MOSCOW-. Russia should not “boycott” Paris Olympic Gamesassured on Wednesday his minister of SportsOleg Matytsin, despite the restrictions imposed on the participation of Russian athletes in reaction to the military campaign in Ukraine.
“We must not deviate, close ourselves, boycott this movement,” declared the minister in a meeting in which he referred to the Paris Games scheduled this summer (July 26 – August 11), according to comments collected by the state agency Tass. .
These statements dispel months of speculation about the Russian response to the drastic conditions imposed, in early December, by the International Olympic Committee on the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the big event in Paris.
The IOC has not only imposed participation under a neutral flag on athletes from both countries (a device created during the 1992 Barcelona Olympics for Serbs and Montenegrins, targets of international sanctions), but has added a series of unprecedented criteria.
The affected athletes will only be able to participate as individuals, prohibiting any demonstration of Russian sporting power during the team events, and they will not be able to have actively supported the Russian offensive in Ukraine, a point verified first by the international federations and then by the IOC. .
– “Humiliating” treatment
As a final obstacle, the athletes will need to pass the classification tests, despite the fact that some international federations reinstated them very late and others, such as athletics, maintain their total exclusion.
Russia has not ceased to judge the treatment of its athletes as “humiliating” and discriminatory, and President Vladimir Putin has been keeping his opinion on participation in the Paris Games for months.
“To go or not to go? The conditions must be carefully analyzed,” he declared in December, when only eight Russians and three Belarusians met the IOC criteria.
But after rumors of an alleged Russian boycott shook the world of sport In the northern winter, Oleg Matytsin assessed that “as far as possible, we must preserve the possibility of dialogue and participation in competitions.”
In any case, the minister declared to wait for the next meeting of the IOC executive commission, from March 19 to 21.
“We will see what the IOC’s final decision will be (…) but so far the position is that there are no new recommendations or regulations,” he said.
The IOC has always presented its December decision as final, but it still has to address one point: the presence of Russians and Belarusians during the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, after the International Paralympic Committee has prohibited them from participating in the Olympics. Paralympic Games on August 28.
Fracture risk
Since the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army supported by Belarus at the end of February 2022, the IOC has sought a complicated balance between several delicate issues.
Thus, the Lausanne-based institution has attempted to sanction this blatant violation of the Olympic truce decreed for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and take into account the great Western hostility towards Russian athletes, but at the same time preserve the participation of all. athletes, without political consideration.
“With great regret”, the IOC initially recommended the exclusion of Russians and Belarusians from international competitions to preserve their own security and avoid an avalanche of boycotts, before organizing their progressive return from March 2023.
In addition, the organization keeps an eye on the competitions launched by Russia, such as the Future Games, the BRICS Games in Kazan or the World Friendship Games, which will be held from September 15 to 29 in Moscow and Yekaterinburg, all them with an associated risk of fracturing the sport International.
Before the offensive against Ukraine, Russia already had limited participation in the Olympic Games due to a series of institutional doping scandals that discredited a large number of Russian athletes and officials.
Despite numerous evidence, the Kremlin denied any organized doping system and also described the sanctions as punitive anti-Russian measures.
Source: AFP
