Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky will personally urge a summit of 30 leading Olympic countries to collectively take a stand against Russian and Belarusian athletes competing at next year’s Paris Games.
The summit will be chaired on Friday by the UK Government after it announced that it was exploring a “pathway” whereby athletes from Russia and Belarus who have not supported the war could compete as “neutrals”.
Culture Secretary Lucy Frazer will be joined by Zelensky, who will address delegates via videolink.
It comes as the UK, the United States and other European countries pledged to provide a significant number of tanks to support the war effort in Ukraine.
The UK Government is also hoping to secure a coalition of influential nations behind its Olympic view. It has, however, stopped short of raising the possibility of boycotting the Games.
“President Zelensky told the UK in parliament this week of the suffering still being felt by many Ukrainians,” said Frazer. “As he did so the IOC was continuing to ignore the international allies stepping up their efforts for peace and disregard how the Olympics will give Putin the perfect platform to promote Russia and legitimise his illegal war.
“We’re approaching a year since this barbaric invasion began. We must urge the IOC to show that the Olympic values mean something. We must make clear there are consequences to this illegal invasion. We cannot allow Russian athletes to line up alongside Team GB and everyone else on the world stage.”
Zelensky previously said that “to bring Russian athletes back into the Olympic Games are attempts to tell the whole world that terror is somehow acceptable”.
Ministers or senior representatives from France, Germany, and Poland, the USA and Canada are among those expected to attend Friday’s meeting to assess other countries’ positions. The scope for a firm collective view in response to the IOC is also being considered.
The Olympic committees of Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and Denmark have backed calls for the ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes to be upheld in Paris, joining similar opposition in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Poland.
Ukraine’s athletes have accused the IOC of rewarding Vladimir Putin’s aggression and being “on the wrong side of history”. Its government has made it clear that they would consider boycotting the Games if any Russian or Belarusian athletes can compete in Paris.
It follows their inclusion under a ‘neutral’ flag in the Australian Open tennis tournament in January.
Great Britain have never boycotted an Olympics and such a stance in relation to Russia and Belarus is considered highly unlikely.
The IOC say that a boycott would be ineffective and run counter to the Olympic charter. “As history has shown, previous boycotts did not achieve their political ends and served only to punish the athletes,” said the IOC.
Source: telegraph.co.uk