KYIV – The International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Monday rejected fierce criticism from Ukrainian officials, who have accused the body of promoting war after it said Russians could potentially be given the opportunity to qualify for the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak at the weekend described the Lausanne-based body as promoting “violence, mass murders, destruction” and said on Monday a Russian presence at the Games would constitute giving the country “a platform to promote genocide”.
“The IOC watches with pleasure Russia destroying Ukraine and then offers Russia a platform to... encourage their further killings,” Podolyak said on Twitter.
“Obviously Russian money that buys Olympic hypocrisy doesn’t have a smell of Ukrainian blood. Right, Mr Bach?“ he added referring to IOC president Thomas Bach.
The IOC has since responded to those comments.
“The IOC rejects in the strongest possible terms this and other defamatory statements,” it said in a statement.
“They cannot serve as a basis for any constructive discussion.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who last week called for a campaign to keep Russian athletes from competing in Paris, asked Denmark’s visiting Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen for support on Monday.
In his nightly video address, Mr Zelensky pledged to “protect sports structures and the international Olympic movement from being discredited through the efforts of some representatives of sports bureaucracy to allow Russian athletes at international competitions”.
He added that he had also sent a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron on the matter following a phone call with him last week.
“We must be sure that Russia will not be able to use it (the Olympics) or any other international sporting event to promote aggression or its state chauvinism,” he said.
He also said that he had written to major international sports federations asking them to clarify their position on what he called the IOC’s desire to “open up sports to the propaganda influence of the terrorist state”.
Russia invaded neighbour Ukraine on Feb 24, 2022. Tens of thousands of people have been killed and millions driven from their homes.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba drew attention earlier to the fact that many Russian Olympians had ties with the military, including by competing for sports clubs affiliated with the defence ministry.
“The army that commits atrocities, kills, rapes, and loots. This is whom the ignorant IOC wants to put under white flag allowing to compete,” he wrote on Twitter.
Russia has denied allegations that its forces have committed atrocities in Ukraine.
The IOC said last week that it welcomed a proposal from the Olympic Council of Asia for Russian and Belarusian athletes to have the chance to compete in Asia.
That could potentially also include Olympic qualifying events, given that Russian and Belarusian athletes are unable to compete in Europe due to various restrictions and bans as well as opposition caused by Russia’s invasion.
The IOC added then, however, that each sport federation was the “sole authority for its international competitions”.
Ukraine’s sports minister Vadym Goutzeit has warned that his country could boycott the Paris Olympics in 2024 if Russian and Belarusian athletes are allowed to take part.
But the Russian foreign ministry has said in response that any attempt to squeeze Moscow out of international sport is “doomed to fail”. REUTERS, AFP
