The fact that the IOC is allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes to take part in the 2024 Olympics in Paris is rightly highly controversial.
Innsbruck (OTS) – Exactly 231 days before the opening of the Olympics in Paris, the International Olympic Committee gave the green light for the start for athletes from Russia and Belarus – only individual athletes (not teams) who have no connection to the army and security organs and who support the war against never supported Ukraine. The competition will take place under a neutral flag and no Russian or Belarusian anthem will be played. And the anti-doping guidelines, which Russia has widely violated, should also be adhered to.
It’s about the athletes and not about politics, is the IOC leaders’ rationale for the decision. This is causing horror not only in Ukraine but also elsewhere, especially in the West. The IOC sets controversial facts for the consequences of which it must also bear responsibility. What happens if there are violations or escalations in Paris? Of course, Russian athletes, if they have not exposed themselves, cannot personally do anything about the Kremlin’s brutal war of aggression. But how can the IOC award medals to Russians knowing that hundreds of Ukrainian athletes have died since the start of the war?
The fairy tale of politics-free sport has never been true in the slightest. The IOC itself should know this best – from Adolf Hitler’s propaganda Olympics in 1936 to mutual blockades of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow by the USA and 1984 in Los Angeles by the USSR, from controversial Olympic awards to totalitarian states accompanied by allegations of corruption on organized state doping from the former GDR to most recently Russia. Sport is great for propaganda, especially for authoritarian systems. And the IOC has reopened the door for Vladimir Putin.
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