Russia’s sports minister said on Wednesday that Moscow should not boycott the upcoming Paris Olympics despite tight restrictions on its athletes imposed by the Kremlin’s offensive against Ukraine. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) suspended Russia from the 2024 Olympics in December but gave Russian athletes the green light to compete as neutrals as long as they do not actively support Ukrainian sports. “We should not turn around, close ourselves off and boycott the movement,” Sports Minister Oleg Matychin said, according to the state-run TASS news agency.
“We should keep as much as possible the possibility of dialogue and competition,” he added.
Matichin is not holding his breath for the IOC to soften its stance when its executive board meets next week.
“We will see what the final decision of the IOC is (…) but so far the position is that there will be no new recommendations and regulations,” he ventured.
The IOC always treats its decisions as final but must still rule on the attendance of Russian or Belarusian athletes at the opening ceremony.
They have been banned from participating in the Paralympics opening ceremony on August 28.
Before Matichin stepped in, it was unclear whether Russia would advise its athletes to travel to Paris.
Russia has lashed out at the International Olympic Committee’s decision to suspend the Games from July 26 to August 11 but unsuccessfully appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport last month to overturn the decision.
Matichin said Moscow could not provide “general advice” to all athletes because “each international federation has a different approach.”
“Some are completely prohibited from participating (like World Athletics) and some reserve the right to participate in a neutral state,” he said.
He said despite the ban, the Olympics were still important to the country.
“It’s important for athletes and our society to keep the dialogue going and give our players the opportunity to show what a great sporting nation we are in a fair fight,” he said.
“To go or not to go?”
Russia has previously slammed the restrictions as “humiliating” and “discriminatory” but stopped short of telling the country whether its athletes should go to Paris.
Russian President Vladimir Putin made no suggestion about participation this summer.
“To go or not to go? … the conditions must be carefully analyzed,” Putin said in December, when only eight Russian athletes and three Belarusian athletes met the International Olympic Committee’s standards.
In December, the International Olympic Committee announced unprecedented restrictions on athletes from Russia and its ally Belarus hoping to compete in Paris.
Not only must they participate as neutrals, but they must not “actively support the war” or “contract with Russian or Belarusian military or state security agencies.”
The International Olympic Committee has also banned the display of the two countries’ flags and national anthems at the 2024 Olympics.
And no Russian or Belarusian government or state officials were invited to the quadrennial sports extravaganza.
Even before Moscow launched its Belarus-backed offensive against Ukraine in February 2022, Russia’s participation in the Olympic movement had been curtailed by a series of state-sponsored doping scandals, which the Kremlin denies.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Topics mentioned in this article
Follow us on Google news ,Twitter , and Join Whatsapp Group of thelocalreport.in
