Contestation on the Playing Ground: The Russia-Ukraine War between Beijing 2022 and Paris 2024

Abstract

This chapter argues that international sport functions as a secondary institution of the international system whose norms are contingent on systemic politics. Focusing on the case of the Russia–Ukraine war from Beijing 2022 to Paris 2024, it traces how the International Olympic Committee (IOC) deployed two norms (that is, political neutrality and the Olympic Truce) to preserve organizational cohesion, and how the most directly involved state actors (Ukraine and Russia) responded. The chapter shows that neutrality operated primarily as a damage-limitation device, rather than as a valueoriented principle, and that it was intensely contested. Contestation unfolded in two modes: “thin” contestation (by Ukraine) sought to reprioritize values within the Olympic framework, elevating condemnation of aggression over neutrality, whereas “thick” contestation (by Russia and aligned actors) challenged the framework’s legitimacy and incubated alternative events, raising fragmentation risks. Overall, the chapter highlights that a truly “universal” sport arena is necessarily dependent on a functioning global international system at large.