United Kingdom accuses Olympic committee of letting Putin ‘legitimize his illegal war’
Joel Gehrke
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A diplomatic dispute has erupted over the International Olympic Committee’s intention to allow athletes from Russia and Belarus to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics under a “neutral” flag, despite the ongoing war in Ukraine.
“I want to be clear that this position from the IOC is a world away from the reality of war being felt by the Ukrainian people,” British Culture Secretary Michelle Donelan said Thursday. “We will strongly condemn any action taken that allows President Putin to legitimize his illegal war in Ukraine — a position the IOC previously shared.”
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That rebuke forecasts a geopolitical shadow over the Summer Games this year, as the war in Ukraine continues with no signs of abatement. It’s a familiar position for International Olympic Committee chairman Thomas Bach, who acquired a reputation for ignoring Chinese Communist human rights abuses in the lead-up to the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing.
“We, and many other countries, have been unequivocal on this throughout, and we will now work urgently across like-minded countries to ensure that solidarity continues on this issue,” Donelan said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a campaign last year to overthrow Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky just days after the closing of the Beijing Winter Games, where he met with Chinese General Secretary Xi Jinping and issued a joint call for the “transformation of the global governance architecture and world order.” The subsequent onslaught included an unsuccessful assault on Kyiv conducted from Belarusian territory, all in violation of the so-called “Olympic truce” that Bach had envisioned might extend through the end of the Paralympics in March.
“As we welcome a new year, we can look back with pride and satisfaction on 2022. It was an Olympic year that was as successful as it was turbulent,” Bach said in his New Year’s address earlier this month. “‘Give Peace a Chance’ — this was my appeal to the political leaders across the world in my opening and closing speeches in Beijing. As it turned out, the Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 were but a fleeting moment of hope that peace would prevail in our turbulent times.”
The turning of the Olympic calendar has athletes and committees around the world preparing to descend on Paris, the capital of one of the NATO powers providing weaponry to Ukrainian forces defending their country against Russia’s invasion. The IOC, while affirming that Russian and Belarusian officials should not “be invited to or accredited for any international sports event or meeting,” emphasized that they would “respect the rights of all athletes to be treated without any discrimination.”
“Governments must not decide which athletes can participate in which competition and which athletes cannot,” the IOC stated. “A pathway for athletes’ participation in competition under strict conditions should therefore be further explored.”
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The committee stipulated that athletes who are “actively supporting the war in Ukraine” should not be permitted to compete. “Athletes would participate in competitions as ‘neutral athletes’ and in no way represent their state or any other organization in their country, as is already happening in professional leagues, particularly in Europe, the United States and Canada, and in some individual professional sports,” the IOC said.
Russian athletes likewise competed as neutral athletes in 2018 and 2022, a penalty imposed after a Russian whistleblower revealed a state-backed doping scheme that compromised the London 2012 Olympics and the 2014 Summer Games in Sochi.