Paris Olympics: As much as 40 international locations may boycott Video games, says Poland sports activities minister
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As much as 40 international locations may boycott the following Olympic Video games, making the entire occasion pointless, mentioned Poland’s sport and tourism minister Kamil Bortniczuk.
His feedback got here after Poland, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia collectively rejected an Worldwide Olympic Committee (IOC) plan to permit Russians and Belarusians to compete in 2024.
Ukraine has threatened to boycott the Paris Olympics if that happens.
However the IOC mentioned on Thursday that any boycott would solely “punish athletes”.
Bortniczuk mentioned he believed it will be attainable to construct a coalition of 40 international locations, together with Nice Britain, america and Canada, to help a block on the IOC’s plans earlier than a gathering on 10 February.
He added: “Contemplating this I do not suppose we’ll face robust choices earlier than the Olympics and, if we have been to boycott the Video games, the coalition we shall be part of shall be broad sufficient to make holding the Video games pointless.”
The IOC introduced final week that it will “discover a pathway” to permit Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in Paris underneath a impartial flag, including that “no athlete needs to be prevented from competing simply due to their passport”.
The transfer prompted condemnation, with the UK Authorities saying the plan was a “world away from the truth of struggle”.
Ukraine sports activities minister Vadym Guttsait mentioned the nation’s sporting our bodies wanted to “strengthen communication” with worldwide federations to maintain a ban in place on Russian and Belarusian athletes, which was imposed by the IOC’s government committee instantly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Nevertheless, IOC president Thomas Bach has since mentioned that was solely supposed as a “protecting” measure in the direction of these athletes, and now insists they shouldn’t be discriminated towards.
On Thursday, sports activities ministers from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland mentioned “any effort by the Worldwide Olympic Committee to deliver again Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete, even underneath a impartial flag, needs to be rejected”.
They added: “Efforts to return Russian and Belarusian athletes to worldwide sports activities competitions underneath the veil of neutrality legitimize political choices and widespread propaganda of those international locations.”
They usually known as on “all worldwide sports activities organisations and federations” to take away Russian and Belarusians athletes from worldwide competitions till the struggle ends.
America authorities mentioned it helps suspending Russian and Belarusian sport governing our bodies from worldwide sports activities organisations and can be encouraging organisations to cease broadcasting occasions into each international locations.
White Home press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre added that, if athletes are permitted to take part in occasions such because the Olympics, it needs to be as impartial athletes and “it needs to be completely clear that they aren’t representing the Russian or Belarusian states”.
The IOC reiterated that no discussions on the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to competitors had but taken place and warned Ukraine and different nations in regards to the implications of threatening a boycott.
“Threatening a boycott of the Olympic Video games, which the NOC of Ukraine is at the moment contemplating, goes towards the basics of the Olympic motion and the rules it stands for,” the IOC wrote in a question-and-answer doc revealed on Thursday.
“A boycott is a violation of the Olympic constitution, which obliges all NOCs to ‘take part within the Video games of the Olympiad by sending athletes’. As historical past has proven, earlier boycotts didn’t obtain their political ends and served solely to punish the athletes of the boycotting NOCs.”
