GENEVA – The IOC stepped up its efforts on Thursday explain his position in a bid to help Russian athletes qualify for next year’s Paris Olympics amid a backlash from Ukraine and its allies.
The step of the International Olympic Committee last week to map a route to Paris for athletes from Russia and Belarus, who did not actively support the war, provoked strong objections from Ukraine, which wants these countries to remain banned from most international sports.
The Olympic body on Thursday released a series of explanations and rebuttals to its critics and also responded to the President of Ukraine Invitation from Volodymyr Zelenskyy for his IOC colleague Thomas Bach to return and see the ruined city of Bakhmut.
“There are currently no plans for another visit to Ukraine,” the IOC said, noting that Bach visited Kyiv last July and has been on the phone with Zelenskyy since then.
The IOC again quoted the opinion of two UN human rights experts who believe that Russians and Belarusians should not be discriminated against just because of their passport. Instead, they could compete under a neutral flag.
That view has been challenged in recent days by two Ukrainian medalists at the Tokyo Olympics, tennis player Elina Svitolina and high jumper Yaroslava Mahuchikh, as well as boxer Wladimir Klitschko, who won gold at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. They want a total ban from Paris for Russia and Belarus.
Olympic officials in Ukraine have warned they may boycott Paris and are meeting to discuss it on Friday.
“It is extremely unfortunate to escalate this discussion at this early stage with a boycott threat,” the IOC said on Thursday.
Olympic officials in Latvia and Poland are also threatening a boycott, and those countries have been joined by Estonia and Lithuania in a statement Thursday by sport ministers suggesting that the sports debate was being used “as a distraction from illegal aggression against Ukraine.”
“It is natural that there are dissenting voices mainly from Ukraine’s neighboring countries due to their specific situation,” said the IOC, whose Olympic Charter obliges the 206 national Olympic bodies to send a team to the Summer Games.
Speaking at the White House on Thursday, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the United States had “worked to hold Russia accountable for the brutal and barbaric war” before recognizing the IOC’s position.
“In cases where sports organizations and event organizers such as the International Olympic Committee allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to participate in sporting events, it should be absolutely clear that they are not representing the Russian or Belarusian states,” she said.
The IOC also responded to the comparison with South Africa during the apartheid era, which was banned from the Olympics for more than 20 years, noting that there were then UN sanctions and also, as athletes from the former Yugoslavia, as independents competed in neutrals at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
“There are currently no UN sanctions against Russia and Belarus,” the IOC said.
Russia, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, can veto any of its proposed resolutions.
The IOC also noted it has set up a $7.5 million relief fund to help more than 3,000 Ukrainian athletes.
“The IOC is deeply saddened by the deaths of members of the Olympic community in Ukraine who lost their lives in this war,” it said.
Government pressure on athletes and sporting bodies should also be resisted, the IOC said, adding its stated mission was “to unite the whole world in peaceful competition”.
Ultimately, the governing bodies of each Olympic sport should decide the conditions under which athletes can compete in Paris.
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