IOC President, Thomas Bachdenounced the Ukrainian threats to boycott the JJ.OO. Paris-2024 if Russian and Belarusian athletes take part in thembecause “they go against the principles of the Olympic movement”, according to an email revealed this Thursday by the Ukrainian committee.
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The dissemination of the letter occurs on the eve of a conference that will bring together the sports ministers of various countries in London on Friday, and that will be dedicated to the presence of these athletes at the Olympic event in Parisdetails afp.
the ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky He will deliver the inaugural speech of this summit by videoconference, in which he is expected to attack again the IOC plans for Paris-2024.
In the letter, dated January 31, Thomas Bach assures that Ukrainian “pressures” are perceived as “extremely unfortunate” by “the vast majority” of the different Olympic actors, from the National Olympic Committees (NOCs) to the international federations.
According to Bach, “the CNO of Ukraine certainly does not enjoy the support or solidarity of the vast majority of the parties that make up the Olympic movement.”
And as history has shown, the previous boycotts did not achieve their political objectives and only served to punish the athletes” of the aforementioned countries, continues Bach, who was deprived of the defense of his Olympic team foil title by the German boycott of the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow.
The Olympic leader also recalls that any sports boycott “is a violation of the Olympic Charter”, without explicitly evoking sanctions, such as the one decreed against North Korea, deprived of the Winter Games in Beijing-2022 for not having sent a team to Tokyo-2020.
Finally, Bach ensures that the participation under a neutral flag of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the Games-2024 “has not even been discussed in concrete terms”, thus describing kyiv’s efforts to prevent it as “premature”.
IOC urges all federations to cancel tests in Russia and Belarus
Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at the end of February 2022, athletes from the two countries were excluded from most world events. (D)
Source: Eluniverso
Tristin is an accomplished author and journalist, known for his in-depth and engaging writing on sports. He currently works as a writer at 247 News Agency, where he has established himself as a respected voice in the sports industry.
