A vague position. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) recommended on Tuesday March 28 the reinstatement of Russian and Belarusian athletes in international competitions, while postponing “at the appropriate time” the decision of their participation in the Olympic and Paralympic Games of Paris 2024. During a press point, Thomas Bach, its president, specified that the sportsmen concerned will be able to “compete as neutral individual athletes”provided they do not “not actively support the war in Ukraine” and don’t be ” under contract “ with the military or security agencies of both countries.
Frontal hypocrisy
By refusing to decide on the most explosive subject, namely the participation of Russians and Belarusians in the next Paris Games, the IOC “allow yourself some leeway and remain cautiousanalyzes Kévin Veyssière, sports geopolitics analyst and founder of FC Geopolitics. It is a decision without really being one, the IOC is waiting to see the reaction of European and American countries”, this institution having been founded by Western countries.
She also wants “to spare the members of the National Olympic Committees in Asia and Africa, he adds. At the beginning of March, the African committees voted unanimously for the reinstatement of Russian and Belarusian athletes for 2024, so the IOC is very annoyed. »
With the approach of the qualifying events, the body plays the watch to the maximum. “She wants to observe how it will go with the reintegration of Russian and Belarusian athletes on an individual basis, before making a real decision”, believes Kévin Veyssière. The body continues to claim that the sport is apolitical, but the decision, at the end of February 2022, at the start of the invasion of Ukraine, to recommend that the federations exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes, still weighs on its shoulders. .
“A day of shame for the IOC”
His latest move has drawn mixed reactions. “It’s a day of shame for the IOC! », reacted Piotr Wawrzyk, Polish Deputy Foreign Minister. German sports minister Nancy Faeser said the return of the banished was “a slap in the face to Ukrainian athletes”. “International sport must clearly condemn Russia’s brutal war of aggression. This can only be done by completely excluding Russian and Belarusian athletes”she judges in a press release.
Paradoxically, Ukraine which, along with Poland and the Baltic countries, had threatened to boycott the next Games if the Russians and Belarusians took part, said it was satisfied with the postponement of the IOC’s decision. “We managed to get the decision postponed”, welcomed on Facebook the Ukrainian Minister of Sports, Vadym Gutzeit. For him, this non-decision is a first victory. He says he wants ” to work “ so that no athlete “patriotic” Russian “cannot enter international sporting arenas”.
fencing under tension
Some international federations did not wait for the IOC to take up the issue. And this, in scattered order. On March 23, that of athletics confirmed the exclusion ” in the near future “ athletes from both countries, even though its qualifying events for the next Games have already begun.
Conversely, fencing became, on March 10, the first Olympic sport to reintegrate them from April, “subject to possible future recommendations/decisions of the IOC”. “The Fencing Federation has a strong connection to Russia because it is the nation that has won the most medals in Tokyo, recalls Kévin Veyssière on this subject. Its former president was close to Putin. It is an organization under Russian influence which has chosen to reinstate all these athletes. » But the German Fencing Federation suddenly gave up the organization of the Women’s Foil World Cup stage scheduled for early May in Tauberbischofsheim, judging that there was still “too many open questions”.
A few days later, the Ukrainian Federation of the discipline announced that it would boycott any competition in which Russian and Belarusian athletes would be engaged. Less than five hundred days before the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, no one knows if a Russian delegation will be present in the capital.