A PROPOSAL before the Russian State Duma has caused uproar among senior Olympic athletes.
The deputy leader of Russia's Liberal Democratic Party - surely an oxymoron - has submitted a bill which could see athletes banned from competing in more than two successive Olympics. It is designed to prevent injury-prone competitors from denying younger competitors.
Criticism abounds for a move which confounds the notion that the Olympics are for the world's best athletes. Multiple success - often against overwhelming odds: injury and privation, sacrifice and adversity - is the stuff of legend which inspires humanity. Many who have set the highest benchmarks are Russian.
If enacted, icons would not simply be marginalised, but torn down, their achievements effectively airbrushed from history. A ridiculous paradox would render their records incapable of being matched.
In a British context such legislation would have negated the careers of Chris Hoy and Steve Redgrave, Katherine Grainger and Kelly Holmes. With silver and gold from successive Games, Hoy would have been denied his Olympic title treble in Beijing and his London double; Redgrave's five successive titles would have been impossible; ditto Grainger's gold at the fourth attempt after successive silvers, and Holmes' Olympic 800 and 1500m gold in her third Games at the end of an injury-plagued career.
They are among the most inspirational chapters in British sport. Who would want to gamble such triumphs of the human spirit against the possibility of lesser-calibre competitors delivering?
The Duma proposal is apparently inspired by last year's Winter Olympics where Evgeni Plushenko won team figure skating gold but missed the individual event because of a back injury.
This ill-judged proposal was greeted with incredulity, horror, and contempt. Plushenko said it was "beyond comprehension and inappropriate".
With two golds and two silvers in individual figures from four successive Olympics, despite groin surgery, he hopes to compete at Pyeongchang in 1918.
Four-time Olympic swimming champion Vladimir Salnikov (first to break 15 minutes for 1500 metres) and now president of Russian Swimming, said: "Tomorrow someone will say let's introduce the 100 metres jump without a parachute into the Olympic programme. The person who comes up with this idea will be someone who does not have a clue or anything to do with sport."
The Russian standard-bearer in Sochi was Alexandr Zubkov. He won double bobsleigh gold - his first success in his fourth Winter Olympics. Double Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva said it bore "no relation to real life". She hopes to compete in Rio next year, having won bronze in London.
Russian Olympic history is replete with legendary figures who deserve respect, but are now are at the mercy of political whim.
Alex Karelin (aka the Russian Bear) is the greatest Greco-Roman wrestler in history: 887 wins, two defeats. The super-heavyweight won Olympic gold in 1988, 1992 and 1996, and silver in 2000 - a record without equal.
In three Olympics Alexander Popov swam to four sprint freestyle golds and five silver - first man since Johnny Weissmuller to successfully defend. He overcame being knifed by melon vendors, suffering a sliced artery and damage to a kidney and a lung. A year later he won four European golds.
Stanislav Pozdnyakov is the greatest sabreur in fencing history, with 10 world titles (five individual, five team) and from four Olympics he has four golds and a bronze.
In five Olympics Raisa Smetanina won 10 Olympic medals (four gold) first woman in history to do so, including one aged 39.
In no less than eight other disciplines Russia boasts the most prolific Olympic medal-winners: men's and women's gymnastics, men's diving, women's synchro, men's handball, men's and women's volleyball, and men's short-track skating,
Gymnast Larisa Latynina won 14 individual medals and four team medals at three Games for the former Soviet Union. Though Ukraine-born, she is a Russian citizen. Her 18-medal haul (nine gold) was the 48-year-old record surpassed by Michael Phelps in 2012, but her 14 individual medals remains unbeaten.
The male record haul pre-Phelps also belonged to a Russian gymnast: Nikolai Andrianov. In three Olympics from 1972 he won seven gold, five silver, and three bronze.
Dmitri Sautin won more medals than any other Olympic diver - eight in five successive Games after spending two months in hospital recovering from multiple stab wounds. Anastasia Davydova won five golds in synchronized swimming.
Andrey Lavrov is the only three-time Olympic handball champion. Aged 42 he also won bronze in Athens.
Inna Ryskal won women's volleyball titles in 1968 and 1972 and silver in 1964 and 1976, while in the men's game, Sergey Tetyukhin is one of only two male players with four Olympic medals, capped by gold in 2012.
Russia's athletes have won 521 medals in Winter and Summer Olympics, second only to the USA. Their athletes are celebrated on coins, but risk becoming devalued currency. On the bright side, the 290lb Karelin is a Duma deputy, while Irina Rodnina, the only pairs skater with 10 successive World Championships and three successive Olympic golds, now sits in the Duma as a member of President Putin's party.
They may have the clout to prevent betrayal of their nation's sporting heritage.
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