(Warsaw) Poland, Ukraine and the three Baltic countries have opposed the reinstatement of Russian and Belarusian athletes in international competitions, according to a joint statement issued on Monday.
On the eve of a meeting of the Executive Board of the International Olympic Committee, “there is not a single reason to move away from the exclusion regime for Russian and Belarusian athletes established by the IOC more than a year ago. year”, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, said the five countries in their statement posted on the websites of their respective ministries of foreign affairs.
Pressed to clarify its position, the IOC will discuss on Tuesday a return of Russians and Belarusians to international events, a possibility that is causing diplomatic tensions in the run-up to the 2024 Olympics in Paris, whose qualifications have started for certain disciplines.
For the Olympic organization, the ban cannot go on forever: “no athlete should be banned from competition on the sole basis of his passport”, hammers the IOC for several months, relying among other things on the opinion of two United Nations experts.
Faced with these concerns, Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia believe that “it is not the nationality of the athletes that determines their role, but the fact that they are sponsored/supported by their governments or companies supporting the Russian regime, which continues its war of aggression against Ukraine, or even directly affiliated with the Russian military.”
Last Thursday, the German Fencing Federation gave up the organization of the Women’s Foil World Cup stage scheduled for early May in Tauberbischofsheim, judging that there were “too many open questions” on the reinstatement of the excluded fencers.
A few days later, the Ukrainian Federation of the discipline announced that it would boycott any competition in which Russian and Belarusian athletes would be engaged, a threat that already hovers over the 2024 Olympics from Ukraine as from Poland and the Baltic countries.
