Russia considers ‘unacceptable’ the call to ban its athletes from the Olympic and Paralympic Games

The subject of participation of Russian athletes in international competitions remains a hot topic on the world stage. Russia denounced, on Saturday February 11, the call to ban Russian athletes from the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the day after a meeting where Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for such a measure, in the midst of armed conflict with Moscow. “The attempt to dictate the conditions for the participation of athletes in international competitions is absolutely unacceptable. (…) We are currently seeing an undisguised desire to destroy the unity of international sport”, said Russian Sports Minister Oleg Matytsin, quoted by Russian news agencies.

“Do everything so that sport is an ambassador of peace”

On Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky estimated that the presence of Russian athletes at the Paris Games would be “a sign of violence and impunity”, trying, during a meeting, to convince sports ministers from several countries. Those calling for an exclusion “would do better to take care of sport in their own countries and do everything so that sport is an ambassador of peace and helps to build bridges between peoples”, commented on Saturday Oleg Matytsin. He assured that “person” had called for the exclusion of American athletes from the 2004 Games, after Washington’s invasion of Iraq.

Ukraine is headwind against the possibility of a presence of Russian and Belarusian athletes at the Paris Games, including under a neutral banner, envisaged by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) without anything having yet been decided in that Sens. Moreover, the door left open by the IOC for several weeks regarding the reintegration of Russian and Belarusian athletes had satisfied Moscow, qualifying this announcement as “common sense”thus correcting “a mistake”.

Ukraine has threatened to boycott the competition if the Russians and Belarusians can again participate in the Olympics. The President of the IOC, Thomas Bach, denounced, in a letter dated January 31, this Ukrainian intransigence, which according to him goes “against the fundamentals of the Olympic movement”. Ukrainian hostility to the presence of Russian athletes is supported by kyiv’s traditional allies such as the United Kingdom and Poland. The United States, on the other hand, declared themselves in favor of the compromise of participation under a neutral banner.