Next year, the IOC presidential elections will take place, and one of the seven candidates is Samaranch, who is currently one of the four vice-presidents of the IOC.
At the conference held in Budapest, Samaranch emphasized that Russia was not disqualified for starting a war on the territory of Ukraine, but for not observing the Olympic ceasefire.
“As soon as possible, we want to re-evaluate the reintegration of the Russian Olympic Committee,” said Samaranch, adding that Russia still violates the Olympic Charter.
“Once the reasons for the disqualification are gone, we will have to work very hard to get Russia back,” the IOC candidate continued.
Last October, the IOC disqualified the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) for including the regional sports organizations of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia in the occupied territory under the supervision of the Ukrainian Olympic Committee.
IOC board member Prince Faisal al-Hussein of Jordan, Sebastian Ko, head of the World Athletics Union (“World Athletics”), Kirsty Coventry, representative of Zimbabwe, who, like Ko, is an Olympic champion, are applying for the position. The President of the International Cycling Union (UCI) David Lapartient, the head of the World Gymnastics Federation (FIG) Morinari Watanabe and the head of the International Skiing and Snowboarding Federation (FIS) Joan Eilish also want to lead the IOC.
2024-09-27 04:44:30