Martin Fourcade in favor of the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes

Retired from the tracks for three years already, Martin Fourcade is a busy man, who is preparing his first “alone on stage” in the fall. But the former biathlete is also a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and president of the Paris 2024 Athletes’ Commission. And as such, he repeated on Wednesday that he was in favor of the return of Russians and Belarusians to international competitions.

“I have always advocated a notion of openness, that is to say to treat athletes as personalities and not as part of a system from which they are often very independent and for which they do not fight” , explained the five-time Olympic champion to AFP. “As an athlete, it would have affected me enormously to be judged not as an athlete, on what I was doing, but through the decisions of my country, even if I am French and very happy with the ‘being, I do not always support,’ he added, noting that he had ‘always been very clear with that’.

A reaffirmed position

The debate on the reintegration of Russian and Belarusian athletes, excluded from international competitions since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, remains lively. “These are discussions that I have regularly at the IOC, as part of my duties on the Athletes’ Commission”, noted Martin Fourcade.

In February, in an English interview with the NRK channel, the French champion had already said he was in favor of their return, stressing that he was speaking in a personal capacity and that it was a question of principle. : an athlete should not be banned “because his president is behaving like a madman”. As such, Russian and Belarusian athletes should be able to compete under a neutral banner, he added.

Since then, the IOC has issued recommendations to this effect, without however setting deadlines, and the return of these athletes is taking place in scattered order, in the light of the interpretation of the instructions and against the backdrop of the qualifying for the 2024 Paris Games.

All eyes are on the European Games, in Krakow, from June 21 to July 2, as they will weigh heavily in qualifying in several sports such as archery or table tennis, among those planning to reinstate Russians and Belarusians. The fencing tournament will not award any individual points in the race for Olympic qualification for athletes from both countries. Conversely, athletics has maintained its exclusion measures to this day.

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