Ukraine tries to build a front against the Russian presence at the Paris 2024 Olympics

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that the presence of Russian athletes at the 2024 Olympics in Paris would be “a sign of violence and impunity”, trying to convince sports ministers from several countries on Friday.

“While Russia kills and terrorizes, the representatives of this terrorist state have no place in sports and Olympic competitions,” Mr. Zelensky pleaded during a meeting by videoconference.

According to the British government, which is “coordinating a joint statement” addressed “in the coming days” to the IOC, “ministers or high representatives” of European countries including France, Germany and Poland, “as well as the United States and Canada,” participated in this interview.

“The mere presence of representatives of the terrorist state is a manifestation of violence and impunity,” Mr. Zelensky continued, adding, “And that cannot be covered up by a so-called neutrality or a white flag. »

Ukraine is against the possibility of a presence of Russian and Belarusian athletes at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, including under a neutral banner, envisaged by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) without anything having been decided yet. in this sense. She threatened to boycott the competition.

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”.

No more boycotts since the Cold War

According to Bach, the all-out threats and pressure from Kyiv are seen as “extremely regrettable” by “the vast majority” of National Olympic Committees (NOCs) and international federations.

“And as history has shown, previous boycotts have not achieved their political goals and have only served to punish athletes” in the countries concerned, added the German, himself deprived of the defense of his Olympic title in team foil by Berlin’s boycott of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

The boss of the IOC also recalls that any sporting boycott “is a violation of the Olympic Charter”, without however explicitly mentioning sanctions.

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, came out in favor of the neutral banner compromise.

“The situation in Ukraine has not changed since the initial decision of the IOC, last February (2022, editor’s note), to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from competitions,” said British Culture Minister Lucy Frazer on Friday. at this summit.

” As long as [le président russe Vladimir] Putin continues his war, Russia and Belarus must not be allowed to compete on the world stage or be represented at the Olympics,” she continued.

Macron is waiting for the summer

But so far only a handful of states are considering a boycott, such as Estonia and Poland. Latvia has thus warned that it will not “participate (have) in the Games alongside the aggressor country”, a decision which would be unprecedented since the boycotts of the Olympic Games-1980 in Moscow then the Olympic Games-1984 in Los Angeles during the War. cold.

Mr. Zelensky assured him on Friday that Moscow would use the participation of Russian athletes for “war propaganda” purposes.

“If Olympic sports were about killing and hitting with missiles, then you know which national team would be in first place,” he quipped.

Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine almost a year ago, Russian and Belarusian athletes have been banned from most world events, although some sports such as cycling or tennis admit their participation under a neutral banner.

But the IOC proposed at the end of January a roadmap to organize the return of these athletes under a neutral flag, on condition that they had “not actively supported the war in Ukraine”: the decision to admit them, sport by sport, will depend on the international federations.

French President Emmanuel Macron, whose country is hosting the 2024 Olympics, said he wanted to speak personally “in the summer”. For the time being discreet on this file, the Head of State had assured a few months ago, on the occasion of the World Cup-2022 football in Qatar, that it was not necessary “to politicize sport”.

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