Headwind for Martin Fourcade: The Athletes for Ukraine association has called on France’s biathlon icon to end his support for the suspended Russians’ return.
Even the participation of Russian athletes as “neutral athletes” supports Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, which violates international law, and thus violates the IOC’s peace mandate, said a letter from the club’s chairman Jens Steinigen, himself and a biathlon Olympic champion.
In November, Viktor Maigurov, President of the Russian Biathlon Federation RBU, stated that he had spoken to Fourcade in a video conference about the situation of the Russians who had been excluded for three years.
Since 2022, Fourcade has been an athlete representative on the International Olympic Committee.
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The biathlon world association IBU suspended the associations from Russia and Belarus in March 2022 due to the war of aggression against Ukraine and is sticking to its position.
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The six-time Olympic champion Fourcade, previously a strong opponent of the Russians in the anti-doping fight, had already spoken out in February 2023 in favor of a return of Russian and Belarusian athletes to world sport.
“We must work together to prevent the international sport of biathlon from being misused by Russia for its war propaganda, as has happened regularly in the past and will continue to happen when Russian athletes return to international sport,” the letter continued.
Anyone who supports the Russians is essentially supporting the war and is therefore complicit. Steinigen invited Fourcade to join him in Ukraine to see the direct effects of the war and to join the club.
The same club was founded by top athletes such as Olympic luge champion Felix Loch, Olympic alpine champion Maria Höfl-Riesch and Olympic biathlon champion Michael Greis on March 6, 2022, shortly after the start of the war.