The president of the International Olympic Committee denounced Ukrainian threats to boycott the 2024 Paris Olympics if Russian and Belarusian athletes participate, on the eve of a conference on Friday on this subject between the sports ministers of several countries.
Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, who will speak at the opening of this conference organized by London, has repeatedly called for the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes from the next Olympic Games, calling again this week to “protect the Olympic charter” .
In a letter dated January 31 and revealed Thursday by the Ukrainian Olympic Committee, IOC President Thomas Bach denounced this posture as going “against the fundamentals of the Olympic movement”. Thomas Bach also assures that the Ukrainian “pressures” are perceived as “extremely regrettable” by “the vast majority” of National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and international federations.
The IOC boss also recalls that any sports boycott “is a violation of the Olympic Charter”, without however explicitly mentioning sanctions, while North Korea was deprived by the IOC of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics for n haven’t sent a team to those in Tokyo in 2021.
A front in support of Ukraine against the IOC
The United Kingdom, fervent supporter of Ukraine since the start of the war, criticized the IOC’s position, as did many other European states, including the Czech Republic, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and even the Poland. “We must ask the IOC to demonstrate that the values of Olympism mean something. We must be clear that there are consequences to this illegal invasion, ”said British Sports Minister Lucy Frazer, quoted by the PA agency.
The IOC set fire to the powder at the end of January, by proposing a roadmap to organize the return of these athletes under a neutral flag, provided that they had “not actively supported the war in Ukraine”. “No athlete should be banned from competition on the sole basis of his passport,” assured the executive of this body.
This position is unacceptable for kyiv, which immediately threatened a boycott, accusing the Olympic body of being “a promoter of war, murder and destruction”. Since then, a front has been organized in support of kyiv, even if only a handful of states are considering a boycott, such as Estonia and Poland. Latvia has thus warned that it will not ” [participerait] not at the Games alongside the aggressor country”.
France does not know on which foot to dance
In early February, Polish Sports Minister Kamil Bortniczuk said he expected around 40 countries to oppose the participation of Russians and Belarusians at Friday’s conference. The United States, on the other hand, came out in favor of the neutral banner compromise.
For France and the City of Paris, organizer of these Games, the question is more and more sensitive. The mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, visiting kyiv on Thursday, spoke out against the participation of Russian athletes “as long as Russia continues to wage war on Ukraine”, after having defended their coming “under a neutral banner “, so as not to” deprive the athletes of their competition “. The French President Emmanuel Macron also indicated on Thursday that he had “spoken” with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky about a possible exclusion of Russian athletes from the Games, specifying that he would personally decide “in the summer”.