If Anne Hidalgo does not want Russian athletes “as long as there is war” in Ukraine, the government is less vocal about the debate on the possible participation of Russian athletes in the Paris 2024 Olympics, and relies on it to the decision of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which will be pronounced “by the summer”.
On Tuesday, the spokesman for the French government Olivier Véran did not however close the door to an exclusion of Russian sportsmen by evoking “the constancy of France on the wish that all that is sanction can apply fully and entirely ” .
At the end of January, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky demanded from his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron that the Russians be banned from the next Olympics. Despite repeated calls from kyiv to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from the 2024 Olympics, the IOC said it was “studying” the possibility of allowing them to participate, under a “neutral banner”. “No position has yet been formally agreed with the IOC”, “I let international cooperation take place”, underlined Olivier Véran.
“Doping is not the same as massacring a people”
On the sidelines of a press conference at the organizing committee of the Olympic Games on Wednesday, Tony Estanguet, its president, also returned the ball to the International Olympic Committee. “It is up to the IOC to decide at the end whether the Russian delegation will be authorized to participate in the Paris Olympics”, he repeated, remaining faithful to what he has been saying since the body opened the door ajar. a return of the Russians under a neutral banner.
Present at this same conference, Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy mayor of Paris, for his part felt that the mayor Anne Hidalgo had “a very clear expression, and I now believe [qui est celle] many countries, many sports federations”. “This is a call for peace that everyone should hear. It is in dialogue with Paris 2024 but above all with the IOC, which is the decision-maker in the matter,” he added.
Asked about the change of footing of the mayor of Paris, who said she was in favor of participation under a “neutral banner” at the beginning of January, Emmanuel Grégoire replied that she had “analyzed the situation a little”: “it is not not the same as doping and massacring a people”.