How IOC President Bach wants to reintegrate Russian athletes into the sporting world

Thomas Bach also has to take note of the current division of sympathies in Western Europe with regard to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. His speech on Wednesday evening at the Ruhr Political Forum on the topic of “Olympic Games on the tension between sport and politics” became a challenge for him.

First, the 69-year-old chairman of the Olympic Committee had to go to the conference location in Essen through a group of 150 demonstrators armed with banners and slogans. And also in the audience the critical questioners received a warmer applause than himself.

Bach spoke for an hour at this forum, which was founded in 1990 and is intended to promote socio-political dialogue. About 1000 opinion leaders and executives from the Ruhr area were in the audience. Former world-class fencer Bach admitted the IOC “is faced with a dilemma” over the question of Russia’s return to world sport.

Bach demands that politics does not interfere

At the same time, he left little doubt as to how the Executive will decide on the matter at Tuesday’s meeting. From now on you will see athletes from Russia and Belarus again in competitions – under a “neutral flag” and with a “strictly neutral attitude”.

In his speech, Bach emphasized the importance of peaceful competition between athletes from all over the world who “all follow the same rules”. And the German sports official demanded that ultimately “politics should not decide who takes part in which sporting events”. Bach called for respect for the “responsible autonomy of sport”.

The IOC president again cited a UN report calling on the IOC to “ensure non-discrimination against athletes on the basis of nationality”. This is binding on his organization. Excluding them would set a precedent that would result in “the disintegration of the sports system as we know it today,” he predicted.

The declaration is prepared step by step

The IOC has already published the results of surveys by athlete committees in Africa and Asia in recent days, which clearly indicated a return of the warmongers. In fact, opposition to this is centered in the Western world and Bach can always refer to a majority at any time when he makes a decision in favor of Russia, at least quantitatively.

Thomas Bach stressed that the current discussions are not about the participation of athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport in the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris. However, no one can seriously doubt that the upcoming IOC decision is a clear indication of this.

The long-time IOC official sensed the atmosphere in the room during his speech. Intermittent applause broke out as he spoke of Ukraine’s demand for “the total isolation of all Russians”. He hadn’t planned it that way.

Critical questions from the audience

The question-and-answer session was definitely a mood test, criticizing him for talking about sporting venues and not battlefields, correcting his assessment that the meeting of Russians and Ukrainians in tennis works well and emphasizing that the military is the biggest sponsor of Russian sports.

A Ukrainian diplomat revised a statement by Bach, who spoke of the tension between politics and sport: “There is no such tension in Russia: sport is politics,” she says to the applause of the audience. (aargauerzeitung.ch)