The case has been agitating international sports and diplomatic bodies for several months: should Russian and Belarusian athletes be allowed to participate, under neutral status, in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games (OG)? Following the recommendations of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), several international federations have announced the return of athletes from the two countries to their competitions, almost a year after a ban, decided in the wake of the invasion of Ukraine. . But their presence at the Olympics in the French capital is not yet decided. The IOC must formalize its decision in the summer of 2023.
Associate Professor of Sports Management at the University of Technology Sydney, Australian Daryl Adair looked at the use of sports sanctions against Russia, the position of the IOC and the reaction of Russian athletes in the collective work The Geopolitical Economy of Sport. Power, Politics, Money, and the State (Ed. Routledge, 318 pages, to be published June 6).
What do you think of the IOC’s choice to encourage the return, under a neutral banner, of Russian and Belarusian athletes to international competitions?
At the Tokyo Games [en 2021]Russian athletes officially competed as members of a neutral delegation, under the banner of the ROC, the Russian Olympic Committee [la Russie était alors sous le coup de sanctions pour le scandale de dopage des Jeux de Sotchi en 2014]. The IOC, despite believing that the Russian state had no right to participate, allowed the ROC to operate more or less as if nothing had happened. What was different from normal? The absence of the national flag, the fact that the anthem was not played, that the medals were not counted with the mention of the “country” Russia and that the athletes displayed the emblem of the ROC.
In the weeks following the invasion of Ukraine, the IOC reacted strongly, believing that the Olympic sports federations should not welcome Russian teams or athletes. He now asserts that the latter cannot be held responsible for the decisions of their government, but that, given the war, the Russian state cannot be represented. Once again, it is proposed that supposedly “neutral” athletes can line up for competitions. The source of the initial IOC ban, namely the presence of the Russian army on Ukrainian soil, however, has not changed. Either the body was wrong in March 2022, or it is wrong today.
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