Russia Applying a Modern Twist to an Old Playbook in Undermining Paris Olympics

By Steven Warshaw, Founder and Creative Director of Universal Sports Marketing

With the 2024 Paris Olympic Games underway, a familiar shadow looms over the event. Russia, long known for its controversial tactics in international sports, has once again made headlines — this time with a double whammy of high-tech trickery and old-school espionage.

Only days before the opening ceremonies, French authorities arrested a Russian chef in Paris, allegedly caught red-handed with plans to “destabilize” the Games. This after Microsoft unveiled that the Kremlin is targeting the Paris Olympic Games with an influence campaign using an AI-generated film titled “Olympus Has Fallen.” With these latest plots, Russia is serving up a fresh batch of chaos, marking the latest chapter in a long-standing playbook of lies, deceit, and foul play in the world of sports that it has been writing for decades.

Ever since the Red Army hockey tour of 1976, when the Philadelphia Flyers bashed, slashed, and smashed the USSR so badly that players just left the ice, Russia has had a complex about how it is treated in the sports world, specifically the Olympics.

The methods have evolved, from physical intimidation to elaborate doping schemes and now to culinary creepers and digital deception, but the underlying strategy remains unchanged: sow chaos, undermine trust, and manipulate the narrative surrounding international sporting events.

It hasn’t always been this way. In the days of the Soviet Union, Russia was an Olympic powerhouse, dominating medal counts and setting world records. The USSR built robust, well-funded Olympic programs focused on winning gold medals.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 brought a dramatic shift. With state funding drying up, Russia’s dominance in the Olympics began to wane. This decline in performance led to a new, more insidious approach to maintaining its status in the international sports arena. Ever since, the Russians have been cheating, lying, and misinforming — anything to get back to the medal stand and maintain their perceived status as a sports superpower.

The Red Army hockey team became legendary not just for its on-ice skills, but for its underhanded tactics off the ice. CSKA would poison opponents’ food with laxatives and manipulate locker room conditions, creating stifling hot environments without access to water. These tactics weren’t just about gaining a competitive edge; they were about demoralizing and physically weakening their opponents before the game even began.

Russia’s deceptive practices have become increasingly sophisticated. The country became notorious for its state-sponsored doping program, which came to light during the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. The scale of this program was staggering, involving the swapping of urine samples and elaborate schemes to evade detection.

The extent of Russia’s doping program went beyond team sports. Individual athletes also benefited from and fell victim to this system. Take the case of Maria Sharapova, once the darling of women’s tennis. Nicknamed “Pizza Face” due to acne breakouts (a common side effect of human growth hormone), Sharapova’s physical development raised eyebrows in the tennis world. She reportedly grew from 5-foot-9 to 6 feet at age 16 and then another three inches at age 19 – growth patterns that are highly unusual for young women. While Sharapova’s case made headlines, and she was eventually suspended in 2016, it was just the tip of the iceberg in Russia’s systematic doping program.

The true extent was laid bare in the Academy Award-winning documentary “Icarus.” The film focuses on Dr. Grigory Rodchenkov, formerly the head of Russia’s anti-doping laboratory turned whistleblower. Rodchenkov’s revelations provided irrefutable evidence that cheating in Russian sports was not just widespread but systematically orchestrated at the highest levels of government.

Now that Russia has been banned from the Olympics (again) for its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, its athletes have to compete as Individual Neutral Athletes (AINs), another embarrassment to the country that has fallen so far from the prestige of sports. It’s crucial to understand Russia’s true strategy. The goal isn’t merely to win or to save face — it’s fundamentally about disruption. Like a frustrated child flipping a Monopoly board after hours of play, Russia seems determined to upend the entire system if it can’t emerge victorious. The use of AI-generated disinformation represents a dangerous new frontier in this strategy, blurring the lines between reality and fiction on an unprecedented scale.

 If Russia cannot dominate the medal count, it seems determined to dominate the headlines. This strategy extends beyond sports, mirroring tactics used in election meddling and other forms of international interference. By blurring the lines between reality and fiction, Russia aims to create an environment where truth becomes subjective, and trust in institutions erodes.

The challenge for Olympic organizers and participants isn’t just about countering false narratives; it’s about preserving the event's integrity in the face of a competitor who would rather see it in shambles than succeed without Russia. As we celebrate athletic achievements in Paris, we must also be vigilant against the unseen competition happening in the shadows, where the goal isn’t to win gold but to tarnish it for everyone else.