The IOC remarked that the reopening to Russian and Belarusian athletes does not include the removal of sanctions against States and Governments

The president of the Russian Olympic Committee, Stanislav Pozdnyakov, received a strong official response from the International Olympic Committee after he complained about the conditions under which his country’s athletes could be forced to compete if they were allowed to participate in Paris 2024.

Despite the confirmation of the partial opening for athletes from Russia and Belarus after a year of diplomatic-sporting “isolation”, Pozdnyakov continued to object to the criteria that the IOC will have for this return, including that Russia must compete under a neutral flag and that the national anthem is not played at medal ceremonies.

“Russians must participate under the same conditions as athletes from other countries. We do not accept additional conditions and criteria, especially those that include some kind of political component that is absolutely unacceptable to the Olympic Movement,” Pozdnyakov told TASS, his country’s official state news agency.

Following these statements, the IOC quickly responded and published a statement that maintains that the sanctions against the State and the Governments of Russia and Belarus “are not negotiable,” adding that they were unanimously confirmed at the recent Executive Committee meeting on December 9, 2022, in which Pozdnyakov himself participated.

In the same statement, published on Tuesday, January 31, the IOC emphasized three issues: there cannot be international sporting events in Russia or Belarus; flags or anthems of these two countries cannot be displayed in any international competition; and no Russian or Belarusian government official can be invited or accredited for events.

In his statements, Pozdnyakov also called on Ukraine to avoid any kind of boycott of Paris 2024: “Everyone who is now asking us to boycott the Olympic Games must be clearly aware that these types of decisions are a direct way of isolating all national athletes for at least two Olympic cycles,” Pozdnyakov wrote on his Telegram channel.

These sayings are linked to a series of repercussions that appeared after the decision of the IOC to relax sanctions so that Russians and Belarusians can compete in Asia. From Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelensky in his television speeches to Vladimir Klitschko, former heavyweight boxing champion and brother of the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, they have given public warnings to Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, that he risked being “complicit in this abominable war”. A day earlier, Mykhailo Podolyak, one of Zelenski’s top advisers, accused the Olympic Committee of offering Russia “a platform to promote genocide.” On Wednesday, tennis player Elina Svitolina, bronze medalist in Tokyo 2020, also publicly spoke out, recalling in an Instagram post a promising young Ukrainian athletics player who died in combat: “He will never fulfill his dream of being at the Games, so why should Russian and Belarusian athletes have their chance when their governments are stealing their chance from innocent people and athletes?

Next year’s Olympic Games in the French capital will mark the tenth anniversary of the last time a team from Russia competed in the Olympic Games under its own flag and anthem. It was at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. For Rio 2016, more than 100 Russians were unable to compete in athletics after the revelations about the State-sponsored doping program. At the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, Russia competed under the name “Olympic Athletes of Russia” and for the Tokyo 2020 Games and the Winter edition in Beijing 2022 the identification for them was that of the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC).