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Sportocracy

Putin, almost everyone agrees, has pulled off a brutal strategic masterstroke in the Caucasus, calling the West’s bluff and humiliating Georgia’s unlovable president Mikheil Saakashvili. Meanwhile, though, Russia’s performance in the Olympics has been surprisingly poor. The Russians currently languish in eighth position in the medal rankings, with only three golds. It’s not important of […]

Putin, almost everyone agrees, has pulled off a brutal strategic masterstroke in the Caucasus, calling the West’s bluff and humiliating Georgia’s unlovable president Mikheil Saakashvili.

Meanwhile, though, Russia’s performance in the Olympics has been surprisingly poor. The Russians currently languish in eighth position in the medal rankings, with only three golds. It’s not important of course, but frightening autocracies are supposed to do better: see China’s 22 golds and rising. The Bear may be on the march again, according to every neocon, but long gone are those Cold War days when Russia and America battled for Olympian supremacy.

This might be because, as the First Post points out, Russia’s greatest Olympians are taking jobs in Putin’s government. Or maybe Putin, himself a former judo champion, and his compatriots are more concerned with the 2014 Russian Winter Olympics in Sochi, which–funnily enough–is only 15 miles from Abkhazia.

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