kyiv, Warsaw and three Baltic countries oppose the reinstatement of Russian and Belarusian athletes

Is this the beginnings of a cascading decision? According to a joint statement issued on Monday March 27, Poland, Ukraine and the three Baltic countries – Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia – declare their opposition to the reinstatement of Russian and Belarusian athletes in international competitions, while the International Olympic Committee ( CIO) examines this dossier on Tuesday 28 March.

“There is not a single reason to move away from the exclusion regime for Russian and Belarusian athletes established by the IOC more than a year ago,” following the Russian invasion in Ukraine, estimated the five countries in their declaration published on the sites of their Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The IOC, in a hurry to clarify its position

Pressed to clarify its position, the IOC is discussing on Tuesday a return of Russians and Belarusians to international events, a possibility that is causing diplomatic tensions in the run-up to the 2024 Olympics in Paris, whose qualifications have started for certain disciplines. For the Olympic organization, the ban cannot go on forever. “No athlete should be banned from competition on the basis of their passport alone,” has been hammering the IOC for several months, relying among other things on the opinion of two United Nations experts.

Faced with these concerns, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia consider that “it is not the nationality of the athletes that determines their role, but the fact that they are sponsored/supported by their governments or companies supporting the Russian regime, which continues its war of aggression against Ukraine, or even that they are directly affiliated with the Russian army”.

Last Thursday, following the decision of the International Fencing Federation to reinstate from the beginning of April the Russian and Belarusian athletes, the German Fencing Federation gave up the organization of the Women’s Foil World Cup scheduled for early May in Tauberbischofsheim, judging that there was still “too many open questions” on the reinstatement of excluded shooters. A few days later, the Ukrainian Federation of the discipline announced that it would boycott any competition in which Russian and Belarusian athletes would be engaged, a threat which already hovers over the 2024 Games from these five countries that are Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.