Kyiv – Ukraine on Friday stepped up efforts to lobby international sports leaders against Russia’s participation in next year’s Paris Olympics amid mounting signs the games could face their biggest boycott since the Cold War.
A meeting of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee did not commit to a boycott but approved plans to consult and persuade sports officials around the world over the next two months.
Committee members voted in favor of “consultation on preventing Russian and Belarusian athletes from participating in all international competitions and a possible boycott.”
The International Olympic Committee is pushing to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete in the Paris 2024 Games. They would compete as “neutral athletes” without their national flags or anthems.
The IOC, which previously recommended banning Russians and Belarusians from world sport on security grounds, argues that it cannot discriminate against them solely on the basis of their citizenship, citing comments from United Nations officials.
Ukraine wants Russia and Belarus completely banned from the Olympics. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said every neutral flag was “stained with blood”.
Also on Friday, the prime ministers of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania called on the IOC to ban Russian athletes, saying a boycott is possible.
Ukraine has boycotted some sporting events over the past year instead of competing against the Russians.
Speakers at the Ukrainian Olympic Committee gathering on Friday raised concerns that Russia is using the Paris event for propaganda purposes, citing close ties between some competitors and the country’s military.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday that if athletes from the two countries compete, “it should be absolutely clear that they are not representing the Russian or Belarusian states.” The United States will host the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
If the IOC’s proposal goes through, Paris would be the fourth consecutive Olympiad where Russian athletes have competed without a national flag or anthem. The Russian teams at the 2018 and 2022 Winter Olympics and the 2021 Summer Olympics have all been caught in the aftermath of a years-long string of doping cases.
The last time multiple countries boycotted an Olympics was in 1988, when North Korea and others refused to participate in the Summer Games in South Korea. The North Korean team failed to show up for the Tokyo Games in 2021, citing concerns about the coronavirus pandemic. The IOC subsequently excluded it from the following Winter Games in Beijing, stating that teams were obliged to take part in all Olympic Games.
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