJJ union would not have anything to do with the hysteria and participated in the mass kicking of Russian victims. Yes there are enough people there already.
I thumbs down for this decision that is obviously reckless or at least made based on inadequate information.
