The Ukrainian Olympic Committee will hold a meeting on Friday to discuss whether to boycott the 2024 Paris Olympics if Russians and Belarusians participate, even under a neutral flag.
By: Hernán Galindo M.
Photo: Red News
The decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to open the door to the readmission of Russian and Belarusian athletes to competitions, with conditions and under the premise that “no one can be discriminated against based on their passport”, has been received with indignation in Ukraine, with suspicion in Russia and with concern in other countries, although the federations and committees grouped under the Olympic umbrella have closed ranks around the measure.
The Ukrainian Olympic Committee will hold an extraordinary general assembly next Friday to discuss whether to boycott the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in the event that Russians and Belarusians participate, even under a neutral flag.
“Not a single renowned Russian athlete has openly condemned the Russian invasion and the actions of its political leaders,” Zhan Beleniuk, Olympic gold medalist in Tokyo 2020 in Greco-Roman wrestling and deputy in the Ukrainian Parliament, stressed to Efe on Tuesday.
According to him, the mere appearance of Russians and Belarusians in elite sport would be a sign that the international community is gradually “accepting” the Russian aggression against Ukraine.
Beleniuk is committed to creating a coalition with other national Olympic committees to put pressure on the IOC. Polish Sports Minister Kamil Bortniczuk declared last week that his country and the UK were leading efforts to form such a coalition.
Apart from Ukraine, most of the voices against the return of Russia come precisely from the governments and sports managers of countries geographically close to the conflict, such as Poland and the Baltic states, as well as the Nordics and the British. Also from independent sports associations.
Alejandro Blanco: “we are talking about Olympism, integration”
The president of the Spanish Olympic Committee (COE), Alejandro Blanco, was the last sports leader to speak on Tuesday, aligned with the IOC by recalling that Olympism is “integration”.
“There have been several IOC meetings, first with 150 athlete representatives, then with the world‘s 206 national committees and with both summer and winter international federations, and it was agreed to try to get Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate under two conditions: under a neutral flag and that they have not stood out in demonstrations in favor of the invasion,” he summarized.
“It is a very sensitive issue,” he admitted, “because we also have to put ourselves in the shoes of what Ukraine is suffering. It is hard and you have to understand the statements of the Ukrainian political and sports authorities. But we are talking about Olympics, integration, that we do not win anything if the Russians cannot participate in any competition. The Olympic Movement is above, it is far from politics, so that this meeting point is achieved through sport.
The person in charge of Spanish Olympism recalled that “there have already been more war problems and the Olympic Movement, and also the non-Olympic federations, have always tried to ensure that differences remain elsewhere and that we can achieve a better world through sport.”