Team Nunavut leader says Russian players will be missed at AWG
Arctic Winter Games International Committee suspended Yamal, Russia, on Tuesday
Yamal athlete Sergei Khudi, seen here in a 2016 file photo, wins gold in the Arctic Winter Games’ open male sledge jump after completing 350 attempts. Yamal athletes are suspended from the Arctic Winter Games, following a decision from the AWG international committee Tuesday. (File photo by Steve Ducharme)
Youth competitors from a northern Russian region will be missed at the Arctic Winter Games, says a Team Nunavut leader, after organizers suspended the team in response to Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine.
Mariele dePeuter, Team Nunavut’s chef de mission since 2014, said the board would have had to consider the impacts the suspension would have on the Russian youth who won’t get to compete.
“I think it’s a very difficult decision and I don’t think there’s a right answer for it,” she said in an interview.
The AWG international committee announced the decision to suspend Yamal in a press release issued Tuesday.
Yamal is a peninsula in northern Russia that just into the Barents Sea. Athletes representing the region have regularly competed at the Arctic Winter Games.
“[The committee] is deeply concerned regarding the ongoing events in Ukraine and the grave impacts on human life,” Arctic Winter Games president John Flynn wrote. “We join our global partners in calling for peace.”
DePeuter said an important aspect of the games is youth learning about other circumpolar cultures, and that Yamal brought a “unique flavour” to the bi-annual event that will be missed.
“That opportunity to share those different cultures among youth and with our friends is a very unique part of the games,” dePeuter said. “It’s hard to imagine the games without Yamal being part of it.”
Wood Buffalo, located in northern Alberta, will host 2023 Arctic Winter Games, which are scheduled for Jan. 29 to Feb. 4.
Athletes from the Northwest Territories, Yukon, Nunavik, Alberta, Alaska, Greenland, Finland, Sweden and Norway will compete, according to the event’s webpage.
The games typically are held every two years, but had been postponed in 2022 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. DePeuter said teams and players get to know each other and become friends.
“You quickly become good friends with the people that are regular attenders at the games,” dePeuter said. “We still have a year to go and we hope to see Yamal back as soon as possible.”
Still no anouncement from Eskimo-Indian Olympics committee in Alaska about banning Russian athletes this year https://www.weio.org/announcements . Hopefully they follow suit. Thank you AWG.
Shame the youth are punished for the terrible behavior of the adults.
It is unfortunate that these youth are a casualty of the situation, but these types of actions need to be taken. The general population of Russia needs to feel the effect of sanctions if they are to take a stand against their authoritative leader.
A much more effective move than banning 2 atheletes, would be if Canada publicly offered amnesty to any Russian soldier in Ukraine who surrenders to Ukranian forces.
.
The war would end before there were 100,000 amnesty seekers.
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As it is, Canada and the rest of the world is looking at over 1,000,000 Ukranian refugees already, and likely another 5,000,000 in the weeks ahead.
The youngsters have nothing to do with Vlad’s aggression; why punish them, there’re more in need of outside contact now more than ever. Humanity is so quick to punish the innocent…little compassion and understanding would have been nice to Russian Inuit .
On a technical note, there is no such thing as a “russian inuk”. That would be the equivalent of calling an Inuk in Canada “First Nations”.
They are yupik or yamal, and similar to the yupik and aleut of Alaska, Inuk/Inuit is not in their vocabulary and they do not like to be referred to as such.
With all due respect 867, the Yupik refer to themselves as Yupighyt (йупигыт) which translates to “true people” (similar to the English translation of Inuit).
Also, correct me if I am mistaken, but the team that has been banned is from Yamal, a region in northwest Siberia. The people from this region refer to themselves as Nenets (which again translates to people).
So, calling them Yamal would be like referring to Canadian Inuit as Nunavut. “Hey, are you a Nunavut?”
Funny, but we don’t need to get bogged down in semantics. We know what hermann meant. I think we should consider the larger issue here.
The people of Yamal are ‘Russian’ because they were colonized by the Russian state. They were forced into collectivization (made to settle in communities) during the Soviet era, their children sent to state run boarding schools and disallowed to use their own language. Today they suffer from high rates of alcohol use, mental health issues and suicide. Sound familiar?
Knowing that, what is the higher moral purpose in punishing them for the actions of the State that has colonized and historically oppressed them? What good will come from this?
As I see it these actions by the Arctic Winter games committee are purely reactive, thoughtless and frankly disgraceful.
Do we punish the German race for the 6 million Jews? no. so why Yamal exclusion? I have been in that part of the world as missionary and they are good people.
Good to see the AWG committee make the right move.
What is right about it?
Be wary of people who rush to punish, especially in a case like this that deserves much more circumspection than the thoughtless reactions we see on display here seem to suggest.
Always, those who are quick to judge and marginalize, speak with a hateful and narcissistic voice.
Those who condemn the Russian athletes are the same beligerent ones who were quick to demand that the freedom protesters in Ottawa be hanged, and that those who prefer not to be vaccinated be banned from health care. It has been the same voices throughout history. No exception.