Olympic chief Thomas Bach said on Sunday he shares the “sadness and human suffering” of Ukrainian athletes, stressing that it is not up to individual governments to decide who competes in international sporting events. Takes.
Ukrainian athletes, Bach said on the sidelines of the World Ski Championships, “know how much we share their grief, their human suffering and all the efforts being made to help them” nearly 12 months after Russia invaded their country. In view of the first
Bach said: “It is not up to governments to decide who can take part in which sporting events as this will be the end of international sporting events and the world championships and the Olympic Games as we know them.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who has called for a boycott of the 2024 Paris Olympics if Russian athletes are allowed to take part, said on Friday their presence would be a “manifestation of violence”.
Ukraine has reacted furiously to the International Olympic Committee’s announcement last month that it was looking for a “way” to allow Russian and Belarusian competitors to take part in the Paris Games under a neutral flag.
Kyiv fears Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose military will soon enter the second year of his invasion of Ukraine, will try to gain political mileage from Russians’ participation in next year’s Olympics.
IOC President Bach has called Ukraine’s call to boycott the Games contrary to “the principles we stand for”.
– IOC on ‘peace mission’ –
“Our mission is a peace mission,” Bach said Sunday.
“History will show who is doing more work for peace, those who try to keep lines open and communicate or those who seek to isolate and divide… Our role is bringing people together .
“We are trying to find a solution that does justice to the mission of sport, which is to unite to contribute to greater confrontation and greater growth.”
Bach said: “With every Ukrainian athlete, we can understand their reactions, from a human point of view, we share their suffering, so we are in complete solidarity with them, that’s why we are supporting them , whether they’re in or out of Ukraine.
“We are supporting 3,000 members of the Ukrainian Olympic community to have a strong Ukrainian team in Paris for the 2024 Olympic Games”.
“Every Ukrainian athlete can be assured that we stand in full solidarity with them and all their comments are taken very seriously
“But with regard to the participation of athletes we have to fulfill our mission of peace and it is a unified mission to bring people together.”
Bach refused to commit to visiting the Ukrainian frontline in the major city of Bakhmut. He was invited by Zelensky to “see for himself that neutrality does not exist”.
“I have seen a tweet, but there is no discussion going on,” he said, adding that talks on a route for the possible participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes at Paris 2024 were not yet underway.
Bach said, “We are talking about the sporting events that will take place this year. There is no talk about Paris yet, it will come much later.”
He said the IOC and the international community had to address the UN Human Rights Council’s “serious concerns” that the exclusion of Russian and Belarusian athletes “is a violation of their rights simply because of their passports”.
The second issue, Bach added, was the contradiction of some sports, such as tennis, already allowing their participation, albeit under a neutral flag.
“We’ve seen a Belarusian player win the Australian Open in a neutral position. So why shouldn’t it be possible in a swimming pool or in gymnastics, for example?”
LP/Punjab/NR
