Feb. 3 (UPI) — Ukraine threatened Friday to boycott the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics if the International Olympic Committee doesn’t ban individual athletes from Russia and Belarus from competing.
Ukrainian Sports Minister Vadym Goutzeit said the nation would have to “skip the Olympic Games” if athletes from Russia and Belarus are allowed to compete stating Ukrainians “did not want to see or meet” them amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The IOC said it is considering ways to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as “neutral” athletes, who “cannot associate themselves with the flag, anthem, colors or any kind of identification of their countries.”
However, Ukrainian President Volodmmyr Zelensky previously urged the IOC not to permit Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in the Summer Olympics at all.
Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia issued a joint statement on Thursday joining Ukraine in condemning the IOC’s consideration of allowing Russian and Belarusian athletes.
“At a time when free, democratic countries unite their forces to increase support for Ukraine in the fight against the armed aggression of Russia, supported by its ally — Belarus, and to impose further sanctions on Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, the IOC begins to seek special forms of participation of athletes from Russia and Belarus in international sports competitions, including the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024, thus allowing sport to be used to legitimize Russia’s aggressive war with Ukraine and to divert attention from this war,” they wrote.
Goutzeit said he met with Lithuania’s president on Thursday as they discussed the need for nations to continue to recommend the IOC implement sanctions against athletes of the Russian Federation.”
“I believe that with such support of Lithuania and Poland, we will succeed, we will be heard by the whole world and at international competitions soon we will not see the flags of aggressor countries, nor Russian and Belarusian athletes under neutral flags,” he said.
The IOC said in a Q&A on solidarity with Ukraine statement Thursday that it was “extremely regretful” for the nations to “escalate this discussion with a threat of a boycott at this premature stage.”
“The participation of individual, neutral athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport at the Olympic Games Paris 2024 has not been discussed yet,” the IOC said.
Responding to Ukraine accusing the IOC of being a “promoter of war, murder and destruction” by considering admitting Russian athletes to competition, the IOC said it “rejects in the strongest possible terms defamatory statements of this kind made by some Ukrainian officials.”
The IOC said in a statement that it took a very strong stance against the war, sanctioning Russia and Belarus and the IOC “firmly stands with this crystal clear position.”