The 2014 Winter Para-Olympics: Day 5(ish)

Today I have mainly been concentrating on the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) meeting being held in Bonn, Germany. As a result I can talk to you at great length about Singapore's efforts to reduce carbon emissions through green urban development. Unfortunately though this means that I am a little bit more hazy when it comes to the sport.

However if I was to choose one story of the day to talk about it would be TeamUSA's Tatyana McFadden's silver medal in the 1km cross-country sprint. McFadden is an interesting personality at these games because prior to today she already held 10 para-Olympic medals. They though were all awarded in the 2004, 2008 and 2012 Summer games for wheelchair racing. Having added silver today McFadden now enters a very exclusive club of para-Olympians who have won medals at both the Summer and Winter games. Apart from being quite an achievement this also promotes discussion about the relative competitiveness of the para-Olympics and the limits of disabled sport. After all the fact that McFadden only began training for the Winter games less then a year ago suggests to me that maybe wheelchair racing and cross-country sit-skiing aren't technically that different.

Tatyana McFadden's story is also particularly relevant to the Sochi games because although she competes for the USA Tatyana was actually born in then Leningrad, Russia just before the fall of the Soviet Union. Born with Spina Bifida her birth mother put Tatyana in an orphanage because she was unable to cope. As was common for Soviet-era orphanages this one was not equipped to deal with people with disabilities so Tatyana first learnt to walk on her hands. In 1995 Tatyana was spotted by Deborah McFadden - a visiting commissioner for disabilities for the US Department of Health - who adopted Tatyana as a single parent. Obviously with fears about Russia's falling population being a driving force behind the anti-gay propaganda laws that have been dominant at the Sochi games the plight of Russia's orphans has been central to that debate. After all if Russians are genuinely worried about the falling population they should perhaps concentrate on making sure that Russian orphans are not whisked away by foreigners rather then stopping gay people from living openly.

The problem is that the issue of foreign adoption has long been a source of tension between the USA and Russia - often being used as a metaphor for other issues. For example in 2012 the US passed what is known as the "Magnitsky Act" in order to punish Russia for its support for Syria. Russia then responded by passing legislation banning US citizens from adopting Russian orphans. This law is commonly known as the "Dima Yakovlev Law" after a Russian orphan who baked to death after his American adoptive parents left him locked in a car. Sadly Tatyana McFadden and her mother - still a US federal government employee - campaigned aggressively against the Dima Yakovlev law.

The McFadden's have continued this aggressive attitude throughout their trip to Sochi. For example whenever they've been telling their story rather then highlighting the plight of Russia's orphans and its impact on the gay-rights debate they have instead focused on telling the world a - less then true - story about how wonderfully the US treats Russian orphans and how terrible Russia is being by denying other orphans the opportunity to move to the USA.

To make matters worse the McFadden's have been inviting Tatyana's birth mother - whose name no-one seems to bother note - to all her races. Rather then using this as an opportunity to promote co-operation between the USA and Russia the McFadden's have been keen to use the fact that Tatyana has two mothers to boast about how much more gay friendly the US is. Also they've been attempting to protest the Russian law against gay foreigners and single parents from countries were gay marriage is legal adopting Russia orphans that was passed during the Olympics. That of course shows that they - along with TeamUSA - either completely mis-understand the politics of gay-rights in Russia or  have absolutely no interest in improving the situation.

It almost goes without saying then that in her first race - 12km cross-country - on Sunday (9/3/14) Tatyana finished a lowly fifth. Today - in her strongest event - Tatyana was pipped to gold by Norway's Mariann Marthinsen by a margin of just 0.1 seconds. With time moving a different rates for different competitors I can't help but feel that on this occasion the difference between gold and silver has been good manners.

As for the Bonn meeting I obviously have a growing list of things that in would like to say in more detail then I can manage tonight. However this meeting does strike me as a great networking opportunity for any developing nations who may be having problems drawing up their Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMA). After all it seems that these are going to be key in drawing up a text that will also include Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Commitments (NAMC) from developed nations.

This problem of course wouldn't have arisen if all nations had to submit the same type of action plan. As such I hope China isn't planning on being too inflexible in pursuing the dual annex approach of the Kyoto Protocol that of course failed. In fact I may be tempted to say that Malaysia's naked aggression in the crashing of MH370 was intended to provoke China into retaliating by further entrenching this position.

(Originally Posted) 20:45 on 12/3/14 (UK date).