Exclusively for subscribers: about the upcoming elections in the UIPM and FIE, about a Panamanian ambassador who wants to switch from the FIE vice presidency to UIPM vice presidency, about Tashkent and Saudi Arabia, dubious Olympic history and a Soviet emigrant who miraculously became wealthy and influential in Latin America as a flower trader.
I have already mentioned the name Alisher Burchanovich Usmanov twice in the headline and teaser – and now for the third time. I hope that merely mentioning his name won't trigger his highly paid army of lawyers. You may know that you are not allowed to write anything about the oligarch, who his fans and propagandists prefer to call a philanthropist, visionary and business genius.
Usmanov, Soviet Union, Chust, Uzbekistan, Komsomol, prison, Russia, privatisation, Gazprom, Metalloinvest, Islam Karimov, USM, Dilbar, Megafon, Kommersant, FIE, Arsenal FC, Vladimir Putin, war, immense wealth, donations; Apple, Facebook, Xiaomi, Uber, Twitter, Airbnb; the ‘For the Future of Fencing’ foundation, a donation to the IOC (a manuscript from the founder of the cult Coubertin) worth around nine million dollars, the many sanctions, whistleblowers, Navalny, all sorts of evidence, rumours and stories, former and current shares... every word a risk.
Therefore, let me quickly state: nothing is connected. Things and facts that do or do not exist are not connected in any way, as we all know.
Generally speaking, there are lawyers who even want to delete the internet and all the archives. They are cleaning up Wikipedia anyway and suing everything and everyone. Imagine that.
So let's see where this is leading today, when I focus on Usmanov's aid Vitaly Logvin Grechuhin, who sits on the board of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime and is considered the FIE's éminence grise, since Usmanov, at March 1, 2022, after the invasion of Ukraine by Russian troops, presented himself as the victim of false, unfair and defamatory allegations and resigned from the FIE presidency until justice is restored. Do you remember?
Meetings in France, Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan
The photo at the top, taken during the Paris Olympics, miraculously unites two of the next elections international Olympic federations (IF), which are overshadowed by dubious events. There we have Vitaly Logvin, member of the Executive Committee (Comex) of the Fédération Internationale d'Escrime (FIE), his wife Ekaterina Logvina Kirchenberg (a very good friend of Irina Viner, formerly known as Irina Viner-Usmanova) and the frequent flyer monarch of the Union Internationale de Pentathlon Moderne (UIPM), the German pensioner Klaus Schormann, who has played an inglorious leading role in this theatre in recent weeks.
The FIE and the UIPM. Usmanov's fencing buddy Logvin and Schormann. Among other things, the issue is that FIE vice president Ana Irene Delgado Guerra from Panama, currently her country's ambassador to the Washington-based Organization of American States (OAS), wants to become UIPM vice president on Saturday, although she is still FIE vice president.
What a world! The Olympic family is full of surprises.
The two presidential elections in the flawless special democracies of the FIE and UIPM are taking place in fantastically corresponding destinations – in the flawless democracies of Saudi Arabia and Uzbekistan:
- This weekend UIPM's congress is being held in Riyadh. UIPM is a severely battered federation of scandals at all levels. The congress takes place in the new sports superpower of Crown Prince MBS, who has columnists cut into a thousand pieces with a bone saw, which doesn't bother anyone in the Olympic business. Collateral damage, so to speak: Saudi Arabia was recently honoured by the IOC with the hosting of the Olympic Esport Games under strange conditions; shortly before the even more dubious awarding of the 2034 FIFA World Cup under scandalously corrupt circumstances.
At the UIPM, Frenchman Joël Bouzou, American Robert Stull and Egyptian Sharif El Erian will be competing for the crown, while the highly controversial monarch Klaus Schormann, after 31 years of presidency, now wants to become HON President with a quarter of a million annual budget – yet another scandal, since the appropriate handling of a serious ethics complaint against Schormann for ‘corrupt behaviour’ and ‘undue influence on the outcome of every UIPM election’ was routinely postponed.
Schormann and his Chinese secretary-general, Shiny Fang, are desperately looking for the moles who are providing me with information (‘help us to identify the source of these leaks’). They see the real danger for the elections in the UIPM in my reporting – delicious. - In two and a half weeks, the FIE will hold its election congress in Tashkent. The Uzbek-Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov has a home advantage there. Usmanov is a kind of deity in Uzbekistan. In large parts of the fencing world, which is mainly interested in mild gifts, he has the status of a saviour. He has showered the FIE with numerous million-dollar donations over the past decades. Perhaps the federation would not have survived financially otherwise.
The fact that Usmanov is on sanctions lists in three dozen nations is not a problem for the majority in the FIE. However, the letter from the Swedish Fencing Federation, which was published a few days ago, has alarmed some members of the Olympic family – and made quite a few of Usmanov's voters nervous.
The debate about whether it is legally possible or impossible to make Usmanov, who has been sanctioned many times over, president has been going on behind the scenes for a long time. In this respect, the few honest Swedes have been quite successful with their legal arguments.
Democrats in the minority
Who would be better suited to connect the very special Congress locations of Riyadh and Tashkent than Otto Drakenberg, the boldly courageous presidential challenger of Alisher Usmanov? The Swede is confronting the oligarch's superiority in his home country. Two years ago, Drakenberg made headlines when he intervened at the FIE congress in Lausanne against the awarding of a junior world championship to Saudi Arabia and was brutally silenced.
Human rights and such like, you know, only play a role in this Olympic world when the IOC once again stages its Refugee Olympic Team, sponsored by Qatar. Or when a philanthropist pours out the horn of plenty.
Just watch the video from the 2022 congress. It's under three minutes long. That is the reality in the FIE. That is the reality in much of the Olympic world. Democrats like Otto Drakenberg are in the minority. And don't tell me that only nonsense is spread on TikTok:
Source: TikTok, @swedishfencing
The close relationship between the FIE and the UIPM
There have traditionally been many links between the scandal-hit UIPM and FIE. After all, fencing is one of the sports that has been practised as part of the pentathlon since the sport was invented by Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the IOC sect. In this respect, it is not uncommon for officials to be close, but it is in the nature of things.
Among the member nations of the UIPM and the FIE, there are several dozen national federations (NF) where none of the sports is practised by a larger number of people. Some call such NF ghost federations, others fake federations. No matter what you call it, the topic is highly topical these days. The UIPM and FIE presidents are counting on these votes.
The principle of one country, one vote, which gives a voice to fake and ghost associations, some of which are little more than one person, is also a huge problem in these Olympic (and non-olympic) IFs, not only hindering positive developments but almost making them impossible.
Maskirowka and other tactics
Alisher Usmanov and Vitaly Logvin are two of the, well, extremely colourful figures to have grown up in Tashkent (Usmanov was actually born in Chust, though, as the London law firm Finsbury, among others, has pointed out to me in writing, although I hadn't claimed that he was born in Tashkent) and make headlines in world sports and beyond.
Of course, Usmanov is in a different league and in a different sphere. Logvin, on the other hand, is primarily known for fencing, which is a shame. He is appreciated by some in the sport, especially when he was once travelling for For the Future of Fencing foundation, in Africa, for example.
He is feared by many other fencing people. It gets cold when he enters the room or a competition venue, I have been told by several sources for several years. It is said that referees then feel observed and automatically put under pressure.
In the scandal when the Ukrainian Olympic champion Olha Kharlan was disqualified at the 2023 World Championships, Logvin is said to have played the main role and instructed the decisions. This is how it was reported in some of the media outlets.
‘Nonsense,‘ says Logvin.
"No, that is not true."
He also claims never to have bribed any federation or official.
