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9 November 1989: what the opportunists and perpetrators of corrupt Olympic systems must learn from the fall of the Berlin Wall

On this anniversary, the executives and employees of the IOC, World Aquatics, Fencing, Triathlon, Pentathlon and many other suspiciously opaque organisations – along with their servile, highly paid legal and propaganda minions, mostly from Switzerland and the UK – should take a lesson in democracy.

,   and  Jens Weinreich
7 min read
Berlin, November 1989. (Photo: Imago)

Let me start with a few personal remarks about East Germany and the fall of the Berlin Wall and journalism. Let's see if I can reasonably get the connection to 2024, to the pressing issues of obvious corruption in … World Aquatics, OCA and FIFA (all concerning Husain Al-Musallam), fake elections and mafia-like conspiracy (concerning the ICAS vice president and fake president of World Triathlon, Antonio Arimany), dubious sponsorship contracts, colossal election interference and the despicable hunt for whistleblowers (Klaus Schormann, UIPM), to another absurd upcoming so-called election of a Russian-Uzbek oligarch (Alisher Usmanov, Fencing FIE) and to the organised looking the other way and therefore the complicity of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the majority of officials in boards and national federations.

In a moment, I will show you, using a letter from the Swedish Fencing Federation as an example, what the very least we can and must expect from sports officials.

The Swedish Fencing Federation hereby contests and objects to Mr. Alisher Usmanov’s candidature as President for the FIE. The Swedish Fencing Federation requests that the Executive Committee rejects Mr. Alisher Usmanov’s candidature and removes Mr. Alisher Usmanov’s name from the list of candidates.

The 9 November 1989, the anniversary of the fall of the Iron Curtain – a small personal note, a great life lesson: Apart from very private milestones and anniversaries, this 9 November is the most important day in my life. A symbol. Still formative today and until my very last day. When I see pictures like the one above, I still get tears in my eyes.

I grew up behind this wall. I was educated in the ideology of Marxism-Leninism at school and university. I can count myself lucky. The grace of being born late. The wall fell, and I was free to choose. Except for private relationships and experiences, I associate nothing positive with the first decades of my life in the Olympic doping wonderland of East Germany.

It took some time after that 9th of November 1989 for me to grasp the dimension and draw my personal lessons. The most important lesson of all: totalitarian systems cannot be changed from within. No reforms work there.

Totalitarian systems can only be blown up.

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,   and  Jens Weinreich
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