European sports ministers will discuss the issue of allowing Russians back to sports competitions at their meeting in Great Britain on Friday, MTI announced.

Although Kiev has not yet officially decided, before the meeting Vadim Hutcajt, ​​the Minister of Youth and Sports of Ukraine, floated the possibility of boycotting the Paris Olympics if athletes from Russia and Belarus, which supports Moscow in the war in Ukraine, can participate in next year's summer pentathlon games.

"If we fail to convince the countries of Europe, then we need a boycott," Hutcajt told reporters on Friday. A day earlier , the International Olympic Committee (IOC) condemned Ukraine's threat to boycott next year's Summer Games in Paris. According to the organization, this is an attack against the foundations of the five-circle movement and the principles it represents.

"It is very unfortunate that we allowed this dispute to escalate at such an early stage," the IOC said, stressing that the issue of athletes with Russian or Belarusian passports starting in neutral colors has not yet been discussed, so no decision has yet been made.

"The boycott violates the Olympic Charter, which obliges all national Olympic committees to participate and delegate athletes," the IOC stated in its resolution, in which it emphasized that the previous boycotts did not achieve their political goals either, and only the competitors of the boycotting countries were punished.

Also on Thursday, the sports ministers of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Poland called on the IOC and international federations to ban the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Source: Magyar Hírlap

Photo: AFP/Anadolu Agency/Mustafa Yalcin

 

Civilians. Info:

Perhaps some of you still remember that there was an Olympic boycott in the last century, the damage of which was only seen by the athletes. Many experts claim that sport is free of politics. So what do they want now? Even today, in many sports, such as tennis, Russians, Belarusians (in neutral colors) and Ukrainians compete against each other in a very sporting manner. The IOC is absolutely right, and whoever advocates the boycott should not go to Paris for the Olympics. It remains to be seen what the athletes of the respective countries will say about the decision of their ministers. On the other hand, if there is democracy and freedom of speech, then we can be sure that the decision will provoke protests, which was not possible in Brezhnev's time, but everyone knew what he thought about it.