2023-10-19 14:49:48
He President of Russia Vladimir Putinaccused this Thursday the International Olympic Committee (IOC) of applying “crude and truly racist ethnic discrimination” for its ban on Russian athleteswho have been banned from participating in sports competitions in response to the invasion of Ukraine.
“The (Olympic) Games themselves can be used as a tool of political pressure against people who have nothing to do with politics, as crude and truly racist ethnic discrimination,” the Russian president reproached from a sports forum in the city. from Perm, in the center-west of the country.
“Unifying power”
According to Putin, the IOC has shown that, by not inviting Russian athletes to the Olympic Games, participation in the sporting event does not correspond to sporting merits, but rather is “a kind of privilege” obtained through “some kind of of a political gesture that has nothing to do with sport.
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In this context, the Russian president has regretted that the attitude of the highest body of Olympic sports “contradicts” the very essence and nature of sport, an activity of which he has highlighted its positive values and its “unifying power”, according to the agency. Russian news TASS.
International sports organizations, including the IOC, have banned the participation of Russian athletes, and in many other cases also Belarusian athletes, in sports competitions in response to Russia’s invasion and aggression against Ukraine, which began in February 2022 by order of Putin.
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