Paris Olympics: Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says ‘no place’ for Russia at 2024 Games while invasion continues | Olympics News

The IOC argues it would be discriminatory to exclude Russia and ally Belarus from sports ahead of the 2024 Paris Games; with qualifying in many sports already under way, the IOC wants athletes from those countries to compete in a neutral capacity without national symbols

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russian athletes should be banned from the Paris Olympics

Russian athletes have “no place” at next year’s Paris Olympics while their country’s invasion of Ukraine continues, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told a summit of sports officials from about 30 countries.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) argues it would be discriminatory to exclude Russia and ally Belarus from sports ahead of the 2024 Paris Games. With qualifying in many sports already under way, the IOC wants athletes from those countries to compete in a neutral capacity without national symbols.

“While Russia kills and terrorises, representatives of the terrorist state have no place at sports and Olympic competitions,” Zelenskyy told the summit in an opening address by video link, according to a transcript issued by his office.

“And it cannot be covered up with some pretended neutrality or a white flag. Because Russia is now a country that stains everything with blood – even the white flag. It must be recognised. And this must be recognised, in particular, at the level of the International Olympic Committee,” Zelenskyy said. “The International Olympic Committee needs honesty. Honesty it has unfortunately lost. Honesty that will help stop Russian terror and bring peace closer.”

Zelenskyy made surprise visits to Britain and France on Wednesday, pushing for fighter jets to battle Russian invaders in a dramatic speech to the British Parliament.

Zelenskyy addresses Friday’s summit via videolink

Friday’s summit meeting, which was held online and chaired by British culture secretary Lucy Frazer, took place on a day of intense missile and drone strikes by Russian forces against Ukraine.

“Russia has destroyed Ukrainian sporting infrastructure and stopped opportunities for Ukrainian athletes,” Frazer said during the summit.

“There is danger here that the world wishes to move on and back to business as usual. However, the situation in Ukraine has not changed since the IOC’s initial decision last February on banning Russian and Belarusian athletes from competition.

“As long as Putin continues his war, Russia and Belarus must not be allowed to compete on the world stage or be represented at the Olympics.”

The UK government said in a statement issued after the summit it is “now coordinating a collective statement towards the IOC, which is expected to be agreed and published in the coming days”.

Ukrainian Sports Minister Vadym Guttsait said allowing Russians to compete would further traumatise athletes affected by the war.

“The participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in international competitions will make it impossible for Ukrainian athletes to take part in them, because each of the Ukrainians suffered from Russian aggression in one way or another: They lost their relatives and friends, lost their homes, received psychological trauma, lost the opportunity to do what they love,” Guttsait, who also leads the Ukrainian Olympic Committee, wrote in a letter to IOC president Thomas Bach and other Olympic leaders that was published on Thursday.

Zelenskyy met with Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak earlier this week

Ukraine has previously made public a letter from Bach to Guttsait saying that “threatening a boycott … goes against the fundamentals of the Olympic Movement and the principles we stand for”.

Political leaders of Ukraine’s nearby allies in Poland and the Baltic states have said there could be Olympic boycotts if the IOC forges ahead with its plan. Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo has said Russian and Belarusian athletes should be barred from the Olympics in her city if the war is still going on by then.

Hidalgo travelled to Kyiv on Thursday to meet mayor Vitali Klitschko and said she would “do everything” to convince the IOC. Russian athletes previously competed at the Olympics without national symbols as punishment for doping cases, and using a similar approach to deal with a war is not appropriate, Hidalgo argued.

The IOC, which last year backed excluding Russians and Belarusians from sporting events on safety grounds, also faces challenges from within its own movement. It has given the federations running individual Olympic sports the final say on the details of readmitting Russian and Belarusian athletes. The sports could impose different rules and move at different speeds, or challenge the IOC’s authority entirely.

The governing body of archery said last week it was “very unlikely” to allow any neutral athletes to compete in 2023, including at Olympic qualifiers. The IOC’s plan for Russians and Belarusians to qualify for the Olympics through competitions in Asia, instead of Europe, was not acceptable either, it added. The governing body of track and field has its own restrictions on the Russian team because of doping and its president, British Olympic great Sebastian Coe, has said his preferred solution would be for Russia to “get out of Ukraine”.

Olympic qualifiers are under way in some sports and start soon in many more. That leaves federations to grapple with how to reshape a process that they thought was finalised years ago.

It could also be up to them to implement the IOC’s plan to leave out Russian and Belarusian athletes deemed to be “actively supporting the war in Ukraine”. The IOC has not defined what constitutes support, while Russian officials have called it discriminatory and demanded the Olympic body scrap that condition entirely.

Ukraine is particularly concerned Russian athletes from military sports clubs or who hold military ranks could compete.

“In Russia, sport is an element of politics, powerful propaganda, in this case the promotion of war,” Guttsait wrote to Bach.

Many of the national Olympic committees have taken the IOC’s line, but some like Ukraine and Latvia say they would rather boycott than compete against Russian athletes. Five sports bodies in the Nordic countries said Tuesday they wanted a ban on athletes and officials from Russia and Belarus.