Calacus Weekly Hit & Miss – Krystsina Tsimanouskaya & Talksport
Every Monday we look at the best and worst communicators in the sports world from the previous week.
HIT - KRYSTSINA TSIMANOUSKAYA
We’ve talked a lot about people using sport to make a stand recently.
Belarusian athlete Krystsina Tsimanouskaya made headlines during the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games as she raised awareness for the political situation in her home country, speaking out against her management team and then refusing orders to return home.
On the first Saturday of the Games, Tsimanouskaya complained on social media about the abrupt decision from Belarusian Olympic officials to place her in the team to compete in the women’s 4 x 400m relay on Thursday, an event she had not trained for. She was expecting to race only in the women’s 200m.
In a post on her social media, she said: “I was put under pressure and they are trying to forcibly take me out of the country without my consent.
“It turns out our great bosses has always decided everything for us. I believe that higher people should have respect for us as athletes and sometimes ask for our opinion!”
The day after her initial statement, Tsimanouskaya was ordered to pack and taken to the airport, accompanied by the team psychologist and another official. The Belarus Olympic Committee said that it had decided to “terminate the athlete’s performance” because of her “emotional and psychological state.”
Having sought police protection at the airport, Tsimanouskaya managed to escape the expulsion.
"I am asking the International Olympic Committee for help”, she pleaded in a video on her Instagram page.
“I have been pressured and they are trying to take me out of the country without my consent, so I am asking the IOC to intervene."
Back in Belarus, tens of thousands of people have been detained across the country this year. President Alexander Lukashenko has resorted to using violence, torture and detaining opposition figures in an attempt to clamp down on protesting against his government.
The illegitimacy of his regime was exposed in the aftermath of the rigged elections of 2020, but the turmoil is worsening in 2021, with many Belarusians having lost their lives after being caught up in the crisis.
Given that the head of the Berlausian National Olympic Committee is Lukashenko’s son Viktor, orders to remove Tsimanouskaya have close connections to those involved at the highest level of government in Belarus, adding to the significance of her public statements.
Speaking out at the Olympic Games, on one of the biggest stages in the world, Tsimanouskaya’s concerns about her own country’s Olympic team have drawn considerable attention to the situation in Belarus.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) and other outside authorities have said that they are currently investigating Tsimanouskaya's claims.
In a statement, IOC spokesman Mark Adams said: “The IOC is opening a disciplinary commission to establish the facts in this case and to hear the two officials ... who had been allegedly involved in this incident.”
Elsewhere, since Tsimanouskaya has spoken, Belarusian heptathlete Yana Maksimava and her Olympic-medallist husband Andrey Krachanka revealed that they had fled to Germany, citing on social media that Belarus's worsening situation and international isolation means that "now one can lose not only his or her freedom, but life."
Having been granted travel to stay in Poland, Tsimanouskaya is now safe for the time being. Her decision to join fellow Belarusians seeking asylum is yet another sign of how dark the times have become in her home country.
Tsimanouskaya’s actions are brave and commendable, speaking out against the leadership in her Olympic team and within her country, all in the spotlight of the world’s media.
MISS – TALKSPORT
The world of broadcast has become multi-media these days.
When we undertake media training, we remind delegates that radio broadcasts these days often have video streams as well which have to be taken into consideration.
There is a famous photo of then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for instance, holding his furrowed brow in embarrassment, after forgetting to take off his microphone during the 2010 general election campaign and listening back on live radio to a replay of his critical comments of a member of the public who he called a “bigoted woman.”
The photo was used by most national newspapers the following day and the incident signalled the end of his chances of winning the election.
Many radio channels use YouTube as a way of broadcasting simultaneously with their mainstream output, such as talkSPORT, the national UK radio station.
Thankfully, there is a delay between the YouTube broadcast and the official national radio transmission, but even so, problems can arise.
Feelings run high about the absence of Tottenham Hotspur captain Harry Kane from training, who has made it clear he wants to leave the club in the pursuit of the silverware that has eluded him during his time in North London.
During an edition of talkSPORT’s ‘The Sports Bar’ show, presenters Perry Groves and Jordan Jarrett-Bryan were fielding calls to discuss the Kane transfer saga and the determination of club Chairman Daniel Levy to keep his star player.
Jarrett-Bryan asked a caller: "Are you saying Spurs should get the fee they feel he's worth? And if they don't get that, he's not going anywhere."
The caller responded: "Yeah but Levy, Levy is... he's a Jew. He's not gonna let him go for nothing, is he?"
Both presenters looked surprised and unprepared for a comment of that nature and it did not take long for Tottenham to issue a formal complaint.
talkSPORT issued their own apology with station Head Lee Clayton saying: “We are all appalled by the comment that was made by a caller during a live YouTube broadcast of The Sports Bar. There is absolutely no room for discrimination of any kind in society.
“We are deeply sorry to Tottenham and, especially, to chairman Daniel Levy, as well as their supporters and the Jewish community for the offence caused by this hateful comment, which should never have been broadcast.
“The comment was rightly dumped on our radio station, where we broadcast with a slight delay to ensure any unexpected and inappropriate comments don’t make it to air. It was, however, streamed live on the talkSPORT YouTube channel, which we are currently testing and which awaits a similar profanity/offence delay.
“Our team did not take our YouTube stream into consideration and therefore the comments were not challenged as they should have been for our viewers on YouTube.
“It is unacceptable that the comment appeared anywhere and as broadcast partners of the Premier League, we take our position very seriously. We are comprehensively reviewing all of our processes, involving our teams across programming, social media and compliance.
“We have suspended live broadcasting on YouTube until we can be sure we have the same processes and protections in place as we have for our radio broadcasting.”
Credit to talkSPORT for taking strong action but the question remains why the presenters were not better prepared to call out such offensive and lazy stereotypes given the platform they have to do so.
Quite rightly, Tottenham raised that question themselves in their own statement: “We were appalled that neither presenter addressed the comment, failing to call out the antisemitic trope. We are under no doubt that if an equivalent comment had been made regarding an individual’s race or other protected characteristic, the response would have been immediate and far-reaching.
“It cannot be acceptable that antisemitism does not receive the same level of condemnation as other forms of discrimination and efforts to tackle it should be no less rigorous.”
Board of Deputies vice president Amanda Bowman highlighted the shortcomings in the broadcaster’s processes resulted in the offensive comments going unaddressed: “It is extremely disturbing to see footage of two talkSPORT presenters failing to challenge an antisemitic caller particularly as both presenters have been vocal about the need to confront racism.
"We hope that Talk Sport will give these presenters the opportunity to address this live on air making clear that they should have confronted such blatant anti Jewish Racism and pledging to do better in future."