“No place for murderers“, “No Olympics for Russia and Belarus“. People demonstrated with such and similar posters on Wednesday evening in front of the Philharmonie in Essen. Above all people from Ukraine. In view of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine, they are against athletes from Russia being allowed to start at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris .
In the Philharmonic was the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) Thomas Bach as a guest. In front of hundreds of guests from politics, business and society, he spoke about the topic “Olympia in the field of tension between sport and politics” spoken.
Are Russian athletes allowed to compete in the Olympics?
So far it has IOC has not yet made a decision on how it intends to deal with athletes from Russia and Belarus at the next Olympic Games.
But there is a tendency: the athletes could take part in the games as neutral athletes without a flag, without an anthem and without any other identification. President Bach refers to the political neutrality of the IOC.
On the Ukraine side, these plans are causing a lack of understanding. The Minister of Sports of Ukraine has therefore announced a boycott of the Olympic Games if Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to take part. In Germany, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser (SPD) responsible for sports. The plans of IOC are, in their view, the “completely wrong way“.
IOC-President faces demonstrators in Essen
Before the event in the Essen Philharmonic Hall IOC-President Bach met with three of the protesters to explain his point of view. Among others, the former soccer player from Rot-Weiss Essen Igor Denysiuk was there. He was disappointed after the meeting. Thomas Bach did not indicate that Russian athletes could be excluded from the Olympic Games.