Ukraine on Friday reiterated its call to ban Russian athletes from the upcoming Olympic Games ahead of the International Olympic Committee board meeting next week that is expected to set the framework for their return to international sport.
Sports Minister and head of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee Vadym Guttsait strongly criticized the IOC for pushing for the reintegration of Russia and its ally Belarus. Any return, Guttsait warned, would highlight the inequity brought about by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
“We don’t have normal conditions to train and prepare for the Olympic Games. At the same time, the Russians have the essentials to train and develop in their country. They sleep at night, but we don’t sleep,” he told reporters.
The IOC is expected to establish the conditions for Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in qualifying events for the Paris Games next week. The IOC recommended excluding Russia and Belarus for safety shortly after last year’s invasion, but now advocates allowing athletes from both countries to compete as neutrals. The IOC ensures that maintaining the exclusion is passport discrimination.
On Wednesday, IOC President Thomas Bach indicated that they would resist political influence in the sport, adding that they would discuss the issue of Russian athletes with military rank at next week’s meeting. The IOC has said it will seek to ban athletes who have “actively supported” the war, but has not determined how that will work.
Ukraine is especially concerned about Russian athletes who are members of the Armed Forces or who represent military sports clubs.
“If the parameters are so weak, then what was the point of suspending Russia “(a year ago), to have it back now before the Olympics,” Guttsait said.
Guttsait reiterated that Ukraine could consider boycotting the Paris Olympics in protest, but only as “a last resort.”
Guttsait won gold in fencing—Bach’s sport—at the 1992 Olympics and was a teammate of Stanislav Pozdnyakov, the current president of the Russian Olympic Committee.
