Russian athletes join Paris Olympics despite backing Ukraine war: report

LONDON − More than two-thirds of Russian athletes and over a third of Belarusians expected to compete at the Paris Olympics have violated the International Olympic Committee’s neutrality rules by supporting Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine or by working for the Russian military or intelligence services, according to a new report.

‘It’s unconscionable from a moral perspective to expect a Ukrainian athlete to stand on a world stage next to another athlete who supports the violent commission of crimes against them,’ said Jeremy Pizzi of human rights law organization Global Rights Compliance, which released the report.

Pizzi said Russia has killed at least 450 Ukrainian athletes since its 2022 invasion, including some former Olympians.

As part of an international campaign to isolate Russia and its ally Belarus, athletes from those countries are only permitted to take part in the Olympics as independent, neutral competitors. They can’t use their country’s flag, colors or anthems. The IOC also vets athletes to make sure they don’t actively support Russia’s invasion or have connections to Moscow’s armed forces or intelligence services. No Russian or Belarusian state officials have been invited to the Games.

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But GRC’s dossier, released Wednesday evening, said that, despite these apparent safeguards, 17 of the 31 Russian and Belarusian athletes who have accepted invitations to compete in Paris don’t meet the IOC’s so-called Principles of Participation.

Those rules were established in 2023 after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine. They prohibit Olympic athletes from supporting the war, including in the media and on social media, or from being contracted to the Russian and Belarusian military or security agencies.

GRC found that 10 − 67% − of the Russian and 7 − 44% − of the Belarusian Paris-bound athletes should be ineligible to compete under IOC rules.

Among them were a Russian cyclist who violated neutrality rules by ‘liking’ a number of pro-war posts on social media, including posts questioning Ukraine’s right to exist and posts supporting the annexation of Donetsk and Luhansk, two eastern Ukrainian territories held by Russia.

A Russian tennis player, GRC found, broke the IOC’s rules by ‘liking’ posts about the ‘military feats’ of Russian soldiers killing Ukrainians, as well as posts displaying the pro-war “Z” symbol.

At least two Belarusian athletes who will compete in Paris serve in that country’s armed forces, according to GRC, which relied primarily on open-source information for its investigation.

‘We cannot comment on individual cases and the decisions of the independent review panel,’ an IOC spokesman said in a statement to USA TODAY. ‘It has reviewed all the athletes in accordance with the IOC Executive Board decision and the principles for participation for individual neutral athletes in the Olympic Games Paris 2024.’

‘Beyond that, we have nothing further to add.”

A representative from the Russian National Olympic Committee, which has been suspended by the IOC since 2020, did not immediately return a request for comment. Belarusian athletes were similarly banned from competing in Paris, unless as neutrals, because Belarus has allowed Russia to use its territory to carry out attacks on Ukraine. A representative from Belarus’ National Olympic Committee also did not return a request for comment.

Pizzi said GRC has repeatedly shared its evidence with the IOC but that the Olympic body had so far refused to act on it.

‘The IOC consistently proclaims that its guiding principles are peace, solidarity and human dignity − and these aren’t just words I’m taking out of nowhere. They are in the IOC charter.’ IOC chief Thomas Bach ‘says them all the time,’ he added.

A recent report in the Moscow Times said that for the first time in 40 years Russian television may not broadcast the Olympics because of the near-total absence of Russian athletes.

Some 330 Russians and 104 Belarusians competed at the last Summer Olympics, in Tokyo in 2020. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine occurred just a few days after the Winter Olympics in Beijing wrapped up in late February 2022.

In March of that year, because of Russia’s unprovoked Ukraine invasion, 71 athletes from Russia and 12 from Belarus were re-classed as neutral athletes at the Paralympics Games, which also took place in Beijing.

In January 2023, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy objected to the inclusion of any Russian athletes in Paris. ‘We know how often tyrannies try to use sports for their ideological interests. It is obvious that any neutral flag of Russian athletes is stained with blood,’ he wrote on social media.

Zelenskyy invited Bach to visit Bakhmut, then the sight of intense fighting that cost tens of thousands of lives, ‘So that he could see with his own eyes that neutrality does not exist.’