“Russians must participate under exactly the same conditions as all other athletes. All additional conditions and criteria are not welcome, especially those with a political component that is absolutely unacceptable for the Olympic Movement”declared Stanislas Pozdniakov, quoted by the Russian press agencies.
“The Olympic Charter stipulates that all athletes must participate on an equal footing”he insisted.
These statements come a day after fresh criticism from Ukraine about the possibility that the IOC it allows Russian and Belarusian athletes to be at the Olympic Games with a neutral flag as long as they “have not actively supported” the Kremlin’s military intervention in Ukraine.
An adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, Mijáilo Podoliakharshly criticized the IOC and its president, Thomas BachMonday.
“The IOC is a promoter of war, murder and destruction. The IOC watches with pleasure as Russia destroys Ukraine and then offers Russia a platform to promote genocide” of Ukrainians, he wrote on Twitter.
kyiv has threatened the IOC in recent days with boycotting the Paris-2024 Olympic Games in case of Russian participation.
The IOC reacted to Podoliak’s criticism on Monday, saying it was rejecting “in the strongest possible terms” those words and “defamatory comments” about them.
For the moment, the IOC allows each international federation to establish in its sport the criteria on the vetoes of Russian or Belarusian athletes.
In the evening, an IOC spokesman assured that the sanctions remain in force and are “non-negotiable”.
“They were unanimously confirmed at the recent Olympic summit on December 9”.
And the penalties are: “No international sports event organized or supported by an international sports federation or a national Olympic committee in Russia or Belarus”.
“The flag, anthem, colors or any other identification of these countries will not be displayed at any sporting event or meeting”.
“No government or state official of Russia and Belarus should be invited or accredited for any international sporting event or meeting”.
From its territory and from neighboring Belarus, the Russian army launched an invasion of Ukraine on February 24, three days after the closing of the Winter Olympics held in Beijing, violating the Olympic Charter.
The position of the IOC spokesman contrasts with that of the entity itself last week, when it proposed a roadmap to organize the return of athletes from these two countries “as long as they have not supported the war in Ukraine”, provoking the anger of kyiv, which threatened to boycott the Games.
This Tuesday, Poland and the Baltic countries (Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia) showed their support for Ukraine by opposing the presence in Paris of Russian and Belarusian athletes.
“The decision to allow Russians and Belarusians to participate in the next Games is immoral and wrong,” tweeted Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics, who called for the sanction to be maintained as long as Russian troops remain on Ukrainian soil.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas considered that allowing athletes from those two countries to participate “would make a mockery of the Ukrainians and of the tens of thousands of them who have died in the worst crime against humanity perpetrated in Europe since the WWII”.
Occupied by the Red Army during World War II, the three Baltic countries were annexed to the Soviet Union until the disappearance of the USSR in 1990.
Poland also lived under the Moscow-controlled communist regime until 1989.
Source: Ambito
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