Olympic Games with athletes from Russia? “Be faced with incompatible positions” The club president allegedly cheated on the referee’s wife in revenge

The “hardest” question came from England. The British journalist reminded Thomas Bach that since its first Olympic Games as president in Sochi in 2014, Russia had been dancing on its nose, be it with doping fraud, the political instrumentalization of sport or the violation of the Olympic Truce:

With his usual stoic composure, Bach stressed that tough sanctions had been imposed on Russia, but that athletes should not be punished for government actions. “No athlete and no athlete from any country wants that.”

A year before the Summer Games, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) invited media representatives from around the world for a roundtable discussion. While the 69-year-old German praised gender equality and sustainability as outstanding elements of Paris 2024 in his opening words, the journalists were almost exclusively interested in whether Russian and Belarusian athletes would be allowed to start in Paris.

Russia decision tied to no schedule

Bach emphasized that this decision would be made “with due care” and did not want to commit to a binding timetable. However, the former top fencer reiterated that he would like governments to respect the idea of ​​the games as “peaceful competition among all nations” and not abuse them as a political weapon. “We are doing everything we can to fulfill this mission,” says Bach.

The idea that the youth of the world would rather duel on the sports field than fight each other on the battlefield came from the Frenchman Pierre de Coubertin and is considered to have guided the founding of the IOC in 1894. Coubertin’s vision was to continue than national interests to arrive at an international understanding. Bach clings to this idea about the Russia question.

At the same time, the IOC admitted that it was caught in a huge tension: “We are facing two irreconcilable positions. The Russian side wants the IOC to ignore the war. The Ukrainian side wants us to completely isolate anyone with Russian and Belarusian passports. Both positions are in direct opposition to the mandate of the IOC and the Olympic Charter.”

Participate in the World Cup, not the European Championship

Officially, the IOC recommends that Russians be allowed to participate in international competitions as neutral athletes if they do not actively support the war and are not employed by the military or other security forces. Teams and squads are excluded. The implementation of the recommendation lies with the individual sports, which leads to diametrically different situations.

Athletics and equestrian sports continue to ban participation, the World Gymnastics Association decided on Wednesday. In fencing, the world federation said yes, while the European continental federation said no. Russia and Belarus were also excluded from the European Crosssport Games in Poland at the end of June.

While the IOC appeals to a global majority of athletes, federations and governments who do not want athletes to be discriminated against because of their passports and who support the IOC’s actions, 41 Western countries – including Switzerland – recently issued a conference statement calling for that Russia should not use sport to legitimize war. The Ukrainian participant in this event estimated the number of top Ukrainian athletes and coaches killed in the war at 317.