The Ukrainian presidency raised the tone on Monday against the International Olympic Committee, accusing it of examining the possibility for Russian athletes to participate in the 2024 Olympics under a neutral banner. “The IOC is a promoter of war, murder and destruction. He watches Russia destroy Ukraine with pleasure and then offers Russia a platform to promote the genocide “of the Ukrainians, launched, on Twitter, the adviser to the presidency, Mykhaïlo Podoliak, personally targeting Thomas Bach, the German boss of the Committee.
“Obviously the money that buys Olympic hypocrisy does not smell of Ukrainian blood. Right, Mr. Bach? “, he let go. Faced since February 2022 with the Russian invasion, which has put Ukraine on fire and blood, kyiv is demanding to ban athletes from Russia and Belarus, an ally of the Kremlin, from the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris.
But the IOC said on Wednesday that it was “studying” the possibility of allowing them to participate under a neutral banner, while Russians and Belarusians have been excluded from most international competitions since the start of the invasion. These proposals aroused the ire of the Ukrainians. The president, Volodymyr Zelensky, on Friday denounced the “hypocrisy” of the IOC and invited Thomas Bach to visit Bakhmout, one of the hottest points of the war with Russia.
On Sunday, he said in his daily address that he wrote a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron about it. “Olympism and terrorist states must not intersect,” said Volodymyr Zelensky, while the Ukrainian Minister of Sports threatened on Thursday to boycott the 2024 Olympics.