Vladimir Putin on Thursday accused the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of “ethnic discrimination”, because Russian athletes should only participate in limited numbers in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris and under a neutral banner in retaliation for the Russian assault against the Ukraine. “Thanks to some leaders of the current International Olympic Committee, we have learned that … the Games themselves can be used as an instrument of political pressure against people who have nothing to do with politics and , de facto, (as a) crude instrument of racist, ethnic discrimination,” he lambasted during a speech on sport in Perm (Urals).
The IOC has not yet decided
For the IOC, “an invitation to the Games is not an unconditional right for the best athletes, but a kind of privilege,” the Russian president further criticized. He judged that world sport needed “new organizational and legal forms” in the form of leagues, associations and clubs, which could “undermine the current system” dominated by large international structures.
The debate on the participation or not of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the Paris Olympic Games next year has agitated the world of sport for several months. Russian athletes were banned from all international competitions after the launch of the Russian offensive in Ukraine in February 2022. In March 2023, the IOC, however, recommended their reinstatement in international competitions outside the Olympics, on the condition that they compete under the banner neutral, as individuals, and that they did not “actively support the war in Ukraine”.
Concerning the 2024 Games, the IOC has not yet decided, postponing its decision “at the appropriate time”. kyiv, for its part, threatened to boycott the Paris Olympics if Russians and Belarusians were allowed to participate. Another dispute: on October 12, the IOC suspended the Russian Olympic committee for having placed under its authority several sports organizations in Ukrainian regions occupied by the Russian army.
The International Paralympic Committee (IPC) has already voted in favor of the participation of Russians and Belarusians under a neutral banner and under strict conditions of neutrality in the Paralympic Games in Paris next summer. Russia was already the subject of exclusion from world sport a few years before the offensive in Ukraine for having organized a state system of doping of its athletes. Belarus is also subject to sanctions because this unconditional ally of Russia lent its territory to the Russian army to attack Ukraine in February 2022.