Will the Olympics open with Russian athletes?

"A single incident would be enough to turn the Olympic Games into a platform for supporting the war", states a letter from the Baltic National Olympic Committee to the IOC. KEYSTONE

A next round of debate about Russian athletes at the Summer Games is starting. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is faced with the question of whether Russia's athletes should also be allowed to take part in the Olympic opening ceremonies.

Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, is facing the next complex decision in the ongoing Olympic debate about Russia’s athletes. Will the athletes from Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin’s country be allowed to take part in the opening ceremony of the Summer Games in Paris on July 26 or will they be barred from the planned extravaganza which will include 160 boats on the Seine? This is the question that the heads of the International Olympic Committee want to answer on Tuesday at the start of their discussions over two days in Lausanne.

The heads of the Paralympics have already submitted their proposals. Russians and Belarusians, who are only allowed to participate as neutral athletes anyway due to the war of aggression in Ukraine, will remain excluded from the opening and closing ceremonies for paralympic athletes. This decision has not yet been made for the Olympics. However, shortly before the meeting of the IOC Executive Board, the National Olympic Committees of the Baltic states pushed for a similar vote.

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“We are firmly convinced that they can under no circumstances be allowed to take part in the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris,” wrote the presidents Urmas Sõõrumaa (Estonia), Janis Buks (Latvia) and Daina Gudzineviciute (Lithuania) in a letter addressed to Bach.

Russia rules out Olympic boycott

It was only after months of discussion that the Olympic governing body made a controversial decision to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete at the Paris Games. They are not allowed to compete under their own flags, their anthems are not played, and national symbols are prohibited at the competitions. Teams are not allowed to compete at all.

Because of these conditions, a Russian boycott of the Olympics has long been on the cards, especially as the IOC has also suspended the country’s National Olympic Committee. The reason for this is that the National Olympic Committee has included the four annexed Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhia. This action is a “blatant violation of the Olympic Charter”, IOC President Bach recently emphasised. The international Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) recently rejected Russia’s appeal against the suspension.

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However, a complete ban on Russian athletes competing in Paris is out of the question for Minister of Sport Oleg Matyzin, despite all the verbal sparring in recent months. “My position is that we should not close ourselves off, shut ourselves off or boycott this movement,” said Matyzin. “We should maintain the possibility of dialogue as much as possible and compete in competitions,” added the top politician.

Critics fear Russian propaganda at the Summer Games

These comments in turn fuel the concerns of those who criticize giving Russian athletes permission to compete. There are no neutral athletes in Russia, Ukrainian Sports Minister Matwij Bidny recently told the German Press Agency. “They are being used for Russian propaganda,” warned Bidny.

There are still major doubts as to how the IOC intends to ensure that the athletes from Russia who are authorised to compete are really not part of the army or the security forces and do not support the war in any way. “Anyone who was prepared by the Russian army sports clubs will not be there,” assured IOC Vice President John Coates. The IOC announced a further independent procedure following the review processes of the international sports federations, but details remain unclear.

“It’s not transparent at the moment,” said Ukrainian Sports Minister Bidny. The German Athletes’ Association also criticised the opaque situation and claims to have already identified breaches of the rules.

Probably only a small number of Russian athletes in Paris

The Ukrainian Olympic Committee pointed out to the IOC that a number of Russians and Belarusians who were allowed to take part in the qualifying competitions did not fulfil the IOC conditions. A database had been created with screenshots and videos of 700 athletes from Russia who supported Russian aggression against Ukraine, said Minister Bidny.

According to Coates, the fact that a delegation of only 40 participants from the former sports powerhouse may be present in Paris is little consolation. Despite doping sanctions, 335 Russians still took part in Tokyo 2021. However, the letter from the Baltic National Olympic Committee to the IOC states: “A single incident would be enough to turn the Olympic Games into a platform for supporting the war.”

Adapted from German by DeepL/dkk/amva

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