Olympic chiefs on Tuesday recommended the return to competition of Russian and Belarusian athletes as individual neutrals, but refused to give a timeline on their potential participation at next year’s Paris Olympics.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach said the body’s executive board had recommended to international federations and international sports event organizers that “athletes with a Russian or a Belarusian passport must compete only as individual neutral athletes.”
The move to “postpone” the decision about Russian and Belarusian athletes competing at the Games in France was welcomed by Ukraine.
Photo: AFP
“The decision on the admission of Russians and Belarusians to the Olympics in 2024 has been postponed,” Ukrainian Minister of Youth and Sports Vadym Gutzeit wrote on Facebook.
“We will also make joint efforts so that not a single Z-patriot gets into international sports arenas,” he added in an apparent reference to pro-war Russians.
German Minister of the Interior and Community Nancy Faeser called the recommendation for Russians and Belarusians to return as neutrals a “slap in the face” for Ukrainian athletes, who she said “deserve the solidarity of international sport.”
“International sport must condemn Russia’s brutal war of aggression in no uncertain terms. This can only be done with the complete exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes,” she said.
Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said the decision was “an outrage and a betrayal of the true spirit of sport.”
Moscow said that forcing Russians to compete under a neutral flag would amount to “discrimination.”
“The announced criteria for the return to international competitions are unacceptable. This is discrimination on the basis of nationality,” Russian news agencies quoted Russian Olympic Committee president Stanislav Pozdnyakov as saying.
Among other IOC recommendations — which Bach said were agreed to unanimously — the committee said that “teams of athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport cannot be considered.”
Also missing out would be “athletes who actively support the war,” as well as “athletes who are contracted to the Russian or Belarusian military or national security agencies.”
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