Sport and Sovereignty

On 9 November 2015, the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) published a report detailing evidence of mass doping in Russian athletics. Russia’s drug related woes have only grown since, with the country being banned from participating in the Olympics and World Championships in a range of sports for four years. While sport is broadly seen and has been used throughout Russian history as an anatomo- and bio-political technology, this incident illustrates that sports is also an arena where the weaknesses of the sovereign are exposed. The ideology of the regime is the main variable which determines the efficacy of sport as a technology of power, as well as the possibility of resistance. Drawing upon a wide variety of secondary sources, this essay seeks to trace the evolution of the nexus between sport and ideology in Russia since its inception in the 19th century. The paper traces the adaptation of physical culture to the ideological imperatives of the regime. While initially strict adherence to the Marxist doctrine translates into a more didactic and disciplinarian approach, in contemporary Russia the sovereign is free of ideological constraints and can manipulate sports to political and economic ends. Understood in an historical context, the state-sponsored doping programme does not appear as an aberration, but rather as a continuation of decades-old policies.