Beijing (dpa) – The German Disabled Sports Association (DBS) reacted with great incomprehension to the decision of the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to take part in the Paralympic Games in Beijing as neutral athletes.
“This is disappointing and despondent. In view of the daily atrocities of war in Ukraine, we would not have thought such a decision possible,” said DBS President Friedhelm Julius Beucher in a statement.
The decision sends a “completely wrong signal,” he said. In such a situation, moral and political decisions are needed, not legal ones. “I still can’t and still don’t want to imagine that Russian and Ukrainian athletes will move into the stadium for the opening ceremony on Friday and compete in sporting competitions from Saturday.”
Chef de Mission Karl Quade made a similar statement. For him it is incomprehensible “that the IPC makes a completely different decision than the vast majority of the sports world,” he said. He has been a member of the Paralympic movement since the IPC was founded in 1989, “but I am deeply ashamed of this decision”. Many national committees had shown total incomprehension for this decision, “including us”.
The German association had publicly and in a letter to the IPC called for the Russian and Belarusian teams to be excluded from the Paralympics in Beijing. These will open in the Chinese capital on Friday and last until March 13