The United States spoke out on Thursday in favor of the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in the Olympic Games under a neutral banner and without national emblems, relaunching a debate which is gaining momentum as the 2024 Paris Olympics approach.
If athletes are invited to an international sporting event like the Olympics, "it must be absolutely clear that they do not represent the Russian or Belarusian states", said White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre.
"The use of Russian and Belarusian flags, emblems or anthems should also be prohibited."
"The United States supported the suspension of sports bodies of Russia and Belarus from international sports federations," she recalled.
The participation, or not, of these athletes in the 2024 Olympic Games is a question as sensitive as it is political.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began in late February 2022, Russians and Belarusians have been banned from most global sporting events.
Ukraine wants things to stay that way, and that Russian athletes are simply banned from competing at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
But the International Olympic Committee (IOC) set fire to the powder at the end of January, by proposing a roadmap to organize the return of banned athletes under a neutral flag, provided that they had "not actively supported the war in Ukraine ".
"No athlete should be banned from competition on the sole basis of his passport," assured the executive of this body.
Unacceptable for kyiv, which immediately threatened to boycott, accusing the IOC of being "a promoter of war, murder and destruction".
And Ukraine is now supported by the Baltic countries and Poland, which are also raising the threat of a boycott. Latvia has thus warned that it "does not participate in the Games alongside the aggressor country".
The movement could grow. The Polish sports minister said on Thursday he expects around 40 countries, such as Great Britain or members of the European Union, to oppose the presence of Russian and Belarusian athletes at the Paris Olympics .
"I think next week will show a very strong attitude from representatives of 40 countries," said Kamil Bortniczuk.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the nations that opposed the return of Russian and Belarusian athletes, which "would legitimize criminal aggression against Ukraine".
"We will not let sport be used...for war propaganda," he said on Twitter.
Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said letting the Russians compete "would be a mockery of Ukrainians and the tens of thousands of them who lost their lives in Europe's worst crime against humanity since World War II. ".
The Russian Olympic Committee believes for its part that its athletes should be able to participate in the Olympic Games without restriction.
"The Olympic Charter stipulates that all athletes must participate on an equal footing," he said.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the IOC has stressed that the banning of Russian and Belarusian athletes is not a "sanction", since they bear no direct responsibility for the invasion, but a "protective measure "competitions and their own safety, taken "with a heavy heart" and contrary to its values of universality of sport.
About a year and a half before the start of the Paris Olympics, the question is far from settled and probably won't be right away.
“We are going to be in artistic vagueness for a long time”, confided to AFP Jean-Loup Chappelet, specialist in Olympism at the University of Lausanne.
No deadline has yet been set.
02/02/2023 23:19:00 - Washington (AFP) - © 2023 AFP
